‘Fine. Stephen.’ I took the three steps necessary to stand in front of my wall of sad Post-its again. ‘Honestly, I have a touch of writer’s block at the moment. I can’t approach the problem head on. It’s like a wild animal; it gets frightened and runs away whenever I try. So, helping you with your mystery inheritor is perfect. I get to use my deductive muscles without scaring inspiration away.’
‘That sounds so insane, I could almost believe it’s true.’
‘Itisthe truth. I promise you.’
‘Regardless, I don’t need anyone’s help with this. I’ll figure it out by myself.’
I turned and sat on the edge of my desk. I’d hit a nerve somewhere and I didn’t think it was from me leading him on a little at the beginning of the conversation. Maybe he was just the kind of guy who thought he could handle everything. It would make sense with my theory that he’d interfered with Beth and Nick because of control-freak issues.
‘Well, I’ll text you my address. If you change your mind. I’m not doing much tomorrow. We could go out and start the search together.’
‘I’ve already said no, Noelle. Thank you but no thank you.’
‘Ah, fine. I’ll still do it. Send you my address, I mean. I trust you not to post dog poop through my mailbox.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Trust you or post the dog poop?’
‘I guess you’ll find out if you text me your address. Bye, Noelle.’
She sent the message with her address less than a minute after I hung up the phone. Of course she did. She was tenacious, I’d give her that. And ever so slightly unhinged, by the sounds of it. That conversation had taken a U-turn I hadn’t expected.
I only looked at the address to make sure it disappeared off my screen. It was unintentional that I noticed she lived in the East Village, close enough to walk there, if I was remembering rightly.
One useful thing about Noelle’s call was that it had confirmed my suspicion that Nick was planning on coming out here to check up on me – or help me. However he wanted to word it, the fact remained that he thought I couldn’t deal with this by myself.
Well I could, and I would.
How did visiting the address go? Did you track him down yet?Nick had texted me only that morning. I hadn’t answered him. I didn’t want Nick holding my hand. It didn’t require holding and I didn’t want him to come out here and end up meeting my father. There was no reason for that man to have any impact on Nick’s life, whatsoever. I was going to deal with it and cut all ties once and for all.
I just needed to think how to word the message to send via Facebook.
Maybe Noelle would’ve been useful in this instance, since words were her trade. Tact was not though. That was why I could at least trust the fact that Beth hadn’t told her it was my biological father I was looking for. I was sure Noelle would’ve mentioned it – and hopefully not been so quick to regard the search as a writing exercise for herself had she known…although I couldn’t be certain. Good grief, that woman pressed my buttons.Andshe’d scored the point back by insinuating she was calling me to arrange a hook-up. I’d fallen for it.Again.
One annoyance at a time. I found the one profile I’d narrowed it down to earlier and tapped on it to send a DM.
Me: Hi, I was wondering if you used to live in
the UK? I think we might know each other.
There. That didn’t scream ‘long-lost son’.
I went into the kitchen to start grilling some chicken for the salad I wanted to make. As I was putting the croutons in the oven, my phone pinged with a message. That was quick. I picked it up before I could let myself notice how sweaty my palms were or how hard my heart was beating.
Trevor: Sorry, dude. I’ve lived in the US my
whole life. Never even visited the UK.
Happily married too and heterosexual, in case
that was some kind of pick-up.
A rush of breath left me. I didn’t know whether I was disappointed or relieved.
Me: It wasn’t. Just looking for someone.
Thank you for coming back to me.
