WHERE MARCUS DISCOVERS BARRY MANILOW AND I DISCOVER I MIGHT BE IN TROUBLE.
Imade it exactly three blocks before my phone started buzzing with a new notification.
Marcus Chen is heading your way! Get ready to connect!
“What the?—”
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the screen. A little map had appeared, showing a dot labeled “Marcus” moving steadily toward a dot labeled “You.” The dots were getting closer.
“That’s not creepy at all,” I muttered. “That’s not creepy and invasive and a complete violation of?—”
The dot stopped. Right on top of mine.
I looked up.
Marcus Chen was standing at the end of the block, holding his phone like it had personally offended him, staring at me with an expression of barely contained fury.
“YOU,” he said.
“Me.”
“Your address appeared on my laptop AND phone. With DIRECTIONS.” He stalked toward me, phone thrust out likeevidence. “I was reorganizing my inventory. Minding my own business. Alphabetizing estate sale acquisitions. And then your FACE appeared on my screen with a message that said—” he squinted at it with visible disgust—”Your cosmic connection is waiting! Don’t let her get away!”
“I am so sorry.”
“SORRY doesn’t explain why a dating app I never downloaded has decided we’re SOULMATES.” He was close enough now that I could see the vein pulsing in his temple. “I don’t HAVE dating apps. I don’t WANT dating apps. I was perfectly happy being digitally invisible and romantically unavailable.”
“I didn’t do this on purpose?—”
“My shop radio started playing LOVE SONGS. Barry Manilow. I don’t even know any Barry Manilow!” His voice cracked slightly on the second Barry Manilow. “The radio has opinions about jazz. It has NEVER played Barry Manilow. And now it won’t stop. It’s been ‘Mandy’ on repeat for forty-five minutes.”
Despite everything, I felt my mouth twitch. “That does sound like a nightmare.”
“It IS a nightmare. It’s MY nightmare. And apparently it’s YOUR fault.”
A woman walking her dog suddenly turned around and walked back where she came from when she got near us. A man on the other side of the street stopped to watch like we were street theater. Somewhere behind me, I heard a familiar voice call out: “Foxy lady! Is that your cosmic connection? He seems stressed!”
Greg. Still following me. Fortunately still unable to breach Margaret’s ward around my apartment, but apparently very invested in my love life from a distance.
“Can we maybe not do this on the street?” I asked Marcus. “There are… witnesses.”
“The man in the leisure suit?”
“Among others.”
Marcus looked past me to where Greg was waving enthusiastically from across the street. Brad had appeared next to him, still in his neon crop top, attempting to take a photo with a disposable camera he’d apparently acquired somewhere.
“Why is that man dressed like an aerobics instructor from 1985?”
“Because I think he IS an aerobics instructor from 1985. It’s a whole thing.” I gestured toward my apartment building. “I live right there. There are people inside who might be able to explain. Witchy people.”
“Witchy people.”
“It’s a whole thing,” I said again, because honestly, what else was there to say?
He stared at me for a long moment. Then sighed—a deep, defeated exhale that seemed to come from somewhere around his shoes.
“Lead the way.”
