ME: I DON’T CARE
SAGE: This is about fake boyfriend isn’t it
ME: SAGE
SAGE: On my way
SAGE: Don’t start without me
I don’t start without her. Instead, I pace my apartment like a caged animal, replaying the entire evening in my head.
How he looked at my bookshelf. The way he said charming like he meant it.
His description of humans made it seem as if he wasn’t one.
I’m spiraling. I know I’m spiraling. But the spiral feels justified because something is off about Julian Blackthorne, and I can’t figure out what.
My buzzer rings fifteen minutes later. I hit the button without checking, and Sage appears at my door in flannel pants, an oversized UCLA sweatshirt, and slippers shaped like dinosaurs.
“This better be good,” she says, pushing past me. “I was two episodes deep into a murder documentary.”
“It’s good. It’s weird. I don’t know what it is.” I grab a bottle of red from the counter and two glasses. “Sit. I need to debrief.”
Sage collapses onto my couch, tucking her dinosaur feet beneath her. “Okay. Start from the beginning. What did he look like? Was the photo accurate?”
“Better.”
“Better?”
“Sage, he’s—” I pour the wine too fast, nearly spilling. “He’s beautiful. Like, offensively beautiful. Like someone designed him in a lab to make women question their life choices.”
“Okay, so, hot. We knew he’d be hot. The app isn’t going to match you with a gremlin.”
“It’s not just that. It’s the way he moves. So precise. So deliberate. Like he’s aware of every inch of space his body takes up. And he’s still. Not normal stillness. He stood in my living room and he didn’t fidget, didn’t shift his weight, didn’t check his phone. He just... existed there. Like a statue.”
Sage takes her wine. “Maybe he does yoga.”
“Preston did yoga. Preston could not stand still to save his life.”
“Fair point. What else?”
I sit beside her, pulling my legs up. “He said he sawCasablancawhen it first came out.”
Sage chokes on her wine. “What?”
“He corrected himself. Said he meant on Criterion, the restoration. But that’s not what he said first. He said when it first came out.”
“Casablancacame out in, what, in like the forties or something, right?”
“Nineteen forty-two. I looked it up.”
“So either he’s a time traveler or he misspoke.”
“That’s not the only thing.” I take a long sip. “He mentioned a restaurant. L’Ermitage. Talked about it like he’d eaten there last week. So I looked it up.”
“And?”
“It closed in 1991.”
