Brielle raises her hands in mock surrender, lips curling into a devilish smile. “Okay, okay, but hear me out. Don’t you think there’s something magnetic about a man who listens that closely and then acts on it?”
Marissa crosses her arms. “Magnetic? No. More like intrusive, creepy, and illegal.”
My phone rests on the table, screen still aglow with the photo of that napkin.
I glance out the window toward the street just beyond the glass. He could be out there, watching me right now.
That thought shouldn’t send a rush through me. It shouldn’t make my breath catch or my pulse race the way it does.
But I won’t let them see it.
I lift my mimosa and take a slow sip. “If he’s watching, he knows I’ve involved the police. He’ll back off. Problem solved.”
Marissa leans in, brows drawn tight. “If he’s done his homework, he’s figured out who you are in this city. He doesn’t want to fuck with you.”
Brielle shrugs, her eyes never leaving mine. “We should go through every photo from last night. Maybe he’s in one of them.”
Duh. I’m a fucking ADA. Why didn’t I think of that?
Eden nods, already pulling out her phone. “Oh, that’s a good idea.”
Marissa opens her gallery, eyes scanning the screen. “I took a ton of pictures that night. He has to be in one of them.”
I open mine too. Group selfies. Laughing faces. Us, front and center. Behind us? Nothing. No strangers lurking. No shadowed figures looking at us from the edges. Just the usual—warm lights, brick walls, distracted waitstaff. Nothing suspicious.
Marissa’s photos are more of the same.
Brielle flips through hers. Still nothing.
Then Eden, always the detail-obsessed one, pulls up a wide-angle shot she took. It’s the full bar—dim, moody, scattered bodies and flickering candles. She scrolls back, then freezes.
“Wait. This could be something.”
She taps the screen and zooms in. “What about this guy?”
We all lean in.
The photo is grainy, softened by the low light, but there’s a man at the bar behind us. Broad shoulders, dark clothes, sitting alone.
My pulse jumps. “Y’all, that might be him.”
Eden squints. “You can’t even see his face. Just the back of his head and his build.”
I lean closer, eyes narrowing. “The clothes match. It’s what he was wearing in the footage outside my house.”
Brielle points. “Wait—look in the mirror. Behind the bar. That reflection.”
And there it is. Half a face. Powerful jaw. Shadowed eyes.
Brielle grins. “He’s hot.”
Marissa scowls. “Brielle, can you not?”
“What?” Brielle shrugs, unapologetic. “He is.”
I pinch the screen and zoom in, but the more I enlarge it, the worse it gets. Pixels blur into static, and details smudge into suggestions.
Hell, I couldn’t pick him out in a lineup.
