“That shirt’s worth $700 retail.”
Bitzy sold merchandise online as a side hustle and knew the price of such things, so even though that seemed like an extravagant amount of money for a shirt, I didn’t doubt her.
“There was a man.” I glanced around again, hoping to catch sight of him.
“A man?” Bitzy said with a grin. “How mysterious.”
“I dumped wine on my shirt, and he switched with me. I didn’t know it was expensive. He didn’t give me his name,” I added in frustration.
“Sounds like you need toget Nathan Shields on the case,” she snarked. Nathan Shields was the name of my protagonist inCold Lake Chronicles. An ex-FBI profiler turned lodge owner who kicks off the series by finding a strangulated body in one of his rented rooms.
“How will I return it?” I asked, flummoxed.
She shrugged. She couldn’t be bothered. “I’m sure you’ll run into him again.”
In a city of eight million, it seemed unlikely. All he’d left me was his outrageously expensive, cloud-spun shirt and a first impression that would be impossible for me to forget.
Damnit.
2
the lunches
Through sheer luck and a blessing from the gods, I found him a few weeks later. I was reading through an author profile inGQ’sonline magazine when it suggested that I might also like to “Set My Pits Free with Spring’s Best Lightweight Sweaters.”
The photograph accompanying the appeal was my mysterious stranger, modeling a cable-knit sweater in a rose-quartz hue that complimented his tanned skin beautifully. A pair of reflective sunglasses perched on his slightly upturned nose, lowered enough that his duotone eyes were visible. The man should model for LASIK surgery.
I screenshotted the picture and sent it with the article link to Bitzy with a (somewhat desperate) plea.Can you find out who this is? I owe him a shirt.
Her report came back a few hours later, and it was detailed. First and last name, age, birthdate, social media handles, a profile done by his agency—he was, in fact, a professional model—links to more of his catalog work, and old headshots that showed a slightly younger and less composed version of him.
Arden Evans.
Were his parents lovers of Shakespeare? Was it a family name? A professional one? Did he dabble in porn? With looks like that, maybe so. Gay for pay?
I lost several hours to the illicit pleasures of stalking Arden Evans online. Facebook was a shell, Twitter only a little less so, but his Instagram was a treasure trove. I caught up with where he’d traveled over the past few years, the parties he’d attended, the clothes he’d modeled, and the company he’d kept. Bronzed, near-naked bodies were draped over his shoulders like flesh-colored scarves—a virtual Mount Rushmore of chiseled abs—but my eye was inevitably drawn to his eyes. A close second was that boyish grin, one that promised adventure.
Homosexual overtones dominated his feed, but there were no references to a partner or boyfriend. There wasn’t much meat to his captions either. Mostly the naming of places and events. Rather dry, I thought, feeling put out that I couldn’t glean more of his internal life from his photographs.
My eye caught on one advertisement in particular, where a tousled Arden was just waking in a brightly lit room of simplistic Swedish furniture. He wore a tank top—revealing for an Ikea ad—so that his toned arms caught the light streaming in from the window, fine blonde hairs shimmering in the sunlight. I glanced over at my own neatly made bed and imagined it.
Arden Evans.
Would it bethirstyof me to message him? I still had his outrageously expensive shirt. He’d want to know that it had been dry cleaned and was ready to be returned to him. That’d be the considerate thing to do. I was nothing if not considerate.
I snapped a picture of his shirt and sent it to him with the briefest of messages that I’m embarrassed to admit, took me an inordinate amount of time to compose:
I’d like to return this to you.
His response came hours later, while I was still embroiled in my online investigation. I was supposed to be outlining my next novel.
You found me! How?
I wrestled with an explanation that didn’t give off creepy stalker vibes. In the end, I sent him the screenshotted picture of his angular, masculine features in a contrastingly feminine sweater.
I was looking to set my pits free.
His response was a laughing emoji and even worse, the terrifying, immobilizing question:How do you want to do this?
