“Audrey,” he said, kissing my cheek lightly. “I’m so glad you called.”

“I would have called sooner if I knew you had these reservations in your pocket,” I quipped. “I’ve been dying to try this place.”

“There was a cancellation,” he said with a shrug. “I just got lucky.”

If I had been with Nick, I would have said We’ll see about that, and he would have winked, and then he would have been putting his hands on my knees under the table. It would have been hot, but somehow there was something almost hotter about this: standing across from this man and feeling the attraction buzzing between us, wanting to touch him but not doing it; the uncertainty and anticipation of what might happen when we left the restaurant.

I rocked forward on my tiptoes to return the kiss, my lips lingering on his cheek as I inhaled the clean scent of his aftershave. “I think I’m the lucky one.”

OVER SHARED PLATES of fire-roasted peppers and charred romaine salad, Max and I talked nonstop about our respective jobs, the incredible food, the people on a clearly terrible first date next to us, something he’d read in the Post about track work on the Metro—everything other than the one thing that I couldn’t get off my mind.

You’re dreaming.

Was it possible that it was just me? I couldn’t say; I’d never heard myself whisper like that. Then again, I’d never heard myself talk so plainly in my sleep. Everything I otherwise caught had been shouts and yelps.

If it wasn’t me, though, who could it have been? I’d initially thought it was Ryan, but my unknown guest had stood silent for nearly an hour, and I’d never seen Ryan remain still for more than a half second. Maybe if he had been super-stoned? It was hard to believe him leaving without taking anything, though. Then I’d wondered about Lawrence. After all, he had been upset with me that day, and I still suspected he was the one who had left me the orange flowers. But why would he break into my apartment and then just stand there? It didn’t make sense.

Could it be Brandon from the museum? Or Eric the bartender? He’d seemed laser-focused on me the night of Lena’s birthday, and I wondered if he had been the one to follow Cat and me home from the bar. Or what if it was someone else entirely, someone I didn’t even know? I kept thinking back to an evening last year when Izzy had come charging into our apartment, cheeks flushed and angry.

“Some girl outside just shouted ‘Hey, Izzy’ at me,” she said, flinging her oversized Tory Burch bag down on the couch.

“So?” I asked, looking up from my laptop, where I was editing some photos.

“So I don’t like the idea of random people knowing who I am and where I live just because you overshare online.”

“How do you know this has anything to do with me?”