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I shake my head at him. The white pedestrian sign flashes saying that I can cross. Don’t need to tell me twice.
I step off the curb, but he follows me. Again.
“I won’t give out my business cards, okay?” I say.
He glances at his watch once more. “Maybe we need some other guidelines, like no advertisements downstairs or in the hallway.”
I stop on the other side of the street, outside my favorite sandwich place, but he’s not going to know that. “Fine.”
He nods a few times, stuffing his hands into his pockets and studying me. It looks as though he wants to say more.
Women walking by glance at him from the corner of their vision. I don’t blame them, he’s alluring. Too bad he knows it.
“Let’s discuss it in one of our office’s after lunch?”
“Sorry, I have plans.”
“Client?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I lie because a man like Carmelo will only accept defeat if it’s something he can relate to. If I said I’m going to grab my tuna on wheat, head to a park bench, and enjoy one hour of serenity to help keep my sanity, he’d try to weasel his way in, and I’d probably allow him.
“Okay. Well then, we’re on the same page? I don’t see any other way we can coexist in the same building without those rules.”
I nod. “Sure. Okay.”
He waits for a full minute, staring at me. I’m not sure what else I can say to convince him. “I should go too.”
“Bye.” I wave and swivel on the ball of my shoe.
I wait for him to be lost in the crowd before I slide into line, pissed off that he took ten minutes from my solitude.
* * *
The minuteI situate myself on the park bench and open my sandwich, my phone vibrates.
I look at my mom’s name and sigh, pressing the voicemail button.
A minute later, it’s vibrating again. If I talk to her briefly, maybe I can salvage a little time to myself. I slide my thumb across the screen and hold the phone to my ear.
“Hey, Mom,” I say.
“Bella. How are things?”
“Good. I’m just having lunch.”
“I have great news,” she says, and her mood is surprisingly chipper—which means she’s met someone.
“Who is he?” I ask.
She giggles as if she’s thirteen and a boy just said he likes her. My mom is a true romantic, but she keeps kissing frogs. If she didn’t manage a successful bakery she loves, I think she’d die of a lonely heart. She desperately tries to find someone. Unfortunately, she needs someone else to pick the person. Her type of man isn’t the grow-old-with-me type.
“I’m blushing right now. You always know when there’s a man in my life.”
Call it twenty-seven years of observation.
I bite into my tuna because let’s be honest, my mom isn’t going to complain if I’m chewing in her ear. “Who is he?”
“You’ll get to meet him because he’s bringing me to New York! I’ll be there either Wednesday or Thursday, then he’s taking me to his house in the Hamptons.” She squeals.
