Lucky Suit Page 6

  We resume our walk past the graffiti art. “You’d look cute with blue hair.”

  “And you’d look cute with kale-colored hair,” he says, as if he’s choking on the words.

  “It’s okay. I know someday you’ll be chowing down on roasted kale and eating your words.”

  He cracks up then clears his throat. “But honestly, my hair would probably be brown. I do love chocolate more than nearly anything.”

  I hum, mulling that over. LuckySuit said he loved chocolate too. But a lot of people like chocolate. ThinkingMan can certainly love chocolate too. Besides, why am I thinking of the poker chatter from last night when I’m with this guy right now?

  “In fact,” he continues, “my business partner and I are going to make some flamingo-shaped chocolate.”

  “You’re in the chocolate business?”

  “Lulu’s Chocolates. I handle all the business deals. Which is kind of an odd twist of fate, because back in college I was so sure I was going to be an essayist.”

  I laugh. “Is that even a profession anymore? Wasn’t that a job back in the day when there were Federalist Papers and Alexander Hamilton and all that?”

  He gives me the side-eye. “Moment of truth. Are you saying that because you know Hamilton from history or from the musical?”

  I shoot him a look like I’m offended. “Hey, I know Hamilton just as well as the next person.” I smirk. “Obviously, from the musical. That’s pretty much how we all know him these days.”

  “And we all know him so well. I’ve seen it three times.”

  I furrow my brow. “Here in Miami?”

  He waves in the general direction of north. “Oh no, back in New York. I try to go to Broadway shows as much as I can.”

  “So you’re in New York a lot?” I ask, wondering if his job takes him there.

  He smiles. “I am. And wouldn’t it be a great place to be an essayist?”

  “So why did you want to be an essayist?”

  “I was a philosophy major in college, so naturally I thought I would become the next great thinker.”

  I nod. It’s all coming together finally. “That makes sense now. Hence the ThinkingMan name.”

  “What?”

  “ThinkingMan,” I repeat, because . . . hello, isn’t it obvious?

  “Sure. I’d consider myself a thinking man.” His answer is hesitant.

  “Well, I hope so.”

  “Well, I am.”

  My mind snags on details. Philosophy. Didn’t Cameron say he liked philosophy? And chocolate? While it’s not unusual to like chocolate, it’s certainly more unique to dig philosophy.

  Disconnecting now. Definitely disconnecting.

  “So that’s how you picked the name ThinkingMan,” I add, trying desperately to connect again.

  He clears his throat. “Actually, this is probably a good time to let you know my name isn’t Mac, like you said earlier.”

  “It’s not? Why did you tell me it was?” The hair on my neck stands up. What if Grams was right? He could be an ax murderer. A serial killer.

  Total disconnect.

  Mayday.

  Abort.

  I gulp. I’ve been catfished. Catfished by a total creepozoid criminal, and I’m about to be kidnapped. I glance right, look left. A family of four strolls ahead of us. I’ll run to them. Wait, no. I’ll be putting their little toddler in danger. I’ll dart the other way, shouting fire! “I forgot I have someplace to be.”

  I turn, ready to jet.

  “Wait. No. Sorry to throw you off. I’m Cameron. Cameron Townsend. I know you know that, but you called me Mac earlier. Just wanted to make sure you remembered from our chat.”

  I stop.

  Blink.

  I’m in an alternate universe.

  The parallel worlds fold into each other.

  I try to breathe evenly. “You’re LuckySuit?”

  His lips curve into a grin. “Yeah. Who did you think I was?”

  Someone else entirely.

  12

  Cameron

  I hold my arms out wide in a question. “Who the heck is ThinkingMan?”

  Her eyes are etched with confusion. Just like I’m sure mine are. She points, practically stabbing me with her finger. “You. You’re ThinkingMan.”

  “I just told you my name. Like I told you my name last night.”

  “But, but, but,” she sputters. “I thought ThinkingMan was your handle. I’m Telescoper. I said it when we met, and you acted like you knew it. I’m Telescoper and you’re ThinkingMan. We’ve chatted the last few nights.” Her voice intensifies, as if she’s trying to make a last-ditch point in a flagging debate.

  I correct her. “We chatted last night. When you destroyed me in poker,” I say, trying to jog her memory. How does she not recall this? “Remember? You were all sassy and said you were taking me down, and then you did, winning hand after hand.”

  She squeezes her eyes shut, as if she’s trying the good old there’s-no-place-like-home technique to wish herself out of this situation. When she opens them, she says, “But we talked about Orion Nebula and wordplay. You said points for wordplay.”

  Ah, her wordplay comment makes a bit more sense now. But little else does. “Orion Nebula is a beauty, and I’d love to check it out sometime, but we never discussed that. We talked about your multiplication marathon and your Roller Derby skills as Calcu Lass. Great name still, by the way.”

  She sighs heavily. “Yes, I remember discussing all that with LuckySuit. But I don’t understand how you’re you too. How you’re the other guy as well.”

  I laugh, confused as a tangled mess of wires. “Me neither. Well, correction. I do understand how I’m me. But I don’t understand who you’ve been talking to.”

  Her face is a portrait of frustration. “It’s you on the dating site. I’ve been talking to you.”

  I shake my head, slow and easy. “I’m not on any online dating sites.”

  She blinks, whispering in a hush, “You’re not?”

  “I thought about trying it out. I got online the other night. I came this close to setting up a profile. But I didn’t pull the trigger. I was even telling my business partner, Lulu, the other day that I’d been considering it.”

  “You really didn’t go through with it?”

  I shake my head. “No. I poked around, but in the end, I didn’t do it. She even offered to set up my profile. But it never felt right.”

  Kristen drags a hand through her hair. “You knew about the stargazing and astronomy and asking questions though.”

  “Well, yeah.” I’m about to add that Jeanne told me all those details, when Kristen cuts in.

  “But it was your picture. You look just like your picture.”

  “My picture?” A laugh bursts from my throat. A strange what the hell laugh. “Someone is pretending to be me? This I need to see.” I wiggle my fingers, the sign to show me the goods.

  She grabs her phone, clicks on a few screens, then shoves it at me.

  And there I am indeed.

  Looking good.

  Looking like I did on Sunday morning.

  At the car auction.

  The weirdness is unweirded. The confusion is de-confused. I take a deep breath. “I believe we’ve been catfished.”

  “Ya think?”

  I can barely rein in a smile. “We’ve been pranked, Kristen.” A laugh rumbles deep in my belly, moves up my chest, and spills out. I laugh harder than I’ve laughed in a long time. I can barely speak, and I grab her arm as if I’ll topple over.

  She chuckles lightly too, as if she can’t quite fight it off. “Are you okay . . . whoever you are?”

  I straighten, wipe the remnants of laughter away, and look her in the eye. “I’m Cameron, like I said. And it seems Jeanne was playing me, since she’s the real Camera-er.”

  She stares at me with those wide green eyes, waiting for all the puzzle pieces to slide together. “What do you mean?”

  “That picture of me on ThinkingMan
’s profile? Jeanne took it on Sunday. At the car auction.”

  Her expression transforms from perplexed, to shocked, to a new sort of awe. “Are you kidding me?”

  I grab her phone, make the photo bigger, and show her where Jeanne was standing on Sunday. “There. She was right next to me. And she snapped a sneaky selfie like this.” I wrap my arm around Kristen’s shoulders, like Jeanne had hers around me, and mime snapping a shot.

  Then I snap the photo for real. “There.”

  I linger for a second. Because she smells delicious. Like mangoes and pineapples. Like a tropical treat at a popsicle stand, and I would like to take a little lick of her neck. Add in a nibble on her earlobe. A kiss of her jawline.

  Then, I’d kiss her lips, soft at first, then hard and properly. The kind of kiss that makes a woman swoon. That makes her melt. That’s the only way a woman should ever be kissed.

  But we’re trying to sort out a catfishing case, so I drop my arm.

  She lets out a gust of breath that tells me maybe she liked my arm around her too.

  Then she laughs, full throttle, in a way that shakes her whole body to the bones. And it’s incredibly sexy to watch a woman laugh so unabashedly. So shamelessly.

  When she stops, she’s smiling, and it’s somehow brighter, richer, fuller than before.

  And I still like her.

  Even though I’m not sure how many conversations she’s had with me, or someone else.

  I show her the picture. “See? She just snipped herself out.”

  Kristen shakes her head in appreciation. “She is such a sneaky bird.”

  I smile. “And I thought I was clever with doctored birth certificates.”

  “A few days ago, I made her think I was going to send a formal breakup letter to the last guy she set me up with. I had her going on Saturday night, believing me.”

  I lift a brow. “Maybe she was trying to pull a fast one on you in retaliation?”

  “Oh, she definitely wins the prank wars on this one. She’s been pretending to be you and chatting with me.” She shakes a fist. “I’m going to wring that dirty bird’s neck when I see her again.”

  A knot of disappointment tightens inside me. I was hoping Kristen would be on the same page. That she was enjoying our date as much as I was. But it seems she’s not sure who she’s enjoyed spending time with.

  “Well, maybe don’t be too rough with her,” I tease.

  She arches a brow. “I’m going to kick her butt. And I don’t mean at poker.”

  “You’re really mad?”

  She takes a deep sigh, heads to a bench at the end of the street, and plops down. I join her. “Think about it,” she says. “My grandma was ThinkingMan, the guy I was chatting with. What does that make me? Some weird, strange freak who liked flirting with her . . .”

  I reach for her hand, clasp it. “No, it doesn’t make you anything bad at all. I suppose it simply makes her . . . clever.”

  She glances down at our hands. I’m holding her palm. Our fingers aren’t threaded together. But still . . . she doesn’t let go. She squeezes back lightly. “She really sounded like . . .”

  “What did she sound like?” I try to mask my disappointment. I was honestly hoping she’d liked talking to me, not that other dude.

  “She sounded like a guy who liked the same things as me. Who said all these things about opposites not attracting.”

  A lightbulb goes off. “Whoa. Wait a second. What did you just say?”

  She drops my hand, grabs her phone, and clicks over to the conversation. “This is insanely embarrassing, but whatever. She had this whole thing about opposites not attracting.”

  Kristen shows me the start of the chat.

  Dear Telescoper,

  As you may have surmised, I’m not a big believer in the “opposites attract” theory. But I do love theories, and from your profile, I can see you do too. While I won’t pretend to be someone I’m not, and I can’t claim to be conversant in all things mathematical, I do love theories, debating them, dissecting them, and deconstructing them.

  Also, stargazing rules. Did you know that the Andromeda Galaxy is going to crash into the Milky Way in 4.5 billion years? Of course you do. But what do you think that collision will look like?

  Best,

  ThinkingMan

  “Damn, she’s good,” I say in appreciation.

  “I know.”

  I tap the screen. “You do realize what she did here? She used my voice. She made it sound just like me.”

  She tilts her head, studying me. “What do you mean?”

  “At the auction, she was telling me you were single and had started online dating. I was telling her I’m not a fan of online dating because it removed chemistry and connection. And then I said I don’t believe opposites attract, that I love debating all kinds of interesting topics, and that I love theories and philosophies and talking about meaningful issues. In this note, she basically parroted all the things I said.”

  Her jaw falls open. “Do you know what she did, then?”

  “She mimicked me?”

  “And she also created a perfect online persona of what I want and what I’m looking for.”

  And is it crazy that I want that online persona to be mine? That I want Jeanne to have stolen my traits to romance Kristen, Cyrano de Bergerac–style? “Is that so?”

  She adjusts her glasses. “I don’t believe opposites attract. I think they repel.”

  I tap my chest. “Choir. Preach it to me.”

  She laughs again, and if this were a real date, I’d chalk up another point. But I’m not sure what this is at all now. She brushes her hand lightly against my chest. “And she had you talking about all the things I like to talk about.”

  “Then she asked you to play her in poker against me. And when she realized we were getting along well, she set us up,” I say, continuing to slide the pieces together.

  Kristen scoots closer, drops her voice like we’re detectives passing out clues. “That’s why I don’t think it was a prank, Cameron. I mean, it was. But I think she was playing matchmaker all along. She knew I only wanted to meet guys online, so she put the guy she wanted me to date online.”

  “And she knew I wasn’t into online dating. But she wanted me to meet you. So she engineered a way for us to meet, each thinking it was exactly what we wanted—real life for me, and online for you.”

  Kristen scratches her head. “But she had to know we’d find out.”

  “Maybe she thought we wouldn’t care.”

  “Because she figured we’d like each other and it wouldn’t matter.”

  And I do like her. But it seems it does matter how we met. And how we didn’t meet. “That must have been her grand plan.”

  Kristen scoffs. “That’s crazy.”

  “Is it?”

  She stares at me through her glasses. “You’re fun and great and smart, and I don’t know which side is up.”

  “I hear ya.” I swallow roughly. I was hoping she’d be into me for me. And yeah, I shouldn’t be bummed. I hardly know her. This is only one date.

  One fun, amusing, bizarre date. One highly entertaining online chat. One moment bursting with possibilities and potential.

  And that moment seems to be fizzling.

  “She really hates the idea of me online dating,” Kristen adds.

  “And see, I’m the opposite. I don’t care for online dating. Well, not until I talked to you.”

  She pulls away slightly to stare at me. “But was that online?”

  “I think it definitely was. We were on our phones.”

  “Yeah,” she says, the hint of a smile tugging at her lips. But the smile fades. “It’s crazy though. You live in New York. I didn’t even really know who I was talking to. And it’s all just a setup. It never would have worked.”

  “No. Never at all,” I agree. She’s right. But I wish she was wrong.

  I sigh and figure it’s best to end the date sooner rather than later.

 
But Kristen arches a brow, looks at me with a glint in her eyes, and I swear I see computer algorithms whirring inside her brain.

  “It wouldn’t. But I have a crazy idea.”

  13

  Kristen

  The first order of business is to send a note to Grams.

  Me: Cameron is awesome! You were right. We’re getting along so well. I can’t wait to tell you everything.

  Then we’re off and running. We slide into his rental car, his bag with him, and drive to Miami International Airport. Once inside, we take a photo, waving with the airport sign behind us. We head all the way to security, snapping selfies as we go.

  A little later, we grab our seats. More photos taken. Champagne poured. Glasses raised. “What should we toast to?” I say, a smile tipping the corners of my mouth. I’m having too much fun.

  Not that there is such a thing.

  Cameron stares off into the distance, as if he’s thinking. For a second, it hits me—he really is ThinkingMan. He fits the bill. He talks like the man online. He seems like the man online.

  How could my grandmother conjure him up so perfectly?

  I blink away the thought since I don’t quite know what to make of it or what to do with the wild caper we’ve embarked on tonight.

  He meets my gaze, and those blue eyes hold mine. They shine with desire and with possibility. That look—I haven’t seen it in a long time, and I like it. I like it because I feel it too.

  He inches closer. My breath hitches from him being so near.

  This is connecting.

  “Let’s toast to what comes next,” he says, and the words are drenched with possibility. So much unexpected possibility that whoosh goes the rest of the world.

  My heart flutters, and my skin sizzles as I imagine what “next” could be. Touches, kisses, sighs, moans. Butterflies, and their naughty cousins in lingerie, inhabit my chest as I clink my glass to his. “To what comes next, whatever it might be.”