Chapter 1 En Passant #2
My internal alarms ring. There’s something foreboding about those three question marks.
Also, the word “actually” in the middle of a sentence.
Frowning, I head outside to find a car, as if physically walking away will keep my clutch from vibrating against my hip.
I don’t know why Prestly wants to know where I am.
But it isn’t like she’s triple-texting me to ditch this disaster wedding to grab a drink with her, either. I need to go.
I slip past the apathetic doormen, into an alleyway tucked around the venue’s sleek marble exterior. It’s wet and cold and safe, and I tap through my apps for a ride home. This week, “home” is a cheap short-term studio in Jersey—convenient.
I’m swiping away yet another notification from Prestly when I notice that I have company.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.
My spine tingles with the sudden knowledge that I’m not alone, goose bumps followed by an interior somersault, and I’m glancing over my shoulder before my street smarts can kick in.
The alleyway’s dim lighting makes the stranger register in pieces—dark, wavy hair pushed behind his tan ears.
A rich black suit, only a few steps darker than his ink-brown eyes.
High cheekbones. A strong nose. And his mouth.
It’s full, astonishingly pink, and stuck in a frown that either says need more champagne to survive or why did I waste Valentine’s Day on this.
Clearly, he’s another wedding attendee hiding from the impending car crash.
Then he looks up from his phone, seemingly noticing me for the first time. I give him a polite smile.
He doesn’t return it.
My smile drops.
He looks at me for another half second, the glow of his phone screen shading his tanned olive face with sharp contours.
I wait for him to look back down, but he doesn’t.
And there is something about his eyes—something familiar.
He has that same look as the perpetually bedraggled celebrities I had crushes on when I was eighteen and starry-eyed: older, smarter, and rougher despite the tuxedo, just missing a half-burnt cigarette and a dog-eared poetry chapbook.
“Are you all right?” he says, with a voice ripped straight from a Nick Cave album. Exceedingly baritone, very sad, nebulously accented. Yup. Cue the chapbook.
“Who, me?”
The man’s eyes narrow, as if to point out that we’re both willingly standing in a damp New York City alleyway in February and that in itself is a questionable offense. My own frown deepens. I don’t need masculine pity-worry from someone who’d attend this wedding. “I’m okay. Are you?”
This is a kindness unnecessarily wasted on a man in a tuxedo.
But he nods, appeased by my answer, and finally goes back to his phone.
I pretend to do the same, though I can’t stop peeking.
It isn’t that I’m hoping he keeps paying attention to me, or anything like that.
Genuinely flirting with a man would require me to temporarily stop being Cat Cromwell, Fun Fashion Girl, a mask I wear like it’s glued to my frame.
I’d have to stop running, and you’ve got to keep moving if you want to keep having fun.
The second I let my guard down, get domestic with a stranger who’d never be able to handle my true self… that’s slowing down. That’s doom.
It’s just that he really does look familiar.
Too familiar. And that isn’t a good thing in my line of work.
I know I haven’t broken his heart; I charge triple for men who look like they have opinions about the Socratic method, even before you factor in the elegantly disheveled, tortured-celebrity-crush aesthetic.
My blood goes cold.
Oh my God.
I twist away, turning to face the streetlight at the front of the alleyway. Okay. No, this is—totally fine. So, yes. I do know who’s standing behind me. It doesn’t matter. I’m not eighteen anymore. I haven’t watched Formula 1 in years. I’m not going to talk to him.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
He’s talking to me. Again. And there’s something new in his voice—irritation, maybe—like I’ve annoyed him by possibly being not okay.
My face goes red beneath my weapons-grade foundation, but I take a deep breath, smooth my hair into place, and turn back around.
“Totally fine. Just had to get some fresh air.” I smile again, like his whole patronizing, I-know-better-than-you gambit is so endearing.
And fine, it was. Once upon a time. From afar. But as is, I’m very unendeared by it.
With an equally unimpressed hmm, his gaze dips to my feet. We’re almost the same height, spot-on, and his eyes really are alarmingly brown, so it’s a bit obvious. “You a friend of Bernard’s?”
“Oh, no.” I not-so-subtly lean farther away. “Just here with someone.”
“Someone you’re leaving?” he asks skeptically.
I bite my lip. “Well.”
“Well?” he repeats, waiting for more.
More that he won’t get. “Well! You caught me.”
His head tilts, and his wavy hair tilts with him.
Unlike his younger days, he’s mostly clean-shaven, though his hair’s longer—tiltable.
Then he hums, unsmiling, unblinking, and a tiny wave of unease rolls down my spine.
“Just a phrase,” I find myself adding. “It’s not—I really am fine, if that’s what you’re worried about.
I’m not, like, hiding. The date just wasn’t that great. ”
“Why?”
I blink. Many times, actually. “He’s… I guess I didn’t expect all this.”
“All what?”
“You know, ice sculptures, multiple cocktail hours.”
He exhales out an almost silent, almost emotionless laugh. “Not for you?”