Page 27 of Twin Deception

Sitting back against the bench, I stared out at the horizon and regretted how I’d let my lunch fall apart. I lost my appetite and ended up pushing food around on my plate more than I ate it. Then some idiot caused an accident, and all the horns and noise from that turned me off from staying at the café.

My stomach growled, though, reminding me that I needed to put something in it.

Oh, forget it.

All the sketches I’d done were crap, and I wasn’tfeelingit at all. No spark of creativity. No joy in making an idea come to life. Between the news of my mother dying soon and my stalker messing with my head, I was in no position to try to work.

Thisissupposed to be a vacation, remember?

With a sigh, I closed my book and got up. A workout would be smarter. I didn’t make a devoted effort toward exercising, but I valued having some upper body strength. Painting murals could be a tiresome activity, and I learned the hard way that keeping up a mild degree of fitness helped. Cardio was the devil, but yoga and some strength-training moves were good enough for me.

Exercising at the hotel put me in a better mood, but I realized how dumb it was to work out on an empty stomach. I was ravenous, so much so that I looked up a nice restaurant to walk to. Since I hadn’t eaten much of a lunch, I’d splurge on dinner. It was a little bit of a walk, but I didn’t mind. The humidity hanging so thick in the air made it feel like I was walking on the cusp of a storm. Electric energy hovered, and it helped jar me out of the mental rut I’d been in all day.

Unfortunately, dining out at this posh steakhouse-slash-seafood eatery was no better than dining alone at that café earlier. I got the sympathetic glances. The judgmental stares too.

The only thing that helped me ignore my single appearance was surveying the Christmas decorations and holiday ornamentation this place had used. I saw art in everything, but it just looked like a clearance home décor store had thrown up in here. Wherewas the symmetry? What was the color theme? Red and gold or green and… brown. Lights flashed at different intervals, one strand in blinking mode and another as a dizzying strobe. The fake reindeer looked more like greyhound statues with sticks for antlers. And that Santa?

Even the kids were scared of it. The family nearest the big Christmas display likely chose that table to be nearest to the festive area. But the toddler kept screaming that the “bad clown in the red clothes” was going to get her. The mother kept looking at me in apoor youway, so I didn’t waste my energy feeling bad for her dealing with a screaming kid.

Yes, yes. Eating out alone is embarrassing.I had marched to the beat of my own drum all my life and didn’t let petty things like this bother me, but the longer I waited for my overdue and tardy meal, the more I wished I weren’t alone andthisindependent. Oddly, I couldn’t help but wish my stalker were here, making me feel like I was seen and valued.

When the toddler screamed on, ruiningeveryone’s meal, I glanced at the family again. Instead of the mom, the dad tried to comfort her, bouncing her as he walked back and forth.

Seeing the father and daughter together prompted me to wonder about my dad. I’d gone no-contact and I had zero wishes to see him or hear from him, but that didn’t stop me from wondering about him now and then. He was on my mind more now, with a stalker after me.

Did he ever bounce me and comfort me like that?

I doubted it. I recalled no comfort and nurturing from him. Unlike the doting daddy soothing the toddler across the room, Louis Flores cared only about power and money.

How could a man forsake his child and wife for his job? For another deal?

I smiled as my food came, and I tucked right into it, masking my darker and sadder thoughts.

If I were to ever marry or have a child, I would cherish that love and sense of family. Maybe it was because I’d lacked such love in my life that I was overeager to find it for the first time.

After dinner, I paid my bill and got up to leave. Fortunately, the toddler fell asleep on her dad’s chest, seeming to prevent him from eating much with the awkward hold. Unfortunately, another couple broke up—with the woman screaming and cursing out the man who told her it was over.

Both shows of what I didn’t have—a family or a partner—weren’t promising. But I clung to the hope that I might still find one or the other someday.

Outside, I strolled a longer way back to my hotel. Once I got there, I’d change it up again. It was better to be safe than sorry in this game of hiding. I wouldn’t mind seeing my stalker somewhere public, where he could kiss me and tease me to come. But it would be something else entirely to have my privacy invaded.

Sprinkles finally fell, starting a slow but almost soothing precipitation. It helped to cool me down, and the humidity would go soon. An umbrella seemed like overkill, but so long as I stuck toward the awnings over doorways and alongside the walls of the businesses on this side street, I wouldn’t get too wet.

I took one wrong turn too many, though. In this shadowy area, I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to head. My sense of direction was off. And that didn’t help at all when a man approached me.

The flickering street light reflected off the top of his bald head. Shiny and wet from the rain, he looked like a street rat who’d stepped out from behind a dumpster.

Soggy. Disheveled. And he was heading right toward me.

Dammit. Just what I don’t need.

I didn’t make eye contact. I had too many street smarts to make that mistake. The best thing to do was act like he wasn’t even there, like I didn’t have time to glance at him, much less speak to him.

Again, and in a different way, I was reminded of how alone I was.

A single woman in an alley, passing by a creep.

He was hulking tall and ripped with muscles in the way only gym buffs were. Malice shone in his beady eyes, and I didn’t even want to know what he was thinking, watching me so closely like that.

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