“About me?” he asked.
“Well, yes.”
He smiled. “Were you worried about going on dates with people who you met online who were, what did you call them, next-level creeps?”
“Hey, how do you know that I online dated?”
“You told me. When I came to hook up the DVD player.”
I had to think about this for a while. “Aaaah. Yes. I did. But I also told you to ignore everything I said to you.”
He smiled. “Sorry.”
“That is not a good example though. Firstly, this is not a date. And secondly, I do know the people I meet online. More so than I know you.”
“I didn’t say this was a date.” His smile grew.
“I didn’t say you said it was a date. I was just acknowledging that itwasn’ta date.” I wished I’d never used the word date, because now things were just getting awkward.
Mark kept smiling. “I think you know me better than some guy you met online.”
“How do you figure that?” I asked, folding my arms. Blocking that smile of his.
“Well, we’ve spent actual real time together. I mean, we even spent a night together.”
At that, my face went a little blushy and flushy and, without thinking, I gave it a quick fan with my hand, which caused Mark to smile even more—I assume he was also remembering that wildly awkward moment this morning. Not every day you wake up tangled in the arms of a stranger.
“I’m sure that’s more than you can say for all the people you met online. I bet you’ve never met the majority of the people you know online. And I bet you went on dates with people you knew less about than me.”
I paused. He did have a point, now that I thought about it. I hadn’t met most of my online friends IRL. But that didn’t matter, did it?
“You can know someone online though,” I said, feeling defensive.
“No, you can’t.” He started walking towards the house with Harun, and I followed behind him.
“Uh, yes, you can,” I argued.
“No, you can’t. Until you’ve sat across from a person and looked them in the eye, face to face, you can’t ever truly know someone or call them your friend.”
“Um, yes, you can. I have about ten thousand friends like that. We are all very, very close.”
At that, he burst out laughing and kicked the front door open with his foot. It wasn’t even locked. I followed him inside and was met by a small, cozy-looking sitting room that seemed to be centered around an old stone fireplace. Mark walked across the room to a sofa under a window and gently placed Harun down on it.
I inspected the place some more. It was a strange mix of old and new furniture. A huge, modern flat-screen TV took up a massive space on one wall—obviously it was just for movie watching—and on the opposite wall a shelf covered in old books and antiques.
I could only see three doors leading off this room, so I walked around and peered into each one. A small kitchen with a little wooden table and chair. An old bathroom, stone walls, bright blue painted ball-and-claw bath, and in the other room, a small bedroom. I swallowed.
“Uh . . . where would I sleep?” I asked.
“You can sleep in my room,” he said.
“Where would you sleep?”
“I sleep outside on the veranda when it’s warm.”
“Oh. Okay.” I looked around, feeling very strange all of a sudden. I rubbed my arm.
“Look, if you would feel more comfortable, you can go back to the hotel and I’m more than happy to look after Harun for a few days while he recovers.”
