Her jaw goes slack, and her eyes widen. “You were masterfully naughty.”
“That’s nothing compared to her revenge.”
“What did she do?”
“She knew my sweet tooth was off the charts. So she made me a pie spiked with hot sauce. Brownies with salt instead of sugar. But that’s not the worst of it: she then made a batch of real chocolate cookies and put raisins in them.” I pretend to sniffle and then rub fake tears off my face. “That was the worst.”
Kristen’s nose crinkles. “She wins the prank wars. That is fantastic.” We turn the corner. “My grandma and I like to prank each other. One time she set the autocorrect options on my phone to eggplant, Uranus, and dik-dik, which is actually a tiny antelope.”
I chuckle. “That does not surprise me in the least. She’s a character. Also, tiny antelopes are adorable.”
She stops in front of a giant pink mushroom. “I’ve told you about her?”
I narrow my eyes. Is she crazy? Then I remind myself—never let them see you sweat. And never let on you know she’s sweating. “Of course you did. And nothing about her surprises me.”
She shakes her head, as if she’s shaking off a thought. She points to the end of the block. “Anyway, there’s Yoda. Let’s see how we do.”
I pretend to put my arm around the green dude and snap a selfie, and then Kristen puckers up like she’s going to kiss him, capturing that on her phone. We compare, and I concede. “Why am I not surprised? You definitely win. You kissing Yoda earns all the points.”
She pumps a fist. “Yes, Twenty Questions time.”
I hold up five fingers. “You get five questions.”
She pretends to roll up her sleeves. “All right. Are you ready?”
“Hit me. I’m already warmed up from your barrage of questions last night.”
She arches a brow. “I didn’t think it was a barrage.”
I laugh. “What exactly would you call it?”
“I didn’t think I asked that many.”
“That many? It was a firing squad of questions.” I soften my tone as we near a mural of a flamingo. “But I didn’t mind. I enjoyed them all. I was thoroughly, completely entertained to the max.”
She smiles. “Me too. Our conversations have been fun.”
But it does feel like we’ve had them separately, and I’m not sure why.
11
Kristen
* * *
I can’t quite put my finger on it.
It’s almost as if he’s not the guy I’ve been chatting with on the dating site.
But he looks exactly like his online photo, which is rare. Usually they’re a few years off, give or take. This guy looks precisely like his shot, almost like his picture was snapped a few days ago. Plus, Mac is so handsome, it’s almost unreal.
Still, it’s as if we’re in parallel worlds—close, but not quite running on the same track.
So even though I’ve earned my five questions, and even though I should make them meaningful, getting-to-know-you ones, like What book would you read if stranded on a desert island?, or ones that highlight a person’s sense of humor, like If you’re clean when you get out of the shower, how does a towel become dirty?, I opt for something simpler in the hope that I can figure out if we’re connecting or disconnecting.
I gesture to the mural of the flamingo. “Wouldn’t it be funny if the color of our hair was a result of our diet?” He gives me a look that says I’m borderline bonkers, so I explain. “Flamingos are pink because of the pigments in their food. Carotenoids. And they eat pink food—shrimp, algae, crustaceans . . .”
He points to the saucy birds ornamenting the side of a building. “That does sound familiar. I remember learning that at some point. Now, have you ever thought about this twist—what if they ate blue fish or green birds? Would they be a different color?”
“We’d probably have emerald-green flamingos all over our mugs, license plates, and other gift shop trinkets.”
His fingers grip his skull then explode. “A whole different spectrum of tchotchkes.”
“It’s odd, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure in this flamingo-carotenoid universe, I’d be green. I’m secretly addicted to kale.”
He looks at his watch. “I’m going to have to leave right now.”
“Why?” I laugh.
He crosses his arms. They’re quite toned, I notice. His biceps look nice and strong and would feel great wrapped around me, I bet. A zing shoots down my chest as he shakes his head. “No one is secretly addicted to kale. So you’re either an alien or a robot or a celebrity on a fad diet, and I can’t date any of those.”
I smile. I love that he keeps saying “date.” It makes me feel like we’re both enjoying this in equal amounts.
I lean toward connecting.
I hold up my hand like I’m taking an oath. “I do. I love it. I make no bones about it.”
“No one loves kale. It takes like ten years to finish one leaf.”
“You’ve never had my roasted kale with sunflower seeds,” I say, as if I’m offering a seductive treat.
“While I do like the way you talk it up, I’m sure I will never eat it.” He steps closer. “Feel free to offer something else though.”
“Chocolate cookies with raisins?” I purr.
He laughs. Definitely connecting.
“Okay, what color would your hair be?” I ask, using this chance to check him out more. The evening sun glints off his dark-blond hair, highlighting strands of gold and showing off how soft it looks. I bet it’d feel great slipping through my fingers as I kissed him.
Oh hell. Do I ever I want to kiss him. I barely know him, but what I know I like enough to want to crush my lips to his and find out if our chemistry extends to kisses.
“Blue.”
“Your hair would be blue?” I ask.
“Blueberries. That’s a true addiction. They’re delicious, juicy, pretty, and you can down a whole basket in seconds flat. Bonus—blueberries even taste good in chocolate.”
We resume our walk past the graffiti art. “You’d look cute with blue hair.”
“And you’d look cute with kale-colored hair,” he says, as if he’s choking on the words.
“It’s okay. I know someday you’ll be chowing down on roasted kale and eating your words.”
He cracks up then clears his throat. “But honestly, my hair would probably be brown. I do love chocolate more than nearly anything.”
I hum, mulling that over. LuckySuit said he loved chocolate too. But a lot of people like chocolate. ThinkingMan can certainly love chocolate too. Besides, why am I thinking of the poker chatter from last night when I’m with this guy right now?
“In fact,” he continues, “my business partner and I are going to make some flamingo-shaped chocolate.”
“You’re in the chocolate business?”
“Lulu’s Chocolates. I handle all the business deals. Which is kind of an odd twist of fate, because back in college I was so sure I was going to be an essayist.”
I laugh. “Is that even a profession anymore? Wasn’t that a job back in the day when there were Federalist Papers and Alexander Hamilton and all that?”
He gives me the side-eye. “Moment of truth. Are you saying that because you know Hamilton from history or from the musical?”
I shoot him a look like I’m offended. “Hey, I know Hamilton just as well as the next person.” I smirk. “Obviously, from the musical. That’s pretty much how we all know him these days.”
“And we all know him so well. I’ve seen it three times.”
I furrow my brow. “Here in Miami?”
He waves in the general direction of north. “Oh no, back in New York. I try to go to Broadway shows as much as I can.”
“So you’re in New York a lot?” I ask, wondering if his job takes him there.
He smiles. “I am. And wouldn’t it be a great place to be an essayist?”
“So why did you want to be an essayist?”
“I was a phil
osophy major in college, so naturally I thought I would become the next great thinker.”
I nod. It’s all coming together finally. “That makes sense now. Hence the ThinkingMan name.”
“What?”
“ThinkingMan,” I repeat, because . . . hello, isn’t it obvious?
“Sure. I’d consider myself a thinking man.” His answer is hesitant.
“Well, I hope so.”
“Well, I am.”
My mind snags on details. Philosophy. Didn’t Cameron say he liked philosophy? And chocolate? While it’s not unusual to like chocolate, it’s certainly more unique to dig philosophy.
Disconnecting now. Definitely disconnecting.
“So that’s how you picked the name ThinkingMan,” I add, trying desperately to connect again.
He clears his throat. “Actually, this is probably a good time to let you know my name isn’t Mac, like you said earlier.”
“It’s not? Why did you tell me it was?” The hair on my neck stands up. What if Grams was right? He could be an ax murderer. A serial killer.
Total disconnect.
Mayday.
Abort.
I gulp. I’ve been catfished. Catfished by a total creepozoid criminal, and I’m about to be kidnapped. I glance right, look left. A family of four strolls ahead of us. I’ll run to them. Wait, no. I’ll be putting their little toddler in danger. I’ll dart the other way, shouting fire! “I forgot I have someplace to be.”
I turn, ready to jet.
“Wait. No. Sorry to throw you off. I’m Cameron. Cameron Townsend. I know you know that, but you called me Mac earlier. Just wanted to make sure you remembered from our chat.”
I stop.
Blink.
I’m in an alternate universe.
The parallel worlds fold into each other.
I try to breathe evenly. “You’re LuckySuit?”
His lips curve into a grin. “Yeah. Who did you think I was?”
Someone else entirely.
12
Cameron
* * *
I hold my arms out wide in a question. “Who the heck is ThinkingMan?”
Her eyes are etched with confusion. Just like I’m sure mine are. She points, practically stabbing me with her finger. “You. You’re ThinkingMan.”
“I just told you my name. Like I told you my name last night.”
“But, but, but,” she sputters. “I thought ThinkingMan was your handle. I’m Telescoper. I said it when we met, and you acted like you knew it. I’m Telescoper and you’re ThinkingMan. We’ve chatted the last few nights.” Her voice intensifies, as if she’s trying to make a last-ditch point in a flagging debate.
I correct her. “We chatted last night. When you destroyed me in poker,” I say, trying to jog her memory. How does she not recall this? “Remember? You were all sassy and said you were taking me down, and then you did, winning hand after hand.”
She squeezes her eyes shut, as if she’s trying the good old there’s-no-place-like-home technique to wish herself out of this situation. When she opens them, she says, “But we talked about Orion Nebula and wordplay. You said points for wordplay.”
Ah, her wordplay comment makes a bit more sense now. But little else does. “Orion Nebula is a beauty, and I’d love to check it out sometime, but we never discussed that. We talked about your multiplication marathon and your Roller Derby skills as Calcu Lass. Great name still, by the way.”
She sighs heavily. “Yes, I remember discussing all that with LuckySuit. But I don’t understand how you’re you too. How you’re the other guy as well.”
I laugh, confused as a tangled mess of wires. “Me neither. Well, correction. I do understand how I’m me. But I don’t understand who you’ve been talking to.”
Her face is a portrait of frustration. “It’s you on the dating site. I’ve been talking to you.”
I shake my head, slow and easy. “I’m not on any online dating sites.”
She blinks, whispering in a hush, “You’re not?”
“I thought about trying it out. I got online the other night. I came this close to setting up a profile. But I didn’t pull the trigger. I was even telling my business partner, Lulu, the other day that I’d been considering it.”
“You really didn’t go through with it?”
I shake my head. “No. I poked around, but in the end, I didn’t do it. She even offered to set up my profile. But it never felt right.”
Kristen drags a hand through her hair. “You knew about the stargazing and astronomy and asking questions though.”
“Well, yeah.” I’m about to add that Jeanne told me all those details, when Kristen cuts in.
“But it was your picture. You look just like your picture.”
“My picture?” A laugh bursts from my throat. A strange what the hell laugh. “Someone is pretending to be me? This I need to see.” I wiggle my fingers, the sign to show me the goods.
She grabs her phone, clicks on a few screens, then shoves it at me.
And there I am indeed.
Looking good.
Looking like I did on Sunday morning.
At the car auction.
The weirdness is unweirded. The confusion is de-confused. I take a deep breath. “I believe we’ve been catfished.”
“Ya think?”
I can barely rein in a smile. “We’ve been pranked, Kristen.” A laugh rumbles deep in my belly, moves up my chest, and spills out. I laugh harder than I’ve laughed in a long time. I can barely speak, and I grab her arm as if I’ll topple over.
She chuckles lightly too, as if she can’t quite fight it off. “Are you okay . . . whoever you are?”
I straighten, wipe the remnants of laughter away, and look her in the eye. “I’m Cameron, like I said. And it seems Jeanne was playing me, since she’s the real Camera-er.”
She stares at me with those wide green eyes, waiting for all the puzzle pieces to slide together. “What do you mean?”
“That picture of me on ThinkingMan’s profile? Jeanne took it on Sunday. At the car auction.”
Her expression transforms from perplexed, to shocked, to a new sort of awe. “Are you kidding me?”
I grab her phone, make the photo bigger, and show her where Jeanne was standing on Sunday. “There. She was right next to me. And she snapped a sneaky selfie like this.” I wrap my arm around Kristen’s shoulders, like Jeanne had hers around me, and mime snapping a shot.
Then I snap the photo for real. “There.”
I linger for a second. Because she smells delicious. Like mangoes and pineapples. Like a tropical treat at a popsicle stand, and I would like to take a little lick of her neck. Add in a nibble on her earlobe. A kiss of her jawline.
Then, I’d kiss her lips, soft at first, then hard and properly. The kind of kiss that makes a woman swoon. That makes her melt. That’s the only way a woman should ever be kissed.
But we’re trying to sort out a catfishing case, so I drop my arm.
She lets out a gust of breath that tells me maybe she liked my arm around her too.
Then she laughs, full throttle, in a way that shakes her whole body to the bones. And it’s incredibly sexy to watch a woman laugh so unabashedly. So shamelessly.
When she stops, she’s smiling, and it’s somehow brighter, richer, fuller than before.
And I still like her.
Even though I’m not sure how many conversations she’s had with me, or someone else.
I show her the picture. “See? She just snipped herself out.”
Kristen shakes her head in appreciation. “She is such a sneaky bird.”
I smile. “And I thought I was clever with doctored birth certificates.”
“A few days ago, I made her think I was going to send a formal breakup letter to the last guy she set me up with. I had her going on Saturday night, believing me.”
I lift a brow. “Maybe she was trying to pull a fast one on you in retaliation?”
“Oh, she definitely
wins the prank wars on this one. She’s been pretending to be you and chatting with me.” She shakes a fist. “I’m going to wring that dirty bird’s neck when I see her again.”
A knot of disappointment tightens inside me. I was hoping Kristen would be on the same page. That she was enjoying our date as much as I was. But it seems she’s not sure who she’s enjoyed spending time with.
“Well, maybe don’t be too rough with her,” I tease.
She arches a brow. “I’m going to kick her butt. And I don’t mean at poker.”
“You’re really mad?”
She takes a deep sigh, heads to a bench at the end of the street, and plops down. I join her. “Think about it,” she says. “My grandma was ThinkingMan, the guy I was chatting with. What does that make me? Some weird, strange freak who liked flirting with her . . .”
I reach for her hand, clasp it. “No, it doesn’t make you anything bad at all. I suppose it simply makes her . . . clever.”
She glances down at our hands. I’m holding her palm. Our fingers aren’t threaded together. But still . . . she doesn’t let go. She squeezes back lightly. “She really sounded like . . .”
“What did she sound like?” I try to mask my disappointment. I was honestly hoping she’d liked talking to me, not that other dude.
“She sounded like a guy who liked the same things as me. Who said all these things about opposites not attracting.”
A lightbulb goes off. “Whoa. Wait a second. What did you just say?”
She drops my hand, grabs her phone, and clicks over to the conversation. “This is insanely embarrassing, but whatever. She had this whole thing about opposites not attracting.”
Kristen shows me the start of the chat.
* * *
Dear Telescoper,
* * *
As you may have surmised, I’m not a big believer in the “opposites attract” theory. But I do love theories, and from your profile, I can see you do too. While I won’t pretend to be someone I’m not, and I can’t claim to be conversant in all things mathematical, I do love theories, debating them, dissecting them, and deconstructing them.
Lucky Suit Page 6