“I can see it now,” Lark says, her eyes sparkling as she sits up straighter, one graceful hand held aloft. She clears her throat. “He can show you the world…” she sings. “Glittering something shiny… ‘I think our love can do anything that we want it to.’”
“You did not just mash up a butchered version of Aladdin with The Notebook. You have the voice of an angel, Lark Montague, but that is atrocious.”
Lark giggles and settles back into the couch as Constantine plays on my TV, a familiar backdrop in our limited roster of comfort movies. We watch for a moment in silence as Keanu traps a spider under a glass. “He could come to my house and catch spiders any day,” she says as she twinkles her fingers toward the screen. “Dark and broody and grumpy? Sign me up.”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve said that every one of the two hundred times we’ve watched this.”
“It’s peak Keanu. You can’t blame me.” Lark sighs and takes a fistful of popcorn from the bowl. “I’m on a dry spell. You’d think there would be some hot musician types on the road but they’re all way too emo. I just want to be tossed around a bit. Manhandled, you know? Call me a dirty little slut and I’m all for it. These cry-into-the-mic types aren’t doing it for me.”
I huff a laugh and toss a piece of popcorn in the air in a failed attempt to catch it with my mouth. “Don’t talk to me about dry spells. I’m going to need a supercomputer to calculate my days of celibacy at this rate.”
“Or—and hear me out,” Lark says with a slap to my arm when I groan. “You could take a little trip to Boston to visit your Butcher man and see about ending that dry spell. Fill that well, sister.”
“Gross.”
“Fill it up until it’s gushing. Overflowing.”
“You’re disturbing.”
“I bet he would oblige.”
“We’ve literally just been through this. We’re friends.”
“And you could be friends with extra perks. There’s no rule book to say you can’t fuck a friend and still stay friends,” Lark says. I try to ignore her and keep my eyes on the screen even though her gaze weighs like a hot veil against my cheek. When I finally look over, her teasing smile has faded into a knowing one. “But you’re scared.”
I look away again and swallow.
“I get it,” she says. Her hand folds over my wrist and she squeezes until I look at her. Lark’s smile is sunshine, and she’s always ready to share its bright light. “You’re right.”
My brow quirks. “About what?”
“That you’ll probably never meet someone like him again. That he’s probably the only one out there like you. That you could mess it up. Or he could let you down. Or that maybe your friendship could go up in flames. You’re right about all those worries that are circling around in your head. Maybe all of them are true. But maybe it shouldn’t matter, because everyone messes up. We all let each other down once in a while. And sometimes the best things come out of the fire.”
My voice is soft when I tell her a simple truth, “You’ve never let me down.”
“What if I do one day? Do you really think you wouldn’t give me the grace to correct my mistake?”
“Of course I would, Lark. I love you.”
“Then give Rowan a little grace too.”
My conflicted sigh does nothing to cleanse a sudden burst of nerves in my chest. Lark jostles my wrist until I roll my eyes. “Okay, okay. If I have a meeting in Boston, I’ll maybe see if he’s free to hang out.”
“You don’t have to have some excuse. I bet he’d love to see you. Just go. Even if it is just to be friends in person for more than once a year. You miss him, right?”
Christ, I do. I miss his faint accent and his big smile and his ever-present jokes. I miss his teasing and his warmth and how easy it is to just be myself around him, how nice it is to lay the mask aside. I miss the way he makes me feel like I’m not an aberration, but unique.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I do.”
“Then go,” Lark says as she snuggles herself beneath the blanket and grins at Keanu. “Go and have fun. You can do that more than once annually, you know.”
We fall into silence as I think about it.
And I continue thinking about it.
…For three more months.
And now I stand huddled in the entryway of a department store across the street from 3 In Coach for longer than any sane person probably would, just watching the wait staff and the patrons as the lunch rush tapers off to a quieter hum of activity. In true stalker fashion, I’ve looked up every article about the restaurant since its opening day seven years ago. Every photograph, to the end of the Google search results. Hundreds of reviews. I even found the blueprints from the planning permit submission. I could probably walk the place blindfolded and I’ve never even been inside.
Maybe it’s time to change that.
My bottom lip slides between my teeth as I drive my hands into the pockets of my wool trench and step into the bitter bite of an unseasonably cold spring wind.
Entering the restaurant, I’m greeted by the sound of trendy yet soulless music and a blonde bombshell hostess with a sparkling smile.
“Welcome to 3 In Coach. Do you have a reservation with us today?”
A pang of nerves rolls through my stomach as I glance toward the open expanse of dark wood tables and exposed brick. “No, sorry.”
“No problem. For how many?”
“Just me.”
The woman’s gaze rakes over my hair where it’s laying across my shoulder before meeting my eyes with a chagrined smile, as though she was caught doing something she shouldn’t. “Sure thing. Right this way.”
I follow the hostess into the dining room and before I can request a specific spot, she leads me to a semi-circular booth along the back wall rather than one of the smaller tables in the center of the room. She takes the three unneeded place settings away and starts heading toward the kitchen, but a large group enters so she changes course and greets them instead.
The enormity of how stupid this is starts to seep into my veins like wriggling worms. I’ve let these unfamiliar emotions take over. Things like longing. And loneliness. It’s as though I’ve been thrown into the ocean, drowning in the swell, and suddenly I realize I could have put my feet down all along. I could have stood up and kept my bearings. It was all just my imagination.
I should just leave. This is dumb. Dumb and so stalkery. Not in a sexy stalker way either. More like a weird, creepy serial killer stalker way, which tracks. So I need to take off, before—
“Hey, my name is Jenna and I’ll be your server this afternoon. Can I get you something to drink?”
I sit back, pretending like I wasn’t just edging my way to the end of the booth, and glance up at Jenna. She’s even more stunning than the hostess, her face lit with a genuine, broad smile and her thick auburn hair pulled back in a perfect ponytail.
Why am I doing this to myself?
“Alcohol…” I say.
Jenna beams, sensing my anxiety. It’s something that’s always worked in my favor. A woman like Jenna, who unfolds the cocktail menu and suggests a few of her favorite drinks, would never suspect I’d be capable of murdering anyone.
All she sees is a nervous data scientist, weirded out by the beautiful, friendly, outgoing woman who’s just ordered me a frozen cucumber margarita which she insists is her favorite. It’s true, I am nervous and weirded out, not only by the drink option I apparently just ordered, but by this whole scenario of being an intruder in a space that feels too sacred to bend to my obsessions.
Maybe I need to big myself up. Positive thoughts, remember my strengths and all that shit. Because just as much as I might appear quiet and spooked on the outside, I am also a serial killer who enjoys vivisection and a bit of cartography.
And I also enjoy an annual murder competition.
And I might be increasingly attracted to another serial killer and now I’m not so sure if maybe Lark was right last year, that I’m losing my shit.
I try to latch on to the rational thoughts that are still swimming in the anxiety soup of my head like drowning flies. Rowan might not even be here today. Okay that’s a lie, I hacked into the restaurant schedule and he’d marked himself down for lunch service. So what if he’s here? Rowan is in the kitchen. If I got up to leave right now, he wouldn’t even know I was ever here.
I shuffle from the edge of the cushion to the middle of the booth where I’m sheltered by the high and curving backrest. It takes a minute to focus enough to actually read the menu, even though it’s short and well-structured, but by the time Jenna returns with my bright green drink, I’m ready to order.
And then stew in silence.
And drink in silence.
And eat in more silence.
I take out my burner phone and contemplate texting Rowan, but I end up putting it away when the pressure only makes me more antsy. I opt for a pen and my notebook instead, and flip to a new sheet of paper.
I pour my focus into translating the image in my mind into ink. The whole universe can collapse into a single page. Distractions ease, and my thoughts follow the lines of black ink, ideas and conversations existing in strokes of darkness rendered by my hand. Even when Jenna brings the charred Brussels sprouts and coconut curry soup, I barely notice, oblivious to the world around me.
At least, I am until the door opens and a boisterous group of seven enters the restaurant. I look up to lock eyes with a man I’ve never seen, but one whose features are unmistakably familiar.
Dark hair. Full lips slanted in a smirk. Tattoos that climb the side of his neck from beneath his collar. His arm is draped over the shoulders of a tiny brunette woman, the rings on his tattooed knuckles glinting beneath her perfect waves. He’s tall and powerfully built. Even with his leather jacket and thick sweater I can tell he’s basically a wall of muscle. And with those dark, predatory eyes that sharpen like a blade set to cut me, I know he’s trouble.
Big fucking trouble by the name of Lachlan Kane.
I break my gaze away as Jenna returns to my table with my dessert, a fig phyllo Napoleon. “I’m so sorry, but can I get a box for this and the bill please? Something’s come up and I have to get going.”
Jenna’s smile doesn’t falter. “Of course, it’s no problem. I’ll be right back.”
“Thanks.”
When my gaze returns to Lachlan, his attention is on a long table in the center of the room where his friends are finding their places, some already seated, others chatting as they take off their coats. But the second I pull my jacket closer across the seat to slide it on, his eyes snap back to mine, amusement coloring their dark hues with the kind of light that sets me on edge.
I drop my focus to my sketch and force myself not to look up as I shrug my jacket over my shoulders and fasten the buttons with a slight tremor in my fingers. Jenna arrives with the boxed dessert and I give her more than enough cash to cover the bill before she heads toward Lachlan’s table to gather drink orders. When I hear an Irish accent among the voices, I seize the opportunity to bolt, but not before tearing the drawing of a raven free from the notebook. Some part of me just wants to leave a little piece of myself behind, to exist in a place that means something to Rowan, if only for a moment. Maybe Jenna will throw it away. Or maybe she’ll pin it up somewhere in the kitchen. Maybe it will remain here long after I’ve found a hole to crawl inside to die.