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Stranger88: Amblyopia?
Stranger7721: Lazy eye.
Stranger88: That sounds hot.
Stranger7721: Oh God. I grew out of it! I wear contacts and got braces. You probably think I sound like a total troll.
Stranger88: Do I sound like I care what you looked like when you were 17? I told you, I don’t even care what you look like now. All I know is that I can’t wait to kiss you.
I smile at that.
Stranger7721: Me too. I bet you are a good kisser. But I am worried I will disappoint you.
Stranger88: Not possible. Why?
I stare at the computer, crack my knuckles. Am I going to admit this? Okay, yes. Why not? If we really are going to meet, he’s going to find out sooner or later.
Stranger7721: Well, I’m not very experienced. I’ve only had sex once.
Stranger88: Once?
I wince. He’s obviously horrified.
Stranger7721: Yep.
Stranger88: So you lied. You said you didn’t do one-night stands.
It gets far more pathetic than that. But what the hell? He hasn’t run away yet, even after I divulged my most embarrassing secrets.
Stranger7721: It wasn’t a one-night stand. I was dating him three weeks. We had sex on prom night, and then he dumped me.
Stranger88: Prom night? So you haven’t had sex in… 10 years? :0
I’m not about to tell him about my constant need to replace the batteries in my vibrator lately because of him.
Stranger7721: Yep. So you have had serious relationships before? With whom?
Stranger88: I went out with a girl in high school for 2 years. Thought we’d get married. But then I went away to Harvard and she stayed at home, and when I got back, she was engaged to my best friend.
Stranger7721: Ouch.
Stranger88: Not really. Then I dated a girl at Yale Law, and same thing.
I stare. Law school. He just said he went to law school… Yale Law?
Quickly, I open a tab and pull up the Foster & Foster website, finding the About Us page. I scroll down to the list of bios, past my own, to the one with the smiling, gorgeous photo of Brooks Gentry. Underneath it, it says: Brooks K. Gentry is an associate who focuses his practice on family and civil law. Mr. Gentry is a graduate of Harvard University (magna cum laude) and Yale University School of Law (magna cum laude). During law school, Brooks clerked for the…
Oh shit.
My fingers shake on the trackpad as I navigate to back to the conversation, doing my best to ignore the massive elephant in the room that’s sitting on my chest.
Stranger7721: She got engaged to your best friend, too?
Stranger88: ? No, we just dated two years. And then she decided she didn’t want to be on the East Coast. I didn’t want to be in California, where she was from—and so we went our separate ways. Since then, I haven’t even dated.
Stranger7721: So you’re a lawyer! Mr. Stranger88, Esq.
Stranger88: I thought I already told you that.
Stranger7721: You didn’t confirm. You just said you were working on a case.
Stranger88: Ok, you got me.
Stranger7721: ? By the way, how is that ass-kissing co-worker of yours?
Stranger88: Strangely, she’s starting to grow on me. She’s not as horrible as I thought.
A frisson of electricity makes its way down my spine. It’s him.
I wiggle my fingers over the keyboard, itching to ask, Brooks?
But what if I confirm it? What then? Is that a good or a bad thing?
Right now, my brain can’t process it. Because of all the things we’ve told each other, in confidence, never expecting…
My mind hitches on that running office fantasy. Sex in a remote, unused cubicle. To think we were both picturing Foster and Foster…
And whenever I had that fantasy, I saw his face.
I’m not foolish enough to think he saw mine too. Didn’t he say something about not dipping the pen in company ink? And what if I reveal myself and he’s disappointed?
Stranger7721: That’s nice.
Stranger88: Are you jealous?
Stranger7721: Should I be?
Stranger88: No. Not at all. She’s not you.
As I let those words sink in, a little voice inside me says, But what if she was?
No. No. No. This is all wrong. It can’t be him. He’s not expecting it to be me. If he knew, he’d back away. Far away.
Which is what I need to do.
A full-body shiver grips me at that moment, and without a word, I close the lid on my laptop. The war inside me is practically nuclear. Deep down, I think I always wanted it to be him. And now… I don’t. I can’t have it be him, because when he does find out, I’ll never recover from that loss.
How can Brooks Gentry, a man so wrong for me, so insufferably arrogant, be the man of my dreams?
24
Friday afternoon, something happens that never has before.
Tenley Bayliss knocks on my office door with a giant smile on her face. “Guess what?”
I’ve been smiling all day, as has most of the office, simply because it’s the start of the weekend. But knowing how dedicated Bayliss is to the job, the rest of the office’s Friday is her Monday. So I’m at a loss. Unless… “Something came through on the case?”
