CHAPTER 4 #2
“Among other things.” Centuries of acquisitions. Paintings that outlived their artists by generations. “You were standing in front of a piece, and you said to your friend, ‘The artist must have painted it during a breakup because the colors were too sad to be anything else.’”
She stares at me. “That’s oddly specific.”
“It needs to be. I overheard you. Thought you were perceptive. Waited until you were alone and asked what you thought of the piece beside it.”
“What did I say?”
“That the artist was trying too hard.”
A surprised laugh escapes her. “That does sound like me.”
“I asked for your number. You made me work for it. Asked me three questions first.”
“What questions?”
“My favorite movie. Whether I believe in second chances. What I’m most afraid of.”
She leans forward, interested now. “And what did you answer?”
“Casablanca. I saw it when it first—” I stop. Recalibrate. “On Criterion. The restoration.”
She tilts her head. The pause didn’t escape her. I can see her noting it, storing it away.
“I do believe in second chances,” I continue, “because people change, and growth deserves recognition.” This, at least, is true. I’ve watched humans transform themselves across decades. Watched them become unrecognizable from who they started as. “And I’m afraid of being forgotten.”
The honesty surprises me. I hadn’t meant to say something so real.
“Casablanca,” she repeats. “Very classic.”
“You disapprove?”
“No. It’s just very...” She gestures with her wine glass. “You.”
“What about our first date?”
“Dinner,” I say. “Somewhere like this. Intimate. I wanted to impress you.” I pause, reaching for a memory before I remember it’s one I shouldn’t have. “There was a place in Beverly Hills. L’Ermitage. The ma?tre d’ knew exactly how I—”
I stop. L’Ermitage closed in the early ’90s. Over thirty years ago. I was careless.
“L’Ermitage?” Poppy frowns, grabbing her phone.
“You wouldn’t have heard of it. Before your time.” The phrase comes out wrong—too old, too distant. I try to recover. “My father used to take me. When I was young. I get nostalgic.”
She’s looking at me strangely. I’ve made too many errors. The Casablanca slip. Now this.
“We’ll say we went to Providence,” I amend. “The tasting menu. You wore something green. Green suits you.”
“I don’t own anything green.”
“Then you should buy something. For the wedding.”
She watches me, noting the inconsistencies, the strange phrasing, the way I talk about decades-old restaurants like personal memories.
But she doesn’t push. Instead, she takes a sip of her wine and says, “Tell me about my work. What do you think I do?”
“You create content. People watch. They feel connected to you without ever meeting you.” I lean forward, genuinely curious. “How do you do that? Build that type of intimacy with strangers?”
“You say that like it’s a science experiment.”
“Isn’t it? You’ve found a way to make hundreds of thousands of people feel like they know you. That’s not trivial.”
“Most people think it’s just posting selfies.”
“Most people are wrong.” I study her face—the intelligence there, the calculation behind the warmth. “You’re building parasocial relationships at scale. That requires understanding human connection at a fundamental level.”
She blinks. “Parasocial relationships?”
“When people feel they know someone who doesn’t know them back. You’ve engineered it. Intentionally or not.”
“You make it sound manipulative.”
“I mean it as a compliment. Humans have always craved connection.” The word comes out wrong again. Humans. As if I’m not one. “People. We’ve always craved it. But the scale you’ve achieved—that’s new. Remarkable.”
She’s quiet. I’ve said too much. Revealed too much of how I see the world—from the outside, looking in.
“You’re strange,” she says finally.
“Yes.”
“You talk like you’re—” She stops. Shakes her head. “Never mind.”
“Like I’m what?”
“Like you’re studying us. People. Like you’re not quite...” She trails off, unable to finish.
Not quite human. The words she’s not saying.
“I’ve spent a long time observing,” I say carefully. “In my line of work, you learn to read people.”
“What is your line of work, exactly?”
“Investments. Acquisitions. Long-term holdings.”
“That’s vague.”
“Yes.”
She laughs—surprised, genuine. “You’re not going to tell me.”
“Not tonight.”
“But eventually?”
I meet her eyes. In the candlelight, they’re warm. Curious. Dangerously easy to fall into.
“Perhaps,” I say. “If you still want to know.”
By the time Marcus pulls up to her building, it’s nearly eleven. The dinner ran long—longer than I intended. We walked through the backstory, the timeline, the details we’d need to keep straight. But somewhere in the middle, the performance became conversation. Real conversation.
I can’t remember the last time that happened.
“So,” she says with her hand on the door. “Will I see you again before we leave?”
“I’d love that.”
“And we’ll practice the...” She waves her hand. “Proximity stuff?”
“Yes. By the time we land, we should be comfortable with casual contact. A hand on your back. Your head on my shoulder. Nothing that would make you uncomfortable.”
“What if I get uncomfortable?”
“Then you touch your necklace and I stop. Immediately. No questions.”
She nods slowly. “And if you get uncomfortable?”
The question catches me off guard.
“I won’t,” I say.
She looks at me for a moment. Then, impulsively, she leans over and kisses my cheek. Barely a brush. Her lips are warm.
“Thank you,” she says. “For taking this seriously. For not making me feel stupid.”
She’s out of the car before I find words.
I watch her disappear into her building. Touch my cheek where her lips were.
The skin still tingles.
Marcus catches my eye in the rearview mirror but says nothing.
“Home,” I say.
But as we pull away, I look back at her window. Third floor. A light flickers on.
I think about the way she laughed. How she noticed every slip I made. And the way she called me strange and meant it as an observation, not an insult.
She’s going to figure me out. Maybe not this week. Maybe not this month. But eventually, she’s going to look at all the pieces that don’t fit and assemble them into the correct answer.
And when she does, she’ll run.
They always do.
But for now, for these four days, I get to pretend. To stand beside a woman who makes me feel something I thought had calcified decades ago.
Marcus turns onto the Pacific Coast Highway. The ocean glitters to our left, dark and endless.
Four days. That’s all this is. A performance. A transaction.
I almost believe it.