Page 35

I did try. Which is humiliating because, again, not a date.

I pull out my phone.

Me: I’m here.

His reply comes almost immediately.

D: Come in.

I open the door. Warm air folds over me. The restaurant is busy enough to be safe but not loud enough to hide in. A couple near the window is arguing softly over a bottle of wine. Two women at the bar are laughing into their noodles. Somewhere in the back, plates clatter and someone calls out in Thai.

I stand just inside the entrance, suddenly aware of every part of myself.

I text him because looking around feels too obvious.

Me: I’m inside. This is the part where I realize I have no idea who I’m looking for.

A beat.

Then: Look up.

My heart gives one hard knock.

I lift my head. And see him.

For a second, everything in the restaurant moves around him and he stays still. He’s sitting at a table near the back wall, one arm resting along the edge, phone in his hand. He’s not young. That’s the first thing my brain manages to form, because apparently my brain has chosen facts over survival.

Forties, maybe. Mid-forties.

Older than I expected. Older than I should be reacting to like this.

Dark hair with silver at the temples. Not carefully styled, not messy either. Just thick and touched with gray in a way that makes him look more expensive than anyone has a right to look while sitting in a Thai restaurant. His face is calm, almost severe until his eyes settle on me.

Then something changes.

Not a smile. Less obvious than that.

His gaze moves over me once, not crudely, not slowly enough to be rude, but enough that my body understands it has been seen. My skin warms under the green top. My breath catches before I can stop it.

He’s broad through the shoulders, the white shirt under his dark coat open at the collar, sleeves neat at the wrists. No tie. Watch on one hand. Long fingers curled loosely around the phone he no longer needs.

My heart stops. Not poetically. Practically. For one stupid second, I forget to breathe.

Oh, this is very bad.

Because he’s not a harmless mystery voice. He’s not a letter on my phone. He’s not a funny little story I can tell Simone later about a wrong number and a stranger who knew the brachial plexus.

He is real.

And handsome. Handsome in a way that feels inconvenient and adult and far outside the radius of my current life. The kind of handsome that comes with quiet hotel bars, good shoes, and a woman somewhere in his past who probably learned the hard way that he doesn’t ask twice.

I should leave. Instead, I walk toward him.

He stands before I reach the table. He’s taller than I thought. Not absurdly tall. Just tall enough that when I stop in front of him, I have to tilt my chin slightly.

His eyes are darker than I expected. Or maybe the lighting makes them seem that way. Or maybe I’m having a full-body medical event.

“D?” I say.