Chapter 2

TRICIA

I pushed a man onto his living room floor tonight.

In heels.

On a first date.

And honestly? The most upsetting part wasn't the pushing. It was that I'd wasted the red dress on him.

---

Daniel opened the door with this wide, eager smile that reminded me of a puppy who'd been waiting by the door all day. Sweet. Harmless and entirely too much.

"Tricia! You're here! I was so worried, I texted and..."

"Yes, so sorry about that," I said, stepping inside. "I got... held up."

Held up was one way to put it. Conned into spending two hours in a stranger's apartment by a man with a jaw like a sculpture and the moral compass of a house cat was another.

His apartment was fine. Normal and modest. There was a scented candle on the coffee table which I admired and I told myself that was fine. Candles were candles.

"You look amazing," Daniel said, his eyes sweeping over me in a way that was meant to be appreciative but felt like being scanned at a checkout.

"Thank you," I smiled.

We sat.

And then.

There was silence.

Not comfortable silence. Not the "we're-so-in-sync-we-don't-need-words' silence. The silence of two people with absolutely nothing pulling them toward each other, sitting across from each other anyway, being polite about it.

"So," Daniel said. "You like movies?"

"I do," I said. "You?"

"Yeah. I like movies."

I picked up my wine glass.

Okay. So we both liked movies. Great. Groundbreaking. We were practically soulmates.

He talked. I listened. He was ... fine. Perfectly, relentlessly, almost aggressively fine. He worked in insurance. He liked football. He'd recently tried a new restaurant and the pasta was, in his words, "pretty decent." He said "pretty decent" about everything. His job. His weekend. His life. All of it ...was "pretty decent".

I smiled and nodded and told myself chemistry sometimes took time to build and that I was not comparing him to a man I had met by accident two hours ago.

I was not doing that.

"You're quiet," Daniel said, leaning forward.

"I'm just listening," I said brightly.

"I like that." He smiled. "Most girls talk too much."

I took a long sip of wine.

"Most girls talk too much."

I, Tricia Damien, who had once been gently asked by a librarian to lower my voice, was sitting here being praised for silence. This was my life now.

The evening dragged. Slowly and painfully. Like a film where nothing happens and you keep checking how much time is left and it's always less than you hoped.

At some point he moved closer on the sofa.

I didn't say anything. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

He moved closer again.

"Daniel....what are you"

"You're really beautiful," he said, and his hand landed on my knee with a confidence that had absolutely no business being there.

I looked at the hand and looked back at him.

"Thank you," I said carefully, lifting it off and placing it back on his own lap like returning something that had been incorrectly delivered. "But I'm okay."

He laughed. "You're shy."

"I'm really not."

"It's cute." He leaned in and I leaned back by the exact same amount, a human seesaw of boundary and obliviousness.

"Daniel." My voice was very calm. "This is the first time we're meeting."

"Exactly," he said, like that made sense. Like that was a reason for any action he was about to make.

He moved closer again. His arm found the back of the sofa behind my shoulders and I sat there for exactly three seconds doing a full internal calculation ...."how bad would this look, is there a polite way out, why is his face getting bigger—"

I put my hand on his chest and pushed him immediately.

Daniel went backwards off the sofa cushion and hit the floor with a sound that was equal parts thud and surprise.

"What the hell? " he screamed.

"I am so sorry," I said, already standing, already grabbing my bag. "That was ... I didn't mean to ..you were just very close and my arms reacted before my brain could."

"Did you just push me?"

"I prefer redirected."

"You pushed me onto my floor!"

"Daniel, I—" I looked at him sitting on the carpet, staring up at me with pure bewilderment, and I made a decision. "I think tonight has run its course."

"We've been here barely fifteen minutes!"

"And it's been lovely." I slung my bag over my shoulder. "The candle is very nice. Very ...pharmacy chic."

I was at the door before he found more words.

"You're insane!" he called after me.

I stepped into the hallway and let the door close behind me.

I stood there to catch my breath.

Fifteen minutes. I had lasted fifteen minutes with Daniel Ashworth before committing a minor physical offence and complimenting his candle on the way out. This was.... this was fine. This was just dating in your late twenties. Completely normal.

I started walking toward the elevator.

And then, because the universe had decided tonight was that kind of night, the door to Apartment 11B opened.

Christopher Donovan stepped out.

He saw me.

I saw him.

We stared at each other in the quiet hallway ...me with my bag clutched to my chest and what I could only imagine was a spectacular

expression on my face.

His eyes moved slowly from me, to Daniel's closed door, to the empty hallway, and back to me.

"That was fast," he said.

I jabbed the elevator button with one finger.