Page 111 of Sort of Seeing Someone

“I have to confess something to you, Moonie Miller.”

“Are you a paid actor?”

“What? No. But I did know you’d be here. See, the morning you left on your flight to San Diego, I showed up at the coach house hoping to talk. You weren’t there, but I ran into your sister and I introduced myself.”

“You met Nora?”

“I met Nora. She’s nice. A little particular, but nice. She invited me into the main house, but wouldn’t let me sit on any of her furniture. Still, we ended up having a long talk.”

“About?”

“You. Me. Her. Your family. Your...flight info.”

“I’m shocked she sold me out to you so quickly.”

“I sort of…poured my heart out to her? Even cried a bit.”

“You CRIED?!”

“I blame Angeline. It was the Reiki. It really worked.”

“Of course it worked, she’s a goddam pro.”

“This is going to be a ‘no-shit’ moment for you, but I realized my obsession with things being set in stone isn’t a realistic way of life. No matter how much I want concrete, logical answers to life’s greatest mysteries, I can’t always have my way. Sometimes, things are just…special. That’s you. And, dare I say,us.”

“I knowyou’rethe math and science guy,” I say. “But this a lot to process for me. I have questions.”

“I love questions.”

“How did you get this gig to coincide perfectly with your tour-de-apology? It feels a little too coincidental, even for you.”

“It’s not a coincidence. It’s the universe,” he says definitively. “Sometimes the universe works in mysterious ways and things just line up perfectly.”

That’s it? That’s the explanation? No statistical probability mumbo-jumbo? He really has changed.

“Not trying to cut you off, but how can I help you with whatever it is you want to do with this building? They’re starting to walk around and collect the offers,” Ollie points out.

He’s right. I have to shift gears for the moment and get the business part of my brain going.

“Tell me honestly if it’s going to get washed into the ocean in a year.”

“It’s not. Like I said in the presentation, the anchors they installed are forged from a triple-reinforced steel carbon.”

“Pardon me,” says Sam, inserting himself into our conversation. “I just wanted to check in and see if—”

“Best and final,” I say, handing him the folded piece of paper from Yas. I never even looked at her suggested offer, but I trust her, and I trust the universe.

“Very well,” says Sam. “We’ll be in touch later today.”

“I hate to be so brazen,” says Ollie when it’s just the two of us again. “But you submitting an offer written on a cocktail napkin was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It was on the back of a sales brochure, actually.”

He rolls his eyes. And here I thought he’d appreciate the technicality.

“You’re one resilient chick, you know?”

I should take it as the nice compliment he means it as, but I can’t. Ollie’s cute, but he doesn’t have that kind of a spell over me.

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