under his gaze, and he didn’t even pretend to look away every few seconds. His eyes just remained fixed on me, and I was forced to look away soon afterwards.
“You’re pretty,” he blurted out suddenly, and I looked up with a confused smile.
“Thank you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t know how to hit on women. It’s been ages since I was in the dating game.”
“Well, that wasn’t so terrible, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement,” I said. “And what happened? Were you married or something?”
“I was,” he said with a slight, nervous chuckle. “But my wife passed away two years ago. Colon cancer.”
a
“I’m so sorry,” I said, involuntarily placing a hand on his knee.
“Thanks,” he replied.
We sat there in silence, not really sure what to say next. I was never an expert in bringing up a new topic of conversation, and I was painfully aware of the fact that this was the first guy I was speaking with in a flirtatious manner over the past few years. I had imagined this scenario several times already, but I never thought it would be this easy to talk to another man. After Marcus, and after seeing everything I’d seen, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to trust any man ever again.
But there I was, sitting with a stranger and being so comfortable that I forgot all about my discomfort and my wish to leave. Sitting with him just seemed so easy, and I was actually so relaxed that I started to feel like a different person entirely.
But then, as I had come to accept, the universe always had a way of reeling me back in. Just when I thought things were looking up, my demons reared their ugly heads to remind me that I couldn’t have nice things.
From where we were sitting, we had a clear view of the intersection up ahead. A few cars were still milling about, and I hadn’t been paying much attention to them, except for the occasional pedestrians crossing the road. But then, quite suddenly, I looked up just as a black bike was coming to a stop at the light.
And when the man riding it turned to face the street where we were sitting, my heart plummeted into my chest for the brief second he was there, before he kicked his bike into gear and zoomed off.
2/3
Chapter Twenty
+25 BONUS
My fingers immediately began to tremble, and I thought I was going to shit myself. A cold sweat broke out across my forehead, and I couldn’t believe what I had seen.
“Are you
alright?” Chris asked. “You look like you’ve seen ghost.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “It’s just the wind.”
But it wasn’t just the wind. It was something else entirely, something much, much worse.
Because in that moment, I could have sworn that I just saw Marcus zooming off on a bike.
@
