She looks startled by my joke, then shakes her head. “Well, no, not really. He doesn’t attend every single meeting, obviously.” She smiles, but I’m starting to remember something Chloe said—
“Oh! I almost forgot.” Sandra pulls open a drawer in her desk and slides something out of a tray inside. It clangs like coins do when you drag them across a desk top and scoop them into your hand, but what she holds up is not pocket change. It’s a shiny silver keychain, with keys dangling. Sandra reaches them out to me, dropping the key ring in my palm.
“What are these?” I ask her, holding the keys up for closer inspection. They’re identical. Three of them.
Her expression falters a bit, her brow wrinkling in concern. “Sawyer’s keys. Well, his key, really. He asked me to give them to you. It’s all the same key. He said you’d need three,” she adds, as if it’s that last detail that threw her.
I want to throw back my head and laugh, but she has no idea I don’t even know where he lives, I realize. She obviously thinks I’m his girlfriend. I mean, I guess everyone does, since he announced it on Facebook. But she thinks it’s real. Like I’ve been to his place and left shampoo in his shower. Like I know when his birthday is. Not like we’re going on our first date tonight.
Sandra says goodbye to me at the elevators, waving with a friendly smile as if she’s just made a new friend, and I step into the car alone, my mind whirling.
Chloe had commented on their names, Sawyer and Finn. “Parents had a Mark Twain thing going on, huh?” she’d said. Mark Twain, which, if I’m remembering my high-school reading assignments correctly, was a pen name. A quick look on the internet via my cell phone confirms it. Mark Twains’ real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
The elevator opens at the lobby and I step out, phone still in my hand, and make my way to the lobby entrance. CLEMENS CORP is attached to the wall in glossy three-foot letters over the security desk, matching the giant sign attached to the top of this building, and all the pieces fall into place.
This is Sawyer’s building.
Twenty-Five
“I cannot believe I didn’t Google him this week.” I’m at my desk typing away while Chloe grins at me from across the room. I’ve showered and shaved my legs, moisturized everywhere with a sugar-lemon body lotion, and blow-dried my hair. Now I’m stewing.
“Why didn’t I Google him?” I’m incredulous. I am the queen of invasiveness. I Googled Sophie’s boyfriend before she did. I set up an internet dating profile for Chloe without her knowledge and sent her on a date. Yet I was so distracted I didn’t even think of Googling Sawyer once this week. I’m slipping. I’m twenty-two years old and I’m already losing my touch.
“On the plus side, it probably made barging into his office today easier, not knowing who he was,” Chloe says, trying not to laugh, so it turns into a snort.
“No wonder the security guard thought I was an idiot,” I grumble, dropping my chin into my hand. “They tried to direct me to customer service, Chloe.” I’m mulling over my embarrassment when an even worse thought occurs to me. “He probably has sex with supermodels,” I say, my eyes widening.
“So what? Isn’t there a saying about that? Show me a supermodel and I’ll show you a guy who’s tired of fucking her?” Chloe asks, flopping onto her bed. “Something like that?”
“Um, I think so. But how is that helpful? Wouldn’t he just move onto the next supermodel?”
She thinks for a second. “Well, nobody ever said supermodels were great in bed or anything.”
“Oh! I almost forgot.” Sandra pulls open a drawer in her desk and slides something out of a tray inside. It clangs like coins do when you drag them across a desk top and scoop them into your hand, but what she holds up is not pocket change. It’s a shiny silver keychain, with keys dangling. Sandra reaches them out to me, dropping the key ring in my palm.
“What are these?” I ask her, holding the keys up for closer inspection. They’re identical. Three of them.
Her expression falters a bit, her brow wrinkling in concern. “Sawyer’s keys. Well, his key, really. He asked me to give them to you. It’s all the same key. He said you’d need three,” she adds, as if it’s that last detail that threw her.
I want to throw back my head and laugh, but she has no idea I don’t even know where he lives, I realize. She obviously thinks I’m his girlfriend. I mean, I guess everyone does, since he announced it on Facebook. But she thinks it’s real. Like I’ve been to his place and left shampoo in his shower. Like I know when his birthday is. Not like we’re going on our first date tonight.
Sandra says goodbye to me at the elevators, waving with a friendly smile as if she’s just made a new friend, and I step into the car alone, my mind whirling.
Chloe had commented on their names, Sawyer and Finn. “Parents had a Mark Twain thing going on, huh?” she’d said. Mark Twain, which, if I’m remembering my high-school reading assignments correctly, was a pen name. A quick look on the internet via my cell phone confirms it. Mark Twains’ real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
The elevator opens at the lobby and I step out, phone still in my hand, and make my way to the lobby entrance. CLEMENS CORP is attached to the wall in glossy three-foot letters over the security desk, matching the giant sign attached to the top of this building, and all the pieces fall into place.
This is Sawyer’s building.
Twenty-Five
“I cannot believe I didn’t Google him this week.” I’m at my desk typing away while Chloe grins at me from across the room. I’ve showered and shaved my legs, moisturized everywhere with a sugar-lemon body lotion, and blow-dried my hair. Now I’m stewing.
“Why didn’t I Google him?” I’m incredulous. I am the queen of invasiveness. I Googled Sophie’s boyfriend before she did. I set up an internet dating profile for Chloe without her knowledge and sent her on a date. Yet I was so distracted I didn’t even think of Googling Sawyer once this week. I’m slipping. I’m twenty-two years old and I’m already losing my touch.
“On the plus side, it probably made barging into his office today easier, not knowing who he was,” Chloe says, trying not to laugh, so it turns into a snort.
“No wonder the security guard thought I was an idiot,” I grumble, dropping my chin into my hand. “They tried to direct me to customer service, Chloe.” I’m mulling over my embarrassment when an even worse thought occurs to me. “He probably has sex with supermodels,” I say, my eyes widening.
“So what? Isn’t there a saying about that? Show me a supermodel and I’ll show you a guy who’s tired of fucking her?” Chloe asks, flopping onto her bed. “Something like that?”
“Um, I think so. But how is that helpful? Wouldn’t he just move onto the next supermodel?”
She thinks for a second. “Well, nobody ever said supermodels were great in bed or anything.”
