Nate was momentarily thrown by the simple question.
No, in fact she wasn’t expecting him. He was probably the last person she would expect to see.
He could tell a small white lie to make it easier to see her, but the truth was that he didn’t want to ambush her without any warning. Coming here was enough.
Nate cleared his throat. “No, she isn’t. Maybe if you could tell her that Nate is here she could come out for a couple of minutes?” He almost groaned at his painfully awkward words. Apparently, going back to being seventeen for a while had rubbed off on him.
The receptionist scrutinized him for a few seconds before she said, “One moment, please.” She picked up the receiver of her desk phone, speaking a few words into it that he could not make out.
Nate’s gaze wandered around the busy space again as he put his hands in his pockets in an attempt to stop himself from fidgeting.
Yep. Definitely high-school boy flashback.
The distinct sound of heels on a hard floor had Nate spinning around to face the source of it. A blonde woman around his age came to a stop a few feet away from him, offering him a small smile.
“Hello, sir. What can I help you with?”
Nate was silent for a moment, caught under the sudden feeling of crushing disappointment.
Was this who the Madison Pierce of the profile actually was? Had he gotten it so terribly wrong?
He felt himself choking but he pushed through it to ask the question he desperately needed to.
“I’m sorry, are you Madison Pierce?”
The woman’s expression changed into one of barely concealed suspicion.
“No, my name is Stacie. Madison is out of office today. Is there something I can help you with?”
Nate’s relief was immediate, his lungs expanding with much needed breath.
“Oh. Actually, I was just looking for her. We’re old... um... friends and I wanted to talk to her.” Friends didn’t begin to cover what Madison was to him but he’d settle for that for now. It wasn’t as if it was a lie. Shewashis friend. Or at least she had been.
At his words, Stacie’s eyes narrowed further.
“Can you tell me your name to see if I can get a message to her?”
“Yes, my name is Nate Keaton.”
If Nate had blinked, he would have missed the moment of recognition that flashed in Stacie’s briefly widening eyes. She schooled her features immediately.
“Nate, you said?” she asked, her words definitely more clipped now than they’d been seconds before.
He nodded.
Stacie crossed her arms in front of her chest and ran her gaze over him in a way that clearly said she found him lacking.
Wow, she really knew how to make someone feel small.
She then looked him straight in the eyes.
“Are you the same Nate who helped my friend in the accident she almost had?”
He nodded seriously. Apparently, it was all he could do right now.
“Are you also the same Nate who didn’t even remember my friend’s name despite having known her pretty well in the past?”
Nate clenched his jaw hearing those words thrown back to him.
