Prologue #2
“Wow, you should be an investigator,” she teased, smiling gently to herself as his laugh sent a warmth through her. “Well, Sherlock, they are very much related.”
His laughter died down as a seriousness came back to him, noticing how her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m assuming you two were close?”
“She was one of my best friends,” Marlowe told him, her eyes becoming misty as she thought of Margot.
“I knew her since we were four years old and we practically grew up together. Her and another friend of ours were always attached at the hip—you couldn’t have one of us without the other two.
We all went to the same college and made sure we were roommates. ”
“That sounds amazing,” he told her honestly, thinking about the relationship he had with his own best friend. He couldn’t think about life without him, so he couldn’t imagine what she was going through. “So, what happened?”
Marlowe took a deep breath to steady herself, and he noticed the lone tear that escaped down her cheek.
It took everything within him not to lean forward and brush it away; he wasn’t sure how she’d react to that.
“Car accident. Someone was on their phone and ran a stop sign. She made it to the hospital but died on the table.”
“Jesus,” he mumbled, shaking his head and looking at her with a sad expression. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Before she could reply, her phone rang from her back pocket. She apologized to him quickly before she pulled it out to see her friend’s name, the one she had just been talking about, on her screen.
“I’m sorry, I need to take this.” Marlowe climbed out of her chair before looking down at him with a gentle smile. “Don’t go anywhere.”
She turned around and walked away, leaving the man alone in the lounge area.
He watched as she sauntered away, noting how she talked more quietly before she was out of earshot so he wouldn’t hear what was being said.
He wouldn’t lie and say that didn’t make him more curious as to what the phone call was about, but he knew it wasn’t his place to ask—or eavesdrop.
Marlowe looked out over the city, her phone in her right hand pressed against her ear. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“I wish I was,” her friend told her, sounding extremely irritated. “He hasn’t been home since before the funeral. Kick his ass to the curb, Mar, I’m not kidding. What kind of man doesn’t come home to look after his kid?”
“He’s hurting, too, Blue,” she tried to reason, but even she knew she was full of it and making excuses for him. “He probably just needed a breather.”
Blue scoffed on the other end of the line, and Marlowe knew she was trying not to rip her apart.
“He is never here, Mar. I don’t think he’s been around a single time in the last three months that I’ve stopped by.
That’s bullshit, and you know it. You’re hurting more than he is.
Margot wasn’t his friend, she was our sister. ”
“How is Claire?” Marlowe asked, cutting into her friend’s rant to make sure her daughter was okay.
“She’s fine,” she responded, her tone already lighter, and a smile came to Marlowe’s face. “She’s been asleep for a few hours now. When are you coming home?”
Marlowe looked back over her shoulder to see the stranger still laying out on the chair, but his eyes were glued to her. When their eyes met, he sent her a smile and she couldn’t stop herself from reciprocating it. “Give me twenty minutes.”
She said goodbye and hung up the phone before making her way back over to the man who had brought a bit of light to her horrible day. She sat down but didn’t lie back, and the man sat up so their knees were almost touching.
“I have to get going,” she informed him, and she didn’t miss the way his face fell slightly upon hearing those words. “But I have a question for you.”
“Fire away,” he told her, curious about what she was going to ask him.
Marlowe smiled softly. “Do you believe in fate?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it fate,” he answered honestly, mulling it over. “But I believe everything happens for a reason.”
“And couldn’t one argue that it’s the same thing?”
The man smiled, enjoying how she was challenging him.
“One could, yes. But then I would say that fate means things aren’t in our control.
However, I believe that everything that happens does for a reason, and then we are in control of how we react to it and what we do with it.
Whether or not we let it affect our lives is up to us. ”
“I like that,” Marlowe told him with a smile. “And what are you going to do with this moment?”
“Oh, you’ve already impacted me, beautiful,” he told her as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “And I have a feeling our paths will cross again.”
Marlowe stared at him for a moment, surprised by how close he was.
She knew now was as good of a time as any, that she needed to get out of there before she leaned into him; she had a boyfriend waiting for her at home and a two-year-old daughter that needed her attention.
She couldn’t go falling for strangers she met on rooftops.
She stood without a word and made her way towards the metal door she had used to come up to the roof. Marlowe, however, didn’t notice the surprise on his expression as she did so, smiling softly to herself over the fact that she had impacted him.
And he had impacted her, too.
“Wait,” he yelled after her just as she had opened the door. She peeked around it to see him standing by his chair, a curious expression on his face accompanied by a smile of his own. “I never caught your name.”
“I didn’t give you one,” she reminded him, her hand gripping the handle. “Maybe one day we’ll find out if fate is real.”