Wanderlust by Thea Dawson

now that you’re being honest about your dishonesty, I fully support you.”
    “You do?”
    “Sugarcube, I love intrigue and deception. I live for it. Why do you think I work in finance?” He shrugged. “Gossip’s been thin around here since Patrick left. This sounds like it could be fun.”
    “So … you won’t mind if I get engaged to you?”
    “Oh-ho!” He rubbed his hands together. “I like the idea of being engaged. We could go pick out silverwear patterns, maybe convince someone to buy us a Vitamix—”
    “For crying out loud, you already have a Blendtec, and you don’t even use that. Anyway, you’ll probably never even meet him. I just don’t want you to out me by accident.”
    “Well, as long as you don’t in me. I’ll never get a date in this town again if it gets around that I’m engaged to a girl .” He shuddered, as if the very word had cooties.
    “Deal.” I laughed.
    “But seriously,” he said, standing up and starting to pick up some of the plates, “be careful. I don’t want to see you get hurt. This apartment doesn’t need a second mopey bastard in it.”
    I started to say that the whole point of pretending I was engaged was so I wouldn’t get hurt, but that sounded sort of cowardly, so I didn’t. “So you don’t think he’s going to call me?” I prodded.
    He shook his head. “No, I think you’re going to have to make the first move here, darling. It’d be nice if you had some kind of excuse. Any mutual friends in the area, alumni stuff, things like that?”
    My mother’s mention of the alumni social flashed through my mind, but a better thought followed right after. “Oh, I have his gloves!” I had actually forgotten about them until now, and quickly filled Stephen in.
    He rolled his eyes at me as if I’d skipped the most important part of the whole story. “Well, there we go! Get your laptop, roomie. We have an old boyfriend to stalk.”

Chapter 9
     
    Jason
     
    Chip’s advice promptly forgotten, I arranged to meet Monica for drinks that Friday after work. In the meantime, I rummaged through a box of things I’d been meaning to take to Goodwill, and found a cheap pair of gloves. They weren’t great, but they’d be enough to keep frostbite at bay.
    In my office, Friday meant leaving at six rather than six-thirty or seven, but that afternoon I left at five on the dot, earning some dirty looks from my officemates, and a hard glare from Joe, my boss. I sighed to myself, but tried to look nonchalant as I sauntered out the door. That severance package was probably too much to hope for, anyway. As the first blast of lake-effect wind hit me in the face, it occurred to me that I should really research unemployment benefits more carefully. Would they transfer from Illinois to New York? How much would I be eligible for? If I took the job with my dad, I could make my nest egg stretch quite a while, but I couldn’t afford to overlook any other income I might be able to get.
    By five-thirty I was at the pub Monica had suggested, and looked around eagerly. I didn’t see her, but I grabbed a small table with a view of the door. I’d barely had a chance to get my coat off when I saw her come in. I waved her over.
    “Sorry I’m late,” she said as we managed another hug, less awkward this time.
    “Not late at all,” I replied. She smelled of something faintly exotic, and a silky strand of her hair brushed my cheek as we hugged. I tried to breathe her in without being obvious about it.
    “I have something for you,” she said, reaching into her bag and putting my gloves on the table. “Bet you missed them!”
    “Nice work, running off with my gloves.”
    “It was a good excuse to track you down and make you have drinks with me,” she said with a grin. She peeled off her own gloves and her hat and shrugged off her coat—which, like a gentleman, I took from her to hang up—and I was finally able to get a good look at her.
    Her hair, which had reached halfway down her