I have to clear my throat a few times before being able to mumble, “Hey.”
“I was just leaving,” Johnny says as he crosses back to get his briefcase. “Do you have a spare key, or should I have a copy made?”
“Um. We have a spare. Cal, can I give Johnny the spare key?”
“Sure, it’s in the kitchen cupboard.”
I get him the spare key, although I don’t recall agreeing to it. I can still feel his lips on my forehead, and my brain isn’t completely functional yet. He texts his driver to pick him up. “Great, thank you. Sanjay will be in touch shortly. Let’s see… Anything else?”
“Do you want me to wait with you downstairs?” I ask.
“No, I have to make some calls,” he says. “Lovely to meet you, Callie. Is that short for Calliope?”
“It can be, but my name is actually Callie.”
“Interesting,” he says as he walks past her.
I wait for him to call out goodbye or that he’ll talk to me later, but all I hear is him saying “Call Sanjay” into his phone, and then the front door opens and shuts.
I am touching my lips because they still want so badly to kiss something when my eyes meet Callie’s.
“Tell me everything about that guy immediately,” she stage whispers.
I have no idea what to tell her, because the more I learn about John, the less I understand.
CHAPTER 5
JOHN
ONE WEEK AGO
I’ve been so focused on wooing a sixty-two-year-old British professor lately that when Monty asks me what’s up in my personal life, I have to think long and hard to remember the last time I took someone out on a date. It was two months ago. The daughter of one of my MIT profs was in Palo Alto for job interviews, and I had agreed to take her to dinner. She was attractive and friendly, and I was so bored that I faked a migraine at the end of the night. There are a few women who regularly text me to see if I want to “hang out,” and occasionally I do “hang out” with them as a means of relieving stress. And then I leave as soon as they start asking me if I ever get lonely.
I never get lonely. Ever. But I do miss certain people, including Monty. He has established himself in Chicago as the tech guy at a major venture-capital firm. I keep asking him to come out to Palo Alto to work with me, but he refuses. It’s a shame.
I choose to tell Monty that there’s no one special at the moment and that a high-end matchmaking service routinely reaches out to me to see if I’m interested, but I’m not.
“Why aren’t you interested?” he asks.
The restaurant he’s chosen is crowded and noisy. It’s unlike him to choose a place like this. Halfway between his hotel and my apartment, I suppose. I pretend I didn’t hear him as I finish my glass of Malbec. He won’t let me get away with it, but it gives me a moment to practice myI’m definitely not thinking about your sister right nowface.
He leans in across the table and speaks louder. “Why aren’t you interested in the matchmaking service?”
We don’t talk about our personal lives very often. There is so much else for us to talk about. But ever since Monty started dating a woman in Chicago who he really likes a few months ago, he has gotten more inquisitive.
“Busy,” I say.
“That’s exactly why people use the service.”
“Is it?”
“You aren’t hung up on that model, are you?”
“God, no.”
“She still stalking you?” he asks.
“I wouldn’t call it stalking. She only showed up at my house that one time. And the new doorman in Tribeca isn’t a pushover like the old one. Last I heard, she’s in Europe. I haven’t responded to her texts or calls for months, so she hasn’t done it much lately.”
