### Chapter 3: The Restricted Area
I smiled. It wasn’t a wide, joyful smile, but a slow, satisfied curving of the lips. The kind of smile a cat gives right before it pounces.
I stood up, smoothed down the front of my robe, and walked out onto the front porch, arranging my features into the most innocent, deeply concerned expression in the world.
Julian was getting out of the car. Actually, “getting out” was a generous description. He was practically rolling out of the driver’s seat, doubled over in half. One hand was white-knuckling the roof of the car, and the other was clutching his stomach with a death grip, as if he were trying to contain a bomb that was just seconds away from detonating. His face, usually tanned and confident, was the color of old parchment. Beads of cold sweat glistened on his forehead.
He was shuffling, running, practically crawling toward the house, his polished Oxford shoes scuffing against the concrete.
“What did you give me, you crazy woman?!” he yelled, his voice cracking an octave higher than usual. “I can’t make it! I can’t make it to the bathroom!”
I put a hand to my chest, my eyes wide with feigned maternal concern. I leaned over the porch railing.
“Love…” I called out softly, my voice dripping with honey. “Aren’t you just falling in love?”
He stopped for a microscopic second, his eyes bulging, his face twisting in a cocktail of physical agony and utter confusion.
“What?!” he gasped, a spasm rocking his entire body.
“They say,” I continued gently, taking a step closer to the edge of the porch, “that when you’re nervous about a big date… your body shows it. Butterflies in the stomach, they call it.”
