But there’s nothing but silence on the line.
“Hello?” I say, my breathing shallow. “You still there?”
“Yeah,” Charlotte replies (thank God). “Sorry. I’m just... Wow. Who is this hacker guy? How’d you find him?”
“He’s a friend of a friend. I can’t say more than that.”
“And you’ve been looking for my friend all this time—and... holding out for her?”
“Yeah, but it’s not quite as crazy as it sounds. I think I’ve felt the need to take a hiatus from the dating scene, anyway, to lick my wounds from the Bunny Boiler.”
“The ‘Bunny Boiler’?”
“My ex. The pterodactyl. You know, like inFatal Attraction?”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“Oh. Well, Michael Douglas cheats on his beautiful wife with a closet-psycho who then breaks into his house and boils his daughter’s pet bunny.”
“Whoa.”
“Charlotte, please believe me: I’ve never done anything this crazy in my life.” I run my hand through my hair with one hand and press the phone against my ear with the other. “Honestly, I’m not completely sure why I’ve been so fixated on this one particular woman when I’ve got plenty of other options. All I know is I don’t want anyone else. I can’t stop thinking maybe she’s The One.” I pause, gathering my thoughts, my heart clanging. “Okay, maybe she’s not gonna end up being the woman for me—I’m not so far gone that I don’t still realize that’s a definite possibility here—but I feel like I owe it to myself to find out, once and for all, so that, either way, I can just move the fuck on. At the very least, I wanna clear my name with Samantha so she knows the stuff I said to her that night wasn’t bullshit and that the horrible shit Olivia said about me wasn’t true. I’m not a lying, cheating douche. I swear to God, Charlotte. I’m not perfect, but I’m a good guy.”
“Why the hell didn’t you just tell her all that yourself that night? You should have chased her down. Now, after all this time, it might freak her out to hear from you, to be honest.”
“Ididchase her down that night! Jesus Christ! I was stuck in the bar talking to the pterodactyl for no more than ninety seconds and then I sprinted outside to find you guys, but you were already long gone.”
“Oh, crap. That’s right. I forgot we took off so fast.”
“It was like you vanished into thin air.”
“Yeah, an Uber had just pulled up to the bar to let someone out as we were running outside, so we hopped into the backseat.”
“Great. The entire universe, including Uber, was conspiring against me that night.”
“Or working in my friend’s favor. She was crying pretty hard that night, Ryan—and not just over you. Her prior boyfriend did a number on her so I think the whole situation just made her feel really hopeless about men. She kept saying her ‘picker’ was ‘completely defective’ and that she was ‘gonna become a nun.’”
“Charlotte, I swear to God, I’ve never felt so excited about a woman as I felt that night. Never. I haven’t stopped searching for her ever since.”
There’s a long beat of silence.
“Charlotte. Please. I’m wrecked. She’s Cinderella and I’m holding a glass slipper.”
Charlotte lets out an audible exhale. “I wanna help you,” she says tentatively. “But the thing is I don’t know if Cinderella would want to hear from you again. The one-two punch of Mr.-Soccer-Star-Douche and Ryan-from-the-Pine-Box-Douche hit her pretty freaking hard.”
“Mr.Soccer-Star?”
“Yeah. Her ex plays for The L.A. Galaxy.”
My heart seizes. Holy shit. I already figured Samantha could get any guy she wants, but this revelation has turned my vague conjecture into hard, inescapable truth. “Charlotte, please,” I blurt. “You gotta help me. I know you said she hasn’t dated in a year, but what if some pro-athlete, alpha-male, rich dude is sitting in first class on whatever flight she’s working right now, and he’s asking her out to dinner and saying all the right things, and she’s finally saying yes to someone besides me for the first time in a year?”
Charlotte snorts. “I guarantee you that’s not what’s happening at this particular moment.”
“You never know. She’s not gonna keep saying no to guys forever. God help me if today’s the day she meets some smooth-talking tech CEO on one of her flights. Come on, Charlotte.Please.”
Charlotte sighs. “Okay, I tell you what, Pirate Boy. I won’t give you my friend’s number—trust me, that would be a cluster fuck of epic proportions for all involved—but I’ll give her yours.”
“No, no, no.Please,” I choke out. “I’ve been sitting around with my thumb up my ass, waiting for a phone call from my hacker-friend for what seems like my whole life. I physicallyneedto take control of this situation now.”
