It’s the nickname.
Lindy girl.
He said it like it belonged to me.Like it belonged tohim.
Because it does.
Because no one, absolutely no one, ever calls me that except for Cassius.The man I don’tknow, not really.The man who, until just now, existed only as words on a screen and a question mark in my chest.
And then the memory clicks into place: streetlight.My ribs remember before my head does.That night the lamp stuttered, and the air felt like it had a pulse.The man who stopped ten feet away and still felt closer than anyone ever has.Same gravity.Same hush.Different man, I tell myself.Streetlight is a silhouette with a heartbeat.He’s a burn that licked up my spine and left me trembling.Cassius is words that steady me and wind me tighter at the same time.Every text he sends makes my thighs press together.Grocery-store husband?He’s heat and touch and nerve.His mouth at my cheek, palm at my wrist, had a spark igniting low and made my knees go weak.
I try to reason through it, because if I don’t, I’ll spiral.Maybe it was a coincidence.Maybe he overheard the conversation with the spice guy and decided to jump in.Maybe I dropped my phone, and he saw my messages.Maybe I said my name out loud, and he guessed.
None of those maybes happened.And the truth is just as insane.Three versions of the same fire pull.Grocery-store man has to be Cassius, because I cannot have three mystery men orbiting me.Two already feel like too many, a shadow and a voice, but the one who used my name out loud?That’s him.
Which leaves the worst question humming under my skin: if grocery-store man is Cassius… How the hell did he find me?
I clutch the edge of the cart, forcing my knees to stay solid.I make myself do the rules.Plant my feet.Breathe.Catalog my surroundings.Oregano, sugar, flour, the exit sign.I count the labels facing forward in my cart, place in another can and turn it to match.I should be scared, right?I should be heading straight for customer service to report him, or at the very least call someone—anyone—to tell them a stranger whispered sweet nothings in my ear and I liked it.But I’m not scared.Not really.
I’m rattled.I’m buzzing.I’m awake in a way I haven’t been in months, or my whole life.
Because when he leaned in close and said,I’ll play the part of your husband any day, Lindy girl.Just say the word,”I didn’t want to run.
I wanted to say yes.
That’s the problem.
I finish my list, muscle memory, milk, coffee, bread, checking each item twice and then a third time because my chest is still tight.I can’t help looking for him each time I turn down a new aisle.It’s not the creepy guy I’m looking for, it’s the one who saved me.He said I’m safe.He said it, and I believe him.
Back in my apartment, I unpack and line the groceries along the counter’s edge, labels facing out, tallest to shortest.The kitchen ghost watches from his usual corner, wearing his charcoal suit and Bolo-Hat, hands folded, patient as always.He doesn’t blink when I wipe the countertop in three deliberate passes, or when I relabel the flour jar because the sticker bubbled.
They come more when I’m unsettled.I’ve tracked it for years.The big life changes, the loud days, and the nights I can’t slow my breathing.Boom, the room fills.When I’m steady, they thin to a shimmer.Tonight he’s crisp as a photograph, which tells me everything I need to know about the state of my nervous system.Anxiety makes patterns where there aren’t any, I know that.Still, I can’t shake the feeling that the more my life tilts, the more the dead line up to watch what I do next.
No wonder he’s so sharp tonight.New job with names I don’t know and hallways that echo; Wyatt’s polite disappointment packaged as lunch; the grocery-store husband I invented and a stranger stepped into like it already belonged to us; boxes that still smell like tape; a city that hums even when I beg it to hush; Mila’s name on my calendar grayed out again; and Cassius—words that steady me and shake me at the same time.Stressors multiply; the dead get crisp.That’s always been the math.
When my life tilts, they root like paperweights on the corners and keep me from blowing off the counter.He’s prominent because everything else is so loud.Moving here, learning a new office environment, the almost-date with Wyatt, the electricity still in my veins from the man under the streetlight, the magic of a wrong text that gave me Cassius.If I were calmer, he’d blur.If I were braver, maybe he’d leave.
The deadbolt is locked.Checked twice, then once more, because three loosens the band around my ribs.The encounter replays in my mind for the umpteenth time, and I reach for my phone, scrolling through the texts from Cassius.Iknowit was him.The way he said my name,Lindy girl, a secret slipped between us.No one else calls me that.No one elsecould.
I want to say something:Did you follow me?Was that really you?Why didn’t you stay?But what would that change?Iknowit was him.And if I admit it out loud—if I send the message—I open a door I’m not sure I’m ready to walk through.Because if he’s willing to come find me, what else is he willing to do?
More importantly… What am I willing to let him do?
I close the messages and slide the phone under my pillow because it’s safer if it’s touching me.I chose to hold onto the mystery.That lasts four minutes.I pull it out and check the battery.61%.I plug it in and wait until it hits a round number.64.65.Better.I put it face-down, then face-up, then compromise by lining it with the nightstand’s edge.
Sleep doesn’t come.The image of his retreating back in the grocery store haunts me.It’s late but he doesn’t strike me as the type of man who has a bedtime.I roll over, unplug my phone from the charger, pull up our message thread and type out,
are you awake?
and hit send before I can second-guess the lowercase.
I don’t bother plugging my phone back in.I open up my reading app.and tell myself that I’ll give him one chapter to reply otherwise I’ll force myself to go to sleep.My phone pings three sentences in.
Cassius:
This city never sleeps.
But do you?
