arrived early, because that’s who she was. She always had to be prepared. She had to scope things out, look for distractions, escape routes, and to plot scenarios.
Since she had taken her seat, she’d found herself stuck on the same terrifying scenario. The video wasn’t really him. The man with the tattoo on his shoulder, the man who was in front of his computer in a North End condo, wasn’t the man who was coming to meet her. The pretty face and hot body were just lures, and she was waiting for some disgusting little man who had gotten tired of being shot down for intimate encounters on online dating sites.
As she sat there, part of her wished she had never started that damned blog. Giving herself a little exhibitionist thrill several times a day was simply not worth the anxiety that was killing her now.
You did this to yourself, not the blog. You could have pushed him back. You could have closed Dirty Pictures and started a new blog, taken new pictures and been more careful next time.
She brought her tea up to her lips and blew on it. She had no desire whatsoever to drink it, but wanted to hide behind it. Lift and blow. Lift and blow. All the while peeking at the door to see what this nightmare would bring her.
Every time a man walked in, her heart jumped into her throat and her stomach rolled.
You should have just told him to fuck off. You didn’t show your face. He’d never be able to prove it was you in 605. It could have been a cleaning lady, or any other woman in the building.
Yet there was no pinning it on him, at least not entirely. He hadn’t threatened her or so much as hinted at blackmail. He’d even given her the opportunity to say no, but she hadn’t, because she was curious. Because she wanted to know what would happen.
You’re not Maggie.
The door jingled open.
Lift and blow, and the young man made a beeline for a crowded table by the window.
Carrie wished she had picked a different coffee shop. This one was riddled with university students, but it was the only one she could think of that guaranteed she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew. She didn’t want to have to suffer interruptions and introductions. She wanted to be able to run when she pleased.
Carrie practised her escape in her head. If he came in and it wasn’t the man in the pictures, he didn’t know her face and she could retreat in just a few steps. She’d look at her watch, slide her sunglasses off her face and hike her purse over her shoulder. Then she’d breeze past him without the slightest acknowledgement.
Just like that, she’d leave. She’d go home, delete her blog and pray she never heard from him again.
A group of students loaded with enormous backpacks headed for the door. One pushed it open, and suddenly they were all parting like the Red Sea for a man coming in from the outside.
Carrie raised her cup.
It was him, the man in the webcam shot. He wore a look of expectation on his face as he looked around, his gaze going from table to table.
Her stomach fluttered.
There was no way to tell that this was the man on the video, but he was as attractive as the picture. Tall, but not too tall, with an average build. When he looked in her direction Carrie glanced down, but not before she saw those soulful brown eyes.
She took a sip. She still hadn’t made up her mind what to do. He was good looking, but he was new and terrifying and had come into her life in the most cosmically fucked-up way she could imagine.
She glanced up and her heart stopped. He looked directly at her. Their gazes actually locked, like in a book or an old movie.
Fighting away the shakes, Carrie pushed away her tea.
You don’t have to speak to him. You don’t have to look at him. Just walk past him.
But she didn’t. She raised her chin and looked at him, and he walked towards her.
‘Maggie?’
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she felt silly nodding at him.
So much for playing the vamp when you meet him. See? Not Maggie.
A smile came across his wide mouth as he pulled out the chair opposite hers.
In the moments after he took his seat, they simply sat regarding one another. He looked perfectly comfortable in the silence while Carrie wanted to squirm.
Close up, she could see the lines around his mouth and a few flecks of grey in his hair. He was about her age, maybe a couple of years older, and definitely someone she would have given a second glance if they had passed one another on the street.
He didn’t look like someone who spent all day looking at naked pictures on the Internet.
Then again, she didn’t look like someone who took them.
‘I’m surprised you came,’ he said, his gaze sliding over her face.
‘So am I.’
He leaned forward and folded his arms in front of him on the table. ‘I knew it was you. As soon as I spotted you, I knew. You look like a woman who’s wearing dirty things under her clothes.’
‘Do I really?’ She was genuinely surprised, and suspicious. He seemed so … sly.
‘When I first contacted you, I was expecting someone a little wilder, someone who would scare me off,’ he said. ‘I never would have done it if I’d thought you would react the way you did. I almost cancelled. I didn’t want to be the asshole that made you do something you didn’t want to do.’
Once again, his gaze moved downwards.
Curious.
Interested.
A long-forgotten fluttery feeling came over her: the blossoming pleasure of being admired by a good-looking man.
By the time his attention turned to her face, she was hot all over and she knew her cheeks showed it. She looked at the table top and wrapped her hands around the paper cup in front of her. After a moment’s silence, she realised he was waiting for her to speak.
She took a sip to wet her mouth and then looked at him. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Brendan, and … Maggie isn’t your real name, I take it?’
‘No, and I don’t want to tell you my real name yet.’ She looked him straight in the eye as she spoke. She couldn’t help how defensive she was getting. ‘Not yet. For now, you can call me Maggie.’
He leaned back and grinned. ‘Well, Maggie, I’m going to get a cup of coffee and hope you’re still here when I come back. And then I think we should get out of here.’
‘I don’t think we should,’ she said with a scowl. ‘I don’t know what you were expecting, but –’
‘No, you misunderstand me. I just meant we should take our coffees and get out of this noisy little hole in the wall, head down the street to the park and get to know one another.’
Brendan stood over her. Carrie hated to look up at anyone and so she didn’t. She simply took another sip.
He chuckled, a delightful rumbling sound that ran right through her. ‘Can I get you another one?’
She hugged her cup between her hands and shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’
After he’d moved away, she lifted her chin and took a second look. He looked so normal, like any other man, and so far he had been nothing but sweet to her. The very act of speaking to the barista and slipping his debit card into the machine seemed out of place as she thought of how he had come out of the masturbatory haze of her blog. Tingles sparked along her arms and down her back, and she felt ashamed of her shyness in the face of a man who had seen so much of her from afar.
His