He nods and thanks the server as she sets his tea in front of him. Her eyes take him in and she tucks her hair behind her ear with a big, beautiful smile that makes my stomach burn. I want to disappear.

He doesn’t look away from my eyes.

“And so unlike you,” he says.

“Huh?” I’ve already forgotten what we were even talking about.

“The hotel.” He takes a drink of his tea and I try to catch my breath.

Being around him is still so dangerous for me. Sometimes warning signs and butterflies are one and the same.

CHAPTER ONE

Two years earlier

I had hit the job jackpot. Not financially, but in all the ways that mattered. I didn’t have to open the massage studio until ten, so most mornings I could sleep in. And being able to walk there from my house—bonus! I loved this street: the mattress shop, the ice-cream place, the nail salon, and the old-fashioned candy store. I’d saved up my money and there I was, twenty years old, on that street, living in a tiny house that I’d bought. My own house. Not my dad’s. Mine.

The walk to work was brief—only five minutes and not quite long enough to be interesting. Walking along the alley behind the shops, I mostly tried to stay out of the way of the cars. The alley was wide enough for one pedestrian and one car at a time. Well, a Prius or some kind of small car would be an easy fit; unfortunately, people around here usually went for big trucks, so most of the time I pinned myself up against the bushes lining the alleyway until they passed.

Sometimes I’d create stories in my head about people in the world around me, a little bit of excitement before my shift started. Today’s story featured Bradley, the bearded man who owned the mattress store on the corner. Bradley was a nice guy, and he wore what I came to think of as his nice-guy uniform: a plaid shirt and khakis. He drove a white Ford something or other, and he worked even more than I did. I passed him every morning, already at his shop before I started at ten. Even when I worked a double or a night shift, I’d see that white truck parked in the back of the alley.

Bradley had to be single. If he had a wife or children, surely I’d have seen them at least once in the year since I’d moved to this side of town. But no, it didn’t matter if it was during the day, at night, or on the weekends—Bradley was always alone. He lived in the house next door to mine and he never seemed to have any company. All of his lights were usually off except one lamp in the living room.