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 e
• xpression 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.