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I texted him that I was home and went back into the bedroom to get started. I opened the door to the mountains of boxes and clothes—and God knew what else—shoved in the closet and began pulling stuff out.
We hadn’t found a new place yet since we’d decided to take a road trip over the summer and make our way to New York to see Alex’s family, but I prayed our new place had a bigger closet. Or, for that matter, more than one.
I’d gone through four boxes of my stuff and a pile of old clothes when I saw a box labeled “Alex’s stuff.”
Finally,I thought. A box I wouldn’t have to deal with. I stuck my fingers into the cut-out handles on either side but, when I lifted the box, the bottom fell out, spreading the contents all over the floor.
“Shit,” I muttered. I immediately dropped down to start picking everything up. It was a weird mish-mash of stuff. Old baseball cards, some letters from his parents, a few textbooks, some photos and—
My hands froze as my eye caught on a photo sticking out from the bottom of a stack that had fanned out like playing cards with the fall.
Red. Lace.
Red lace and peachy skin.
I shut my eyes, telling myself I should just put the photo away without looking. Of course, I wasn’t the only one Alex had dated, and so what if he had an old picture of an ex kicking around somewhere? Especially if that old photo was in an old box, crammed in our closet.
But I couldn’t stop myself from taking a peek. I had never been confident enough to wear sexy lingerie, and it was obviously something that Alex liked, so maybe whoever this old girlfriend was could teach me a thing or two.
I reached out, plucking the photo out from the stack with the tips of my index finger and thumb, barely touching the photo’s edge, as if it were radioactive.
I closed my eyes and exhaled to prepare myself. After counting to three, I opened my eyes again.
“What the—?”
“What are you doing?” Alex snapped from the doorframe.
I looked up at him, caught red-handed, surprise closing my throat.
“I... I—”
“Why are you looking through my stuff?”
I looked back down at the photo, then back up at him, and this time words came out. “Why do you have a picture of Mariah in lingerie?”
For a split second, he looked like a deer caught in the headlights, but then his eyes narrowed, and I realized there was something else in his expression.
“Did something happen?” I asked, suddenly more concerned at whatever had him looking like he’d just been through hell.
“You tell me.”
“What?”
“Tell me what happened last night.”
I sighed. This was why he was upset? This was no reason to be upset. A scantily clad picture of his best friendwasa reason to be upset, and I would get back to that in about 30 seconds.
“Tequila happened. I’m sorry I was late.” He scoffed. “Alex, what the hell is your problem? So I drank too much. It happens. We need to talk about this photo.”
I looked back down, and another hint of red lace caught my eye from the pile of photos. I reached again and picked up a few this time. It wasn’t just the one picture of Mariah. It was at least five.
I swallowed hard. “Alex?”
He marched over and snatched the photos from my hands. I scurried to my feet. “Alex? What the hell?”
“You don’t get to be mad at her or me,” he said.
My mind raced to make sense of his words. “Why? What does that even mean?”
