No reaction.Tough crowd.
Clearing my throat, I try again. “Go on.”
The weird sisters stare at me.
“Please.”
“There’s a woman, here in San Francisco, named Felicity Love,” Clo tells me. “And she must be stopped at all costs.” With a loudwhap, Clo slaps a piece of paper onto the table before sliding it toward me.
“That’s really interesting, but, uh…what does any of that have to do with me?”
Then she lifts her hand, and I see that it’s not a piece of paper, but a picture. And the picture is of my mystery bombshell.
Felicity. I let the name roll around in my mind.Felicity Love. A huge grin spreads across my face.
“Leave it to me, ladies.”
Clo, Lala, and Attie exchange looks. “We haven’t even told you the details yet.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “I’m in.”
4
Felicity
I should not have had that final drink last night, I think as I press my hands to my clammy temples.
I’m such a lightweight these days—completely aged out of the party years when I could hold down my share of drinks—that even the couple of drinks I had left me nursing a hangover this morning. Luckily, I’m my own boss, so no one’s looking over my shoulder to make sure I get work done. Unluckily, I’m a Type A personality, and I don’t know how to take a day off.
So here I am, sitting in my rented coworking space—a windowless cage I pay dearly for just to be part of this tech rat race—with the lights turned low. I’m slowly sipping a drink that’s marketed for children but has gotten me through many tough hangovers in the past. Between sips of electrolytes, I take swigs of lukewarm black coffee to get my energy levels up. With my headphones on, the lights dimmed, and a room temperature cup of coffee by my mouse pad, I managed to enter a sort of work nirvana while debugging code.
I’m not sure I’ve even looked up from my computer in that same amount of time. So it’s incredibly jarring when the lightsin my office flicker like I’m in a horror movie before going out completely. All that remains to light the room is the reedy blue glow of my laptop. I gulp, only alittlefreaked out.
Must just be a motion-sensor thing.Some new setting to conserve energy. Disregard that I have worked in this same office pretty much every day for months and never had this happen before. Things can change without my knowledge, I remind myself. However much I wish that weren’t the case.
Either way, I’m unsettled enough to decide to take a break. Maybe get something to eat.This is just the universe’s way of making me buy a muffin, obviously.
I’m unplugging my headphones when I hear a deep voice say, “You’ve got to come up for air every once in a while, Felicity.”
I jump, knocking over my coffee mug and staining the front of my white shirt. As I’m scrambling to protect my laptop from the spillageanddig through my bag to find the pepper spray I always keep on me, the lights come on all at once.
Leaning against the door frame, one leg crossed leisurely in front of the other, is the stranger from the bar. Same dark wash jeans, same leather jacket and white t-shirt, same gelled, coiffed hair. His arms are crossed as he eyes me smugly from the doorway.
Ridiculously, and against all survival instincts, I skip right past being creeped the fuck out to being annoyed by his sudden presence. A small part of me is, stupidly, disappointed that the guy I met last night might be a stalker. Because of course he would be—the one nice man I’ve connected with in a long time is a toxic weirdo, surprise, surprise! And I feel justified once again in developing my anti-dating app to avoid situations like this.
But a smaller, even more shameful part of me isalmosthappyto see him. I knock that thought away before it can get more oxygen.
“You!” I say dumbly, pointing a shaky finger at the intruder. My other hand keeps digging through the dregs of my tote bag for the pepper spray. Maybe he’s not a stalker here to kill me and wear my skin, but I’m not taking any chances.
“Me,” he responds calmly. Just that one word, and nothing more. Still leaning against the door frame, still the picture of unflappable cool.
“Are you stalking me or something?” I ask as I try to keep calm—and keep him talking.
He laughs, and it’s just like I remember from last night. Carefree. Infectious.Psychopathic, perhaps?
His insouciance only pisses me off more—and while I’m still desperately seeking my bottle of pepper spray, I’m also overcome with the need to tell this jackass off.
“Do you really need a Valentine’s date so badly that you’d resort tostalking? Kind of pathetic, don’t you think?” I start babbling to distract him, to keep himover therewhile I’m over here, fingers creeping infinitesimally closer to that elusive bottle of pepper spray.
