“Hi,” he replies, and he has this warm cocoa voice, the kind of voice that drives away the chill of a cold night or a bad, confusing day. “How are you?” he asks. “How was work?”
My belly flutters in delight both with his words and the deep, sexy timbre of his voice. He’s calling me just to see how my day was? When has any man, Kevin included, ever done such a thing? And when did any man ever stir such a warm sensation in my body, with nothing more than his words? What could this man do to me if he actually touched me?
“Weird,” I confess, though I don’t know why. I didn’t share today’s happenings with either of my two Js. Why would I share this with him? And yet, still, I press on, adding, “Work was weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Just weird,” I say, not sure what to add, not sure I should say anything at all. I’m back to my worry that at some point, if I keep telling him about Kevin dissing me, I sound desperate.
He’s silent a moment, then two, before he says, “I don’t pretend to know you well, but we spent the weekend talking. I have at least a small sense of who you are. What’s wrong, Mia?”
Mia.
I like the way he uses my name as if he sees me without being here to see me at all. As if he sees me when those who are sitting right in front of me do not. My gaze slides to where the letter opener sits on my counter, a shiny decoration that could be used as a weapon. It’s here for that reason, a decision on my part that opens my shut book and tells a story.
I’m scared.
That’s the bottom line. The note writer is scaring me.
I need someone to talk with about this, someone who won’t force a gun in my hand, as would be Jack’s inclination. Or blow this off as nothing but fun and interesting, as I know Jess will. I love those two—I do—but guns scare me, and this is not nothing. Not when I have a makeshift weapon on my counter.
For the first time in years, I need someone other than them. It seems that someone is Adam. “Someone has been leaving me notes,” I confess. “At the coffee shop mostly. They write the note on my cup or stick the note on my computer. They find an opportunity when there should be none. I can’t figure out how they do it. The notes are compliments,” I add quickly. “I’m beautiful or a random compliment to that effect. And while I know that sounds like a nice thing for this person to do, it’s starting to feel creepy.”
“I see,” he says. “And who do you think is doing this?”
I should stop here, but I don’t. “Today I decided it was Kevin. I thought maybe he was triggered in some way by me being on the dating site, angry at me.”
He punches back with, “You think he wants to rekindle your relationship?”
“No,” I say, the mean nature of Kevin’s interactions with me a bit hard to swallow, even if I did bring them on myself, with that message I left on his phone. “Maybe it insulted him that I broke up with him,” I suggest. “Those things bother some people, even if they have no real feelings for the other person. It’s like an ego thing.” I don’t wait for a reply. It was never really a question. “I don’t know,” I add. “The whole thing just feels stalkerish, which is why I called him and threatened to call the police if he doesn’t stop.”
I hold my breath, dreading Adam’s reply, waiting for it on pins and needles, seconds ticking by into more seconds, the silence awkward and heavy, and almost as weird as my day. “He denied everything,” I quickly offer, filling the empty space I can no longer endure. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not him. Whatever the case, I’m actually really creeped out and walking around looking over my shoulder.” I breathe out. “Sorry.” I laugh nervously. “I guess I just gave you an earful.”
Silence fills the line again, a long, drawn-out silence. I shift in my seat and start to worry—is he not even on the line anymore? “Adam?”
“I have a confession to make, Mia.”
Unease zigs and zags through me. “Confession?”
“Yes. I left the notes.”
Chapter Forty-Four
The room spins, and I am unsteady when I am not even on my feet. He left the notes? Adam left the notes? How is that even possible? How is that even possible? Nothing about this feels right, and my instinct is to hang up. I’m about to do just that when he says, “Don’t hang up. I saw you around the neighborhood, and then you were on the dating app.”
“So you just left me notes? Were you following me?” I demand.
“No,” he says. “No, nothing like that. I told you, I saw the old me in you. I liked the idea of giving you some space, of showing you how desirable you are, from afar.”
“Without even telling me you were doing it?”
“I’m telling you now, Mia. Bottom line, I saw you and started leaving the notes before you showed up on my dating app. I left the first note on a whim. I couldn’t resist. Then I saw you again, and you were with the person I now know is Jess. I didn’t want to approach you then, but I wanted you to be seen.”
“And today? We’d already started talking. Why stay in the shadows? I was alone.”
“I had about five minutes to get back to work,” he states. “It wasn’t the time to tell you that, hey, I’m that guy. With the help of the lady behind the counter, I grabbed your receipt, wrote the note, and left with the hope I’d make you smile.”
His explanation is almost too perfect. I think of the man with Jack at the coffee shop. “Did you speak with Jack this morning? Did you approach him?”
“What? No. I don’t even know what Jack looks like. You’ve never told me.”
“Well, if you’ve been watching me, you have to know what Jack looks like.”
“I haven’t been watching you, Mia,” he says. “Our paths just happened to cross.”
“Three times?” I counter. “No. That’s not possible.” But as my mind traces backward, I wasn’t actually with Jack when I received any communication from Adam. Just Jess that one time, and he has admitted that already.
“It does feel impossible,” he concurs, “and yet it happened. Our paths, even on the dating app, continued to cross, over and over again. It seems the universe wants our paths to cross.”
If I were Cinderella and this was a fairy tale, I might buy this idea he presents. But I’m not. “I’m uncomfortable,” I state.
“Sometimes uncomfortable is good, Mia.”
Suddenly his use of my name no longer feels right. “I don’t like to be uncomfortable, Adam.”
“Which is why you remain invisible to the general population. Everything you do is about never feeling uncomfortable. I told you, Mia. I can show you how to be seen.”
I think of the man on floor two, of the group who’d watched my disaster of a presentation, and of the notes that freaked me out. “I’m not sure being seen is what I want.”
“And yet you don’t want to be ignored, now do you?”
The comment hits close to home, but not in a gentle we-are-the-same kind of way this time. In a I-know-better-than-you-and-you-are-lesser-than-me way. “I’m hanging up now.”
And that’s what I do.
I hang up.
Chapter Forty-Five
I set my phone down and stare at it like it’s some sort of alien from another planet.
Why have I been talking to a stranger? Why have I shared intimate details of my life with that man?
I think of the hours on end we chatted this weekend and reminisced about days past. Stories of my mother, my father, that dreaded day in New York City, when Lion’s Den devoured my family. I told him my hopes and dreams. I told him about my father’s new project and the bidding war.