“What are you doing?” Scarlett asked herself out loud, very softly, as he continued to sit there for almost five minutes. It finally struck her that maybe he was waiting for her, and she quickly slammed the computer closed and shoved it in her bag.

Just as Scarlett stepped outside, a girl carrying a quilted overnight bag came out of the front door of Eric’s building. She was very tiny and coconut-tanned, with a short denim skirt, a stylish tank top, and massive sunglasses. She stopped and spoke to Eric for a moment. Or at Eric. He didn’t reply.

A girl was the last thing Scarlett wanted to see.

It was enough to make Scarlett duck down behind a parked car, pretending to fix her shoe. She watched from her crouched position, her heart pounding furiously. The rising nausea that hit when she first saw Coco McBigGlasses subsided when she saw how they interacted with each other. There was a large space between them as they spoke, and Eric kept his arms folded over his chest—not angrily, more like he was just hanging out, maybe giving directions. The girl definitely seemed annoyed about something. She was waving her arms a lot. When she finally finished whatever she was raving on about, she hurried down the street. Eric stayed exactly where he was.

Something had just happened, but Scarlett had no idea what. The girl didn’t act like she was there with Eric—it looked more like she was stopping to complain about something. Aside from the fact that they came out of the same door a few minutes apart and that they spoke for a moment, there was nothing worrying there.

Scarlett felt like an idiot. She backed up, slipping around the corner, so that Eric wouldn’t see her suddenly spring from a crouched position across the street. He had to be on to the shoe trick by now. She really needed a second stealth move. Actually, what she needed was to be less insane.

She waited a minute or two, taking the time to pet a Labrador that had been tied to a stop sign while his owner went into a bakery. The poor dog looked confused by his temporary abandonment, eager for any kind of company or reassurance.

“Waiting is the worst,” Scarlett said to the dog. “I know.”

The dog wagged his tail in happy understanding.

When Scarlett rounded the corner, Eric was still in his spot, staring up at his window a few floors above. Scarlett shook out her curls and put on her best, “I was just wandering along—I had no idea you were here!” face, which was just her normal face with slightly widened eyes.

“Hi,” she said. “I was just walking over.”

“Hey,” he said. He was extra Southern now. He must have dragged five syllables out of the word. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

He stirred, like he had forgotten why he was standing outside in the first place, and slowly followed along.

“You seem kind of tired today,” Scarlett said.