“And how are we going to do that?”
“You’ll see.”
Stalker Problems - Chapter 34 - Garlic and Holy Water
Tuesday – May 9, 2023
The next few weeks were a blur of work, dates, and spa visits.
Spa visits were the smallest portion of my time, but the time I spent worrying about them was significant. I still wasn’t used to lying there completely naked while Moroccan women did weird things to my lady bits. And by that, I mean waxing. Not like…molesting me.Ew. The only inappropriate touching going on at the Shifting Sands Spa was happening between Chastity and Hassan the handsy masseur.
Then there was the work, or, as I liked to call it: Tanner Time. At first I came in every day hoping that I’d succeed in making him jealous enough to sneakily deliver me a Society date card. Or, if he was really feeling crazy, maybe he’d just ask me out on a for-realsies date. Alas, the date cards never arrived.
Which brings me to the third and final way I spent my time: dates. Not Society dates. I hadn’t been invited to one since the app magically fixed itself on my phone. These were just normal dates. Three in total, all with Dr. Lyons. One was to a Broadway performance ofPlaying a Player. The other two were just dinner dates. It was always tempting to invite him back to my apartment for more Gossip Girl binging, but I always chickened out. As crazy as it sounds, I was too worried about the sex. Yes, I know I almost raped him within 10 minutes of meeting him. But that was spur of the moment. When I had time to anticipate it, I would always get all sweaty and gassy. Which were not thebest two ingredients for sexy time. Normally I would have asked my doctor why that happened to me when I thought about sex. But he was my doctor. So I couldn’t even get medical help. Also, it was possible that I was maybe subconsciously holding out for Tanner.
I would always make a point to gush about my dates (both real and fictional) in front of Tanner, but he never cracked. Chastity thought that he was passive-aggressively giving us extra work on date nights and trying to bribe us to stay at the office with food. Maybe she was right. Or maybe it was a coincidence. I wasn’t sure which.
All I knew was that I wasn’t getting invited to any Society events. And to me, that meant he wasn’t interested. Or maybe he was playing hard to get when I was supposed to be the one playing hard to get. Or maybe he was just respecting my assertion that I was 100% not interested in him.
No. That wasn’t it. He had made it very clear that he believed me being with him would put me in danger. I just didn’t understand how. I mean…no mobsters had shown up at the office and tried to break any kneecaps. In fact, no one had even had a heated argument with him. At least not that I had seen. And I definitely didn’t watch him through his office windows all day or anything like that…
Okay, fine! I watched him all the time. But it was strictly for security reasons.
“Pssst…look at this,” whispered Chastity. I stopped staring at Tanner and spun my chair around to see what Chastity wantedto show me. She was holding her phone out. The gallery app was open.
“Uh, why are you showing me thirty really poor-quality photos of Tanner?” I asked.
“They’re not poor quality,” said Chastity.
“Really? Because they’re blurrier than every photo my mom has ever taken with a camera phone. What’s so hard about it? You just point it at the person, tap their face, and then take the picture.”
“I know how to take a picture. I’m not a 60-year-old woman.”
I pointed to her gallery of blurry pictures. “Not based on that evidence.”
“Then you try.”
“Fine.” I pulled out my phone and discreetly snapped a picture of Tanner in his office. “See…easy.”
“Then why’s his face blurry?”
“What?” I looked down at the photo. Sure enough, everything was perfectly in focus except for Tanner’s face. “Let me try again.” I snapped another. Same blurry garbage. And my third photo, taken in professional mode with all the settings perfectly dialed in by hand, turned out just as bad. Or worse, if that was possible.
“See,” said Chastity. “I knew he was a vampire!”
“Since when is poor picture quality a sign of vampirism? I thought they just didn’t have reflections in mirrors?”
Chastity held up her copy of Twilight. “The literature is inconclusive.”
I rolled my eyes. “It seems more likely that one of his companies developed some privacy tech that automatically blurs pictures of him.”
“That sounds just as farfetched as my vampire idea. Dude is hiding something. And it’s not a mafia connection or a Christmas elf situation here. I swear he’s a vampire. Can we puh-leasssse just run a few tests on him?”
That was the third time this week that Chastity asked. Which meant I was literally incapable of denying her. Besides, I really did want to figure out why Tanner kept pushing me away. “Fine.”
Chastity gave me a shopping list, and an hour later we reconvened on the sidewalk outside the office. My feet ached from running all over the city finding all the random crap on the list.
“Find everything?” she asked.
