“Yeah, she’s cute, a lot sweeter than the girls you used to go for. Your mom is going to go nuts over her.”
Michael downed the rest of his beer. Not fucking likely. They’d have to meet first, and he couldn’t see that happening.
“What’s her last name? Stella what?” Quan asked as he pulled out his phone.
“Why?”
“I wanna see if she has a LinkedIn profile. I do this with every guy my sister dates. Aren’t you curious?”
Yeah, he was curious. “Lane, Stella Lane.”
* * *
• • •
A persistent buzzing dragged Stella out of yet another heated Michael dream. For this entire past week, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him.
At work, she tried to focus on her data, but the words and numbers turned into body parts that fit together in fascinating ways. She fantasized about his hands, his mouth, his smile, his eyes, his words, his laugh, his presence.
When she slept, dreams of Michael plagued her, so intense the craving of her body woke her at odd hours of the night.
Last Friday had tipped her over the line. There was no doubt about it.
Stella was officially obsessed with Michael.
And they might never see each other again. It was Friday now, and he still hadn’t texted or called. Was this one of those situations where no news meant no? Her heart sank, and her limbs went heavy with sadness.
The infernal buzzing continued, distracting her. She groped at the nightstand until she located her phone. Squinting at the screen, she saw it was her housekeeper.
She coughed to clear her throat of the sound of hot dream sex. “Hello?”
“Ms. Lane, I can’t make it today. My daughter is sick, and the daycare won’t take her.”
“Oh, that’s fine. Thanks for calling. I hope she gets better soon.”
“Can I make it up next week?”
“Sure, no problem.” She glanced at the clock, and her heart almost stopped. It was just short of eight o’clock. She was usually sitting at her desk by now.
She’d almost hit the end button when she heard her housekeeper say, “Oh, Ms. Lane, you’ll want to take your clothes to the dry cleaners since I can’t do it.”
“Oh, all right. Thanks for reminding me.”
“No problem. Good-bye.”
Stella considered skipping the dry cleaners. Not only did she not know which one she used, she didn’t like the idea of ruining her morning routine by adding an extra step. It was . . . irritating and anxiety-causing. New place. New people. And after the disaster at the club, her tolerance for new things was at an all-time low.
In the end, it was the idea of having the wrong number of skirts and shirts hanging in her closet that had her perusing Yelp for nearby dry cleaners. She settled on an establishment that was ranked above all the others even though it was a little out of the way.
Off routine and harried for time—her boss would probably call the police when he didn’t see her in the office first thing—she drove east down El Camino Real, leaving Palo Alto and entering Mountain View. After about five minutes, she turned into the parking lot of a small strip mall with well-maintained wooden shingle siding and oak trees along the front sidewalk. Old-fashioned signs labeled a coffee shop, a martial arts studio, a sandwich place, and Paris Dry Cleaning and Tailors.
She looped her purse and bag of clothes over her shoulder and clicked over the asphalt toward the dry cleaners. A tiny old lady with a hunched back, chipmunk cheeks, and sunken lips stood before the doors. A paisley scarf had been folded along the diagonal, wrapped around her head, and tied beneath her chin. She was quite possibly the cutest grown human Stella had ever seen.
She held a massive pair of lawn shears in her gnarled hands, brandishing them ineffectually at the oak tree in front of the store.
When Stella halted, bewildered and amazed by the sight, the old lady flipped the shears around with a dangerous swinging motion, nearly slicing her own leg off in the process, and offered the handles to her. She pointed at Stella and then the tree.
Stella looked over her shoulder, but, as she’d suspected, the old lady truly meant her. “I don’t think I should . . .”