Perfect Strangers

It all meshes seamlessly like the pieces of a puzzle fitting together, until I can see the complete picture revealed in its awful truth:

James is dying.

I think I might throw up.

My voice shaking, I plead, “What do I do?”

Kelly’s answer is instant and firm. “Break it off.”

“What? God, I can’t be that ruthless!”

“He already gave you an out. You wouldn’t have to explain yourself. Just don’t call him again. Walk away and save yourself a lot of heartbreak.” Her voice gentles. “Haven’t you already had enough?”

That idea feels completely wrong. I shake my head, insisting, “No, I need to talk to him about this.”

“You can’t talk to him about it, babe! What would you say? ‘I had my friend in the FBI take a peek at your entire life history because I thought you might be a psycho?’ How do you think he’d feel about that? Violated much?”

I stand and start to pace the length of the room, chewing on my thumbnail and trying to think, but my thoughts are so scattered it’s impossible.

It was wrong of me to ask Mike to look into James. No matter my reasons, it was wrong, and I can see that now. I’ve violated his privacy. If I wasn’t cool with the way things were between us—with the no-questions policy that I set up—I should’ve said so, not gone behind his back to get answers.

Answers to questions I had no right asking in the first place. Simply because we’re having sex doesn’t mean I deserve to know all his secrets.

He doesn’t owe me that.

He doesn’t owe me anything at all.

I collapse into an overstuffed armchair near the window and rest my head back, closing my eyes. “Yes, he’ll probably feel violated, but I have to tell him anyway.”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“It’s the right thing to do, Kell. I won’t mention the FBI because that makes the whole thing sound ten times worse. I’ll just say I ran a background check on him because I’m a single woman trying to protect herself. Women do that with new men they’re dating all the time.”

Kelly’s tone is dry. “Sure. Great idea. Except if the man has half a brain, he’ll know you can’t just dial up someone’s legally protected medical history on the internet to find out they’re in clinical trials.”

“I could be a hacker.”

She snorts. “You, a hacker? You’re barely computer literate! You don’t even use a computer to write your manuscripts!”

“He doesn’t know that!”

“If he’s seen the bio on your website, he does.”

I groan. The bio. That stupid bio my publisher insisted had to be included on my author website, along with a picture of me sitting at my desk at home…writing longhand on a yellow legal pad like someone’s secretary from the fifties.

It’s cool to go old school, the caption under the photo reads, because I am a gigantic idiot.

“It’s possible he’s seen that,” I admit grudgingly. “He told me he asked the building manager here about me. I don’t know how much information he got, but it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out who I am and look me up.”

“So there you go.”

I think for a moment, chewing the inside of my mouth. “Maybe I’ll say I hired a private detective. They could probably access medical files, right?”

“Illegally, in theory, yes. But that would cost you beaucoup bucks. In the many thousands. Do you really want to tell the guy who’s been spanking all your lady parts like they’re naughty kids that you blew the equivalent of a mortgage payment to hire some unethical gumshoe to dig into his private dirt?”

“Gumshoe? We’re in a forties noir movie now?”

“Don’t say anything to James about what you know,” replies Kelly, ignoring my interruption. “It’s the smartest move and the best one for you. You’re not responsible for his problems, so don’t grab them on.”

I know ‘grab’ means ‘take,’ but I’m too busy feeling offended to think her word choice is cute. “I’m not taking on anyone’s problems. I’m just talking about being honest.”

Kelly’s voice goes soft. “I know you, babe. You’re a caretaker and a huge softie. There’s nothing more irresistible to you than a lost cause. Remember that time you rescued all those feral kittens from the freeway underpass?”

“They were sick! If I didn’t rescue them, they would’ve died!”

“Instead, they lived—all eight of them—in your gorgeous house, tearing up the furniture and pissing on the carpet because you couldn’t bear to take them to the animal shelter, until Chris forced you to put them up for adoption. And let’s not forget the ostrich incident.”

Ah yes. The infamous ostrich incident.

A circus came into town once when my daughter was a newborn. I refused to go, because I can’t bear to see majestic animals like lions and elephants enslaved for human entertainment. But somehow one of the ostriches escaped…and wound up in my backyard.

I smuggled it into the garage and fed it bird seed and lettuce for a week, trying to figure out how and where to release it into the wild, until Chris came home from a business trip and found the thing contentedly nesting in a bed of his clothes that I’d made for it in a corner.

Startled, the ostrich charged. Chris claimed it tried to kill him, but I think he was exaggerating. In any case, he called animal control and they took the ostrich away.

Weeks later, I was still cleaning up feathers and piles of poop.

Kelly says, “My point is that James isn’t a stray who needs rescuing. And—forgive me—you’re in no shape to be taking care of anyone but yourself.”

We both know I haven’t exactly been excelling at that, either.

“Okay. I have to go now. My mental breakdown is calling.”

Kelly pauses before speaking again. “Don’t joke about that.”

My sigh is big and deep. “Oh, Kell, if I haven’t had one yet, I think I’m safe.”

“You never know. Fate has a dark sense of humor.”

“Great. Thanks for the pep talk.”

“I love you, you know.”