“I did, actually. Why are you still here?” As if I hadn’t been bemoaning the fact that he was gone not two minutes ago.

“You were out of coffee, so I went to get some.” That’s not really an answer to my question, and it occurs to me to wonder how he’s been getting up to my apartment without being buzzed in. Because he did leave, apparently, and came back with this nectar of the gods that is currently warming my cold hands.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I try to put on an irritated expression, but if I didn’t notice this until now, I don’t know how concerned I really am about it. “How are you getting in and out of here?”

Ryan has the good sense to look sheepish. He sets his coffee mug down on the counter and clears his throat. “Well, I—”

“Are you stalking the door and waiting for people to open it? I swear to god, Ryan. That could get me in trouble with the super.”

“It’s not my fault Midwesterners are nice and hold the door open for people. They should know better in this day and age. That’s a definite security risk.” He levels me with a pointed look. “There are a lot of people in and out of this building, Scarlett.”

“Don’t deflect blame on me for choosing the most nondescript building I could. I wasn’t in my right mind when I moved here. Last time I checked, you still have your sanity. You shouldn’t be sneaking up here. Use the buzzer like a gentleman.”

He tilts his head and is silent for a moment. His throat works against a hard swallow. “Would you have buzzed me up?”

My gaze falls to his hand resting on the side of his mug where it sits on the counter. The light clinking of his ring tapping against the side of the mug fills the silence between us like a metronome. No, like a clock, ticking the seconds away. Or like the timer on a bomb, counting down to my response.

But like a bomb, there’s no avoiding the inevitable answer.

“I’d always buzz you up, Ryan,” I say to his hand, barely audible.

That finger stops clinking against the mug. The resulting silence is deafening.

“Scarlett,” he says, his voice strained.

“I was never mad at you,” I choke out, still not looking at him. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see you specifically. I couldn’t see anyone. It wasn’t anger or shame or anything like that. It was a physical inability to have a conversation. A mental block. And by the time I sorted it out…” I shrug. “I guess I figured you all were better off without me after I ruined everything.”