“Should I pay for the full two hours?” I asked. It’s not that I’m stingy or anything, but I hate overpaying for parking.
“Do you feel this is a half-an-hour-, hour-, or two-hour-long conversation?”
“Let me pay for the full two hours.”
Once I dealt with the Los Angeles Bureau of Parking Management, we walked aimlessly on Broadway in the direction opposite our respective homes at the Eastern Columbia. It was as if he also didn’t want to get home and continue with that life where we pretended not to know each other—a pretense I had forced us to follow.
“Okay, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I started. “But you really don’t have to worry about Victor.”
“How do you know he’s not hurt or jealous?”
“He could be, but I seriously doubt it.”
“Is that what you think about all your boyfriends? That we don’t care?”
“Oh my god. Enough with the melodrama and the accusations! This is why I have been avoiding this conversation for months! Can we please stop mixing things.” I may have been yelling.Again. “Let’s talk about Victor if youreallyneed to. I don’t think I’m quite done with the Gloria Kingsley thing. And then we can move tous.”
“Is there an us?”
“You tell me.” We both stopped walking.
We looked at each other in a way we hadn’t really in months, perhaps even years. We let our eyes do the talking for a moment, the same way we’ve been doing those past few months of limited words and unlimited lust. But I hadn’t recalled David staring at me with that raw, sexy smirk since we were both barely out of college and had just started fooling around.
For the second time in two days, I thought he was about to kiss me. And for the second time in as many days, I was certainIwas going to do it.
This could have really happened here, and no story editor would have batted an eyelash or complained about it taking place too early in the heroine’s journey. It was the perfect time for a little release and some making out that would leave the reader and me wanting more.
Only, and I’m sorry to let you down here but think about how disappointedI was, there was no kiss.
“Why is there a guy who looks awfully like the Troubelmakr coming this way and looking at us?” David said. It would seem that at some point, he’d stopped directing his attention solely to me to gaze over my head.
I turned toward where David’s eyes were fixed on the horizon and recognized the same man I’d seen the day before in front of our building. Only this time, I wasn’t feeling a chill but actual fear.
“Is he holding a hammer?” David squinted to get a better view of the Troubelmakr. This may not be the best place to tell you about it, but David is a bit nearsighted. He’d never appreciated my belief that with his black hair and squared jawline, he’d look like a sexier Clark Kent if he ever chose to wear glasses. He never does—hence the squinting.
“A cell phone perhaps,” I contributed, also trying to see more clearly, as I suffered from my own myopia and lack of appropriate eyewear.
“I think you’re right. I don’t like him. Is he stalking us or what? I’m gonna go talk to him,” David said with a decisiveness I hardly knew he possessed. “Wait here.”
“Are you insane?” I protested, grabbing his arm and stopping his movement. “Since when have you started talking like the overprotective hero in a romance novel? Please sound like the reasonable writer that you are. He could be carrying a gun!”
“No, he isn’t,” David said, still set on confronting the man headed in our direction.
“It does look as if he’s coming for us, and he looksnothappy,” I protested.
This is what happens when you put two people used to typing all day in the middle of an action segment. Not only have we purposely forgotten our rimmed frames at home because we’re a bit vain, we take our time to analyze everything and argue. And we don’t necessarily react in the most smart or agile way.
“Definitely not a phone,” I said as I got a clearer view of what the Troubelmakr was wielding in his right hand. It didn’t look like a gun but was weapon-adjacent, and he picked up his speed. “Run!” I shouted.
In all honesty, I had only reached that urgent conclusion once I asked myself the one pressing question:What would Tom Cruise do?
David seemed about to protest, but I grabbed his hand and steered us in the direction opposite to the unhinged guy holding an unidentified object. David was forced to follow me. I wasnotgoing to let the man I may have been harnessing strong feelings for confront a possibly armed person, no matter how brave and full of bravado he felt.
In case you were garnering any doubts—which, if you have been paying any attention, you shouldn’t—no, of course I am not a runner. When it comes to exercise, I limit myself to a strict diet of yoga of the stretching-but-not-really-the-push-up-heavy kind on Saturday mornings followed by mimosas and avocado toast topped with mushroom bacon.
So scarcely half a block of running and I was already panting and sweating profusely. Did I mention Broadway was even more full than usual of people pretending LA is a walkable city?
I was straining my neck from all the checking behind to see how much closer the Troubelmakr was getting and, at the same time, trying to swerve all the pedestrians on the sidewalk.
