Mister O(77)

Spencer covers his ears. “La la la. I don’t want to hear.”

As he continues to hum, I tell Charlotte more than I’d ever admit to him. “Yes, it did. Completely. We were in sync. You know? The way she looked at me. The things she said . . .” My voice trails off. I don’t tell her how I felt in bed with Harper last night, but I know she had to feel the same way.

Tell me you feel it, too.

Just the memory of last night lights me up.

I replay the moments in the cab before she left Manhattan, and how we finally admitted how much we wanted to see each other.

I rewind to what Harper said after running into Jillian. I’d thought she was trying to box me up in the friendship zone. But what if she was trying to do the same thing I was doing—make sure we were something, at least? That we didn’t lose each other? Because something is better than nothing. I replay all the moments we shared—her asking me to take her to the train station because she wanted to see me, her showing up after midnight in a cape, her bringing me ice cream, and giving me detergent and pencils, and taking me to the shower showroom, and coming to Gino’s party, and throwing the bowling match, and giving me my librarian fantasy, and even wearing lingerie for me. My God, the fantastic, heavenly, unholy lingerie she wears that drives me out of my mind. She turns me on, and she makes me happy, and she inspires me and—

Charlotte interrupts my reverie. “I think the question isn’t whether she should tell you not to go to L.A. The question is whether you want to go. If you do want to go to L.A., perhaps you should ask her to go with you.”

She’s brilliant. Totally brilliant. I’ve done this all wrong, and I need to fix the mess I’ve made. I stand. “You’re right. I need to go.”

I kiss her on the cheek, clap Spencer on the shoulder, and scratch Fido under the chin. He arches a haughty eyebrow, but I know he approves because we love the same girl. As I leave, Charlotte turns to Spencer and says, “I won. Gummi Bears are on you tonight.”

When I leave, I cab it uptown to my house, grab some files, then head to Tyler’s office where I tell him to call Gino’s bluff.





37





If this were one of J. Cameron’s romance novels, the hero would hire a skywriter to pen the heroine’s name across the blue canvas above us. Or he’d stop the airplane at the gate and profess his love. Maybe he’d even tell the woman he adores that he only had eyes for her on a Jumbotron at a packed baseball game.

But this is my life, and Harper’s life.

One thing I know to be true about the woman I’m crazy for is that while she might like public kisses, she’s not one for public declarations of love.

That’s why I don’t do any of those things. I don’t buy flowers. Or chocolate. Or balloons. Or a teddy bear. I don’t grab a boom box and play Peter Gabriel outside her window. Instead, with an eight by twelve envelope in hand, I head to her building and press the button for her apartment.

It rings, and it rings, and it rings.

I take a deep breath.

Maybe she’s in the shower. I look at my watch. It’s two in the afternoon.

I buzz again.

And it rings, and it rings, and it rings.

I grab my phone from my back pocket. Maybe I should have called first. I definitely should have called first. This was f*cking stupid. She could be anywhere. She could be doing a magic show.

Okay, maybe not on a Monday afternoon.

Wait. I snap my fingers. She said she was taking a class. Then doing laundry. I slide open the screen to call her, and when I see a message from her, my heart goes into overdrive. Holding my breath, I click open the text.

I learn she’s doing none of the above.

Princess: Where are you? The doorman is ringing, and ringing, and ringing.





That note is followed by another.

Princess: Oh, you could be anywhere. I guess I could call. My phone is bi-directional after all.





My heart soars at her words. She’s at my house. Holy shit, she’s at my house. I dial her number, but before I can hit send, my phone beeps. “I’m at your building,” I say as soon as I answer her call.

“I’m at yours,” she says, and I can hear something like lightness in her voice, like hope. I want to clutch the possibility of what it might mean tight in my hands.

“I have an idea,” I say, thinking quickly. “Meet me in the middle?”

“Eighty-Fourth Street then?” She lives on Ninety-Fifth, and I’m on Seventy-Third.

“I love it when you do math. Yes, meet me at Central Park and Eighty-Fourth.”

“Are you Ubering it or walking?”

“Walking.”

Ten minutes later, I stand by the park entrance, under the bronze and wine-red leaves of a cherry tree, as afternoon traffic whizzes by. I pace, waiting for her, searching for her, until I see her, walking fast, practically running to me.

My heart beats like a wild bird, and I don’t know how it can stay inside my chest. I have no idea what she’s going to say, or why she was at my house, or what’s going on, but she’s here now. She came to find me, and the last time she came to find me was the start of our first real night together.

The autumn breeze blows her hair, red strands floating past her cheeks as she marches right up to me, looks me square in the eyes, and says, “I’m in love with you, Nick. If you ask me to go with you, I will.”