* * *
I didn’t even knowwhat I was doing there.
It was late, and I had received a text from Xavier earlier that he wouldn’t be home until later.
I should have gotten ready for bed once I finished my dinner.
Not stand outside at his front door, debating.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t been in here before.
If there was anything that might tell me more about him, wouldn’t I have found it already?
Except, I had always been with Xavier, and there wasn’t really time to explore his apartment.
But if I do this, our relationship would go back a step… or two.
I would essentially be saying that I didn’t trust him.
But I did.
I trusted him with my safety.
I trusted him not to hurt me. To protect me.
But I didn’t trust him to not lie to me.
I had never caught him in a lie, but I knew he omitted things.
My hands shook as I inserted the key into his apartment, jumping a little when the lock clicked.
I didn’t know what I was expecting.
For the key to be a false one?
For him to lie about this?
But he didn’t because I was now looking inside his dark apartment.
Slowly, I walked inside and closed the door behind me, turning on the hallway light.
It felt eerie like this.
Or maybe it was because I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to do.
Was I about to discover something about the man I was falling for that I wouldn’t like? Something that would make me run?
I didn’t know.
I looked around his living room first, and when I found nothing out of the ordinary, I moved to his bedroom.
There was nothing under his bed or between the mattresses. I went inside his walk-in closet. The man really did live on dark jeans, dark t-shirts, and black boots. He had two leather jackets with some symbols on them, but other than that, nothing was interesting about his walk-in closet.
I moved to the drawers next, opening them and taking in the contents. It was all so normal.
There wasn’t anything bad hidden inside.
I found a gun under his mattress by the pillow, which was the most interesting thing so far.