GROW UP GINGER

A story about leaving and being followed.

Written by Juliana Resende

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No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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CHAPTER FIVE — The Blonde Man

The bar was at the far end of the room, backlit in violet, and getting to it was its own small adventure. Megan led. I followed. By the time we reached the counter, the bartender — a tall, dark-haired guy with the bored intensity of someone who got hit on professionally — had already met Megan’s eyes and was waiting for her.

“What can I get you?”

“Two cherry-lime cocktails,” Megan said.

He poured them. He gave them to her. He didn’t look at me once.

I tried not to take it personally. The bartender belonged to Megan in a way I was only beginning to understand — she did this everywhere we went, became the center of every room without seeming to try. It was a talent. It was also, sometimes, exhausting.

I leaned against the bar and took a sip of my drink. Sticky. Sweet. The kind of drink you order when you don’t actually want to taste alcohol but want to feel like you’re drinking. Grenadine on my fingertips. Lime on the rim. Strobing neon turned the whole room red and pink and back again.

“Anna,” Megan said into my ear. “Tall blond guy. Four o’clock. He’s been staring at you.”

I looked.

He was standing across the floor, drink in hand, blond hair catching the light at a specific angle. Tall. Athletic build. Mid-twenties, probably. Dressed in a way that was effortless and expensive at the same time — he wasn’t trying, but everything fit. The strobing light gave him a kind of halo that wasn’t really there.

And I knew him.

Not the way you know someone — the way you recognize a face. The boutique window. The man crossing the street. The split second of attention that had vibrated through my chest before he’d disappeared.

It had been him. Not Paolo. Him.

He pushed off the wall and started walking toward me through the crowd. The crowd moved around him the way it does for people who are used to being moved around for. He stopped close enough that I could see his eyes were a darker blue than I’d expected, less ice and more storm.

“Hi,” he said. He smiled. It was a good smile.

“Hi,” I said back, and felt my face do something it couldn’t take back.

“May I buy you a drink?”

I hesitated.

I want to be honest. It would be easier, for the version of me I’m describing, if I’d said yes immediately. If I’d been swept off my feet by the warmth of him.

That wasn’t what happened.

What happened was I looked at him and felt the pull of his attention and thought very clearly: I don’t know this person, and I want to. And that’s a bad reason to say yes to a drink.

“I’ll pass,” I said. “I’m here with friends.”

His eyebrows went up. The smile didn’t go anywhere — it shifted slightly, became something more interesting. Like I’d just told him something useful.

“I’ll be here,” he said, “if you change your mind.”

I picked up our drinks and walked back to the table. I didn’t look behind me. I could feel him watching me go.

“Maybe!” I called over my shoulder, because some part of me couldn’t help it.

I hate that I called it back.

I hate that I left the door open just enough for him to walk through.

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