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“I know the Heckles pulled one off your LinkedIn for the bakery,” the tailor said with pins in his mouth.
I lowered my phone. “I’m banned from the bakery???”
“You’re just not allowed to write checks,” Nick said.
I shook my head.
Lauren: The seamstress is talking about you. She says you ran over the Reindeer Crossing sign off Candy Cane Way when you were seventeen and it was down for like four months. She said you were driving a tractor.
I coughed out a laugh.
Me: It was a Zamboni and it was Nick.
Lauren: Suuuure.
“Is that Lauren?” Nick asked.
I was smiling at my phone. “Yeah.” I put my cell away and came around in front of him to sit on the windowsill.
“You’ve spent a bit of time with her,” Nick said. “What do you think? Do you like her?”
“I do,” I admitted.
“You should ask her out.”
“If I lived near her—definitely,” I said without even thinking about it.
He watched the tailor pin his sleeve. “Don’t let distance stop you.”
“It’s a pretty legitimate reason,” I muttered.
Another text came through. It was a picture of the same photo of me from earlier, only someone had drawn a mustache on my face.
Lauren: I took care of it for you. They’ll never find you now. You’re welcome.
I laughed out loud.
I took a selfie and drew a quick mustache on myself and sent it.
Lauren: Yup, that’s the guy.
Nick eyed me. “I don’t think I’ve seen you smile this much in years.”
“Ha. Same.”
He beamed out into the room. “I gotta be honest, I never thought I’d find this again. You know what it feels like?” he said.
“What.”
“Déjà vu.”
I gave him a sideways grin. “Maybe the two of you were together in a different dimension.”
He wrinkled his forehead. “That would actually explain a lot.”
My phone pinged again. Another photo of a picture in a store window.
Lauren: The dog specialty store.