100 Yellow Doors

august 19th, 2019, 4:23 p.m.

Beck shoved the grocery bag aside, leaning over the island. The light reflected against his glasses, shrouding his brown eyes in yellowish-white. He was dressed...particularly sharp, in a striped T-shirt and denim dress shirt, his mother's crucifix necklace tossed around his throat. Iman winced again.

You should tell him, Julien had said. But he didn't mean to tell Beck about him, too, did he?

It was fine, she told herself. Julien didn't enjoy getting unnecessarily close to people anyway. The first time they'd ever met, he'd spent the first twenty minutes of their conversation across the room from her. She'd thought it was fear, at first. But no, it was self-preservation.

"Immy," said Beck, reaching out, combing her curls behind her ear. His eyes fell to her mouth for a moment, then lifted again. "You're nervous. You're nervous, aren't you? We don't even have to have him over. We can forget about it and order delivery and crash on the couch with a movie instead."

"I'm not nervous," she lied. Or maybe it wasn't all a lie. She wasn't nervous in the sense that Beck thought she was, but, she supposed, she was still nervous.

"I'm fine," she told him, folding her hands over his. "It's fine. It's—I think he needs help, Beck, and if I don't talk to him, I won't ever find out why."

Something strange, unrecognizable, stirred in Beck's eyes. He hesitated, but didn't shake free of her grasp. "Are you okay?"

Despite herself, Iman was startled. "Am I okay?"

"Yeah," Beck said, dark eyebrows twitching towards each other. He sat up, rummaging through the cupboards until he located a pot big enough to boil pasta in. The pot clanged as he set in the sink and flicked on the faucet. He raised his voice to be heard over the rushing water. "You've been acting weird around me since last night. Is it—oh, no. Is it something I said? While I was drunk?"

Beck's face had turned a bright shade of red, and now Iman's did, too. She'd been trying very hard to forget about that, but she guessed she wasn't that lucky. "Oh, it's..." Iman grabbed for a bag of spinach, pretending to read the ingredients—which were, of course, spinach. "It's...well..."

"Well?" Beck said. The faucet switched off, and it was quiet again, too quiet. "Im, it's okay. You can tell me."

"You may or may not have said you loved me."

Beck sputtered, fumbling with the pot and nearly dropping it to the floor. There was a distinct splash as water splattered across the wood. Beck just stood there, frozen.

"Beck?" Iman said. The poor guy didn't even look like he was on the same plane anymore. He'd asked, she knew, but maybe she shouldn't have told him...

"You know what they say, you know?" Beck began. "About drunk people."

"No," said Iman. She returned the spinach bag, carefully. "What do they say?"

"That it brings out people's truest intentions. Bad," said Beck, setting the pot on the stove with a dissonant twang, "and good."

Iman's heart surged within her chest. She remembered a brighter, louder day, the building swarming with bright-eyed college students hoping for a chance to showcase. She remembered making a beeline for the Smithsonian, convinced it was hers for the taking, that nothing stood in her way now—and colliding with the broad, muscled chest of a man she'd never seen before. He was dark-skinned, curly-haired, over-energetic. I'll make you a deal, he'd said, shortly after that.

What sort of deal?

It was the first time she saw him smile. Maybe, by then, it was already over. If I get the job, go out with me.