Chapter 1
Tattoo Guy
“It’s not stalking—it’s getting coffee.”The voice coming from behind me wasn’t as quiet as the speaker probably thoughtit was, because even though it was low, it was still perfectly clear in thebusy coffee shop.
“It’s stalking when you do it just tofollow someone.” Where the first voice had been teasing and slightly sarcastic,the second was…sweeter somehow. Even if the words had been boring, I think thedifference would’ve drawn my attention.
“It would be stalking if you keptobsessively walking past a store and trying to follow him home.” There was anunsaidduhin the voice that made me want to laugh. But since I seemedto be the object of theirnot-stalking, I thought it might beinappropriate, or chase them off. Neither of which was the goal at that point.
The second voice still sounded skeptical.“Okay, yeah…that’sreallystalking, but I think this counts too.”
“It’s not like we’re here every day. Threetimes a week isn’t stalking.” There was a confidence in the first voice thatmade me want to grin. Even if the topic was crazy, he was firmly convinced hewas right. While the second one wasn’t putting up much of a fight, I had afeeling that whatever they were doing, it was all the first voice’s idea.
“I’m not sure there’s a weekly limit on stalkingsessions. I mean, even if you just do it once a week, I think it still counts.”There was an earnestness and almost innocence about the second voice that mademe want to turn around and see who it belonged to.
Which was even stranger than the actualconversation I was overhearing.
Especially since the voice belonged to aman.
“There have to be weekly limits, otherwiseif you just ended up at the same grocery store as someone else on a regularbasis then you could consider it stalking.” I could almost picture the first voicerolling his eyes. There was no way I would be able to keep a straight face, asfunny as they were. But thankfully, they were behind me and wouldn’t be able totell.
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s the intent thatmatters.” I had to put down my drink as the second guy spoke, because eventhough I was trying not to laugh, my hand was still shaking.
The first voice grunted, clearly thinkingthe second guy was crazy. “Do you want to get your fix of all that tattooedsexiness, or do you want to be a functional adult? You can’t have it bothways.”
A grin broke out across my face. Tattooedsexiness, huh? And I wasn’t sure what stalking had to do with being an adult; thepossibility of jail time probably shouldn’t be a deciding factor of whether tocount yourself as an adult.
But did that mean the new guy was too youngto date?
The randomness of the question had my grinfading. Why did I even care how old he might be?
“Don’t forget to drink your coffee. If we getback to work and you haven’t had any, they’re going to ask us what we weredoing here so long.” The owner of the first voice definitely had moreexperience with being devious. “Remember the other day, you had to throw outalmost an entire mocha.”
The second guy sighed. “But I wasdistracted. He had that other guy with him, and I couldn’t tell what they weretalking about.”
My brain flashed to the meeting he’dwatched. I’d been talking with Stan, the owner of the shop I worked at. We’dbeen talking about the possibility of me buying into the business. It had beenan intense discussion, so I could understand how my stalker had gottendistracted and how I’d never noticed.
“And that’s why I told you we had to sitcloser. If you want to learn more about him, you’re either going to have to geta tattoo or sit closer. You just picked sitting closer.” The first voicesounded like he thought getting the tattoo was a better idea. Curious.
“Tattoos are permanent. I think he’s hotand sweet, but that’s no reason to have him shoot needles into my body.” Okay,so the second voice wasn’t sold on tattoos yet. Not that I wanted him to getone just because he was curious about me.
Which was still incredibly interesting. Iwasn’t sure I'd ever been stalked before, especially by someone who’d evenconsidered getting a tattoo just to get closer to me.
Although the first voice was right, Iwasn’t sure I’d call timing our coffee trips to coincide as stalking. The firstguy snorted. “I saw you browsing around tattoo options yesterday. Don’t give methat shit. We both know you’ve been thinking about getting one since you firstsaw the guy.”
“That doesn’t matter. Even if I go in andget one that I absolutely love, I’d think of him every time I saw the tattooand that would just be terrible. He’s probably a straight guy who’s married toa sexy blonde biker chick who’s the mother of his three children. I’m notdelusional, just stalking.”
“It’s okay. We all have to fall for a straightguy at least once. It’s some kind of rule. Especially when it's someone politeand covered in tattoos.” I couldn’t tell if the first voice was serious or not,but I had a feeling he was just trying to make the second guy feel better.
I wasn’t covered in tattoos. I just had acouple.
“You’re right.” He sounded like it was theworst thing in the world. “I actually have a date with a real person thisweekend. One my mother set me up with…some guy from her church, or maybe it washer hairdresser, I don’t remember. We’re supposed to go out to dinner.”
The first guy giggled. “Oh God, that’sgoing to go bad. There’s no way to tell him what you do without your motherfinding out. Is he open-minded?”
What did they do for a living?
If it was illegal, they wouldn’t be talkingabout it at a coffee shop, right?
