His phone continues to vibrate. Tension coils in his chest. Before he can reconsider, he blurts, “Wait. Don’t leave just yet. I need to take this. Give me a moment?”
She hesitates, then reseats herself. He connects the call.
“Hey, hon,” Daisy says immediately. “Is everything okay? I was worried about you.”
He holds up two fingers to Mia, mouths,Two minutes. “I’m fine. Let me take this somewhere quieter. Hang on a sec.”
Jon scoots out of the booth. Pressing his phone against his shirt, he hurriedly weaves through the crowd, making for the quieter lobby area outside the pub. He puts the phone back to his ear.
“Sorry, love. I should’ve called. Just as Henry left the pub, some of the guys from work came in. They’re all talking about the new development. One of the environmental assessors is with them. I figured I should connect with him, build some contacts. He’s still here. Could be a late one. You okay with that? I can come home now if—”
“No. No—I—it’s fine. How’d it go with Henry?”
Jon says it went fine. Daisy presses and he says he will explain at home. He tells her not to wait up. But before he can kill the call, Mia enters the lobby.
“Jon, I really do need to be up early,” Mia says quietly. “Thank you for everything. It was a lovely evening.” She walks past him, out the hotel doors, and into the autumn night.
Jon ends his call, pockets his phone, and rushes to the doors. “Mia!” he calls after her.
She stops on the sidewalk, turns. Streetlight glints on her hair. She looks at him expectantly.
Suddenly he feels awkward. He slides his hands into his pant pockets.
“I—good night,” he says. “Thanks.”
They stand there for a moment. Facing each other. Man and woman. A chemistry crackling between them. They’re on a knife’s edge—either they act on their desire, turn it into something. Or walk away. Jon does not act.
Mia comes quickly forward. She puts her mouth near his ear and whispers, “Bye, JonJon Rittenberg. I’m pleased to have met you. Finally. In the flesh. After all these years.” She gives him a feather of a kiss on the cheek, turns, and walks away.
“Fuck,” he mumbles under his breath as he stands in the cool night, watching her go—the seductive sway of her hips. Those high, sexy heels.The swish of her long hair on her back. He’s hard with lust. He’s sweating, breathing heavily. She disappears around the corner of a building, and is gone.
He swallows, slowly becoming conscious of the city sounds. Of reality. And he says a silent thanks to whatever gods rule the universe, because he’s just been saved from making a terrible mistake. He turns and reenters the pub. He did the right thing, holding back. This knowledge gives him a little burst of self-satisfaction. But as he returns to his table to collect the bill, he sees a napkin with a smudge of deep-red lipstick. It’s a Schrödinger’s-type conundrum, he thinks. He simultaneously wants and does not want to see Mia Reiter again.
Jon considers folding the napkin and sliding it into his pocket. But he leaves it and goes up to the bar to settle his tab.
“The lady paid already,” the bartender says as Jon fishes in his wallet for his credit card.
He glances up from his wallet. “I was going to settle for the earlier steak meals and whiskies as well,” he says.
“Like I said, she settled it.”
“Thewholething—the two steak meals and drinks?”
“Whole thing.”
He starts to leave, stops. “Did she pay by credit card—leave an address or anything?”
“Nice try, buddy. She paid cash.”
THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Jon Rittenberg appears to have no idea he’s being watched from a vehicle across the street as he converses with the brunette outside the hotel entrance.
The watcher in the car raises his camera and aims his telephoto lens out the open window. He adjusts focus to ensure that he’s capturing the name of the hotel above the entrance as well as Rittenberg and the woman.
Click. Click. Click.
The brunette steps forward and kisses Rittenberg on the cheek. The photographer clicks again.
