Page 1 of Date and Switch

prologue

3 Months Ago

Not attending my brother’s wedding? That may have been a red flag. She’d had ample notice to coordinate coverage. Given she was lead architect, surely there were people to step in if issues arose. But she said there was a problem with a project, and it needed her specifically. She’d been apologetic and looked so sincere I never thought anything of it. Of course, problems come up at work. They happen to me all the time.

The wedding itself couldn’t have been more perfect. The amount of joy exuding from every person in the room who witnessed Penn and Tillie get married was palpable to the point of becoming overwhelming. I wanted the same. Bone deep I wanted what he had. The way Tillie looked at Penn as if he were responsible for the air she breathed. It constricted my chest and made it ache with want. I somehow convinced myself between the pre-wedding Bloody Mary’s and the dinner time champagne toasts that Sarah and I had that very thing. She was it for me. I recognized the light in Tillie’s eyes because it was waiting for me back in Boston.

“If you love her,” Penn said over tequila shots between line dances and cake cutting, “you just have to go for it, Rye.”

He was the only one who used the stupid pet name. My name was short enough without a nickname to make it even shorter. He knew it grated me. Given it was his wedding day, I let it slide.

“Life is too short to spend wasted time wondering is she the one? Look at me and Tillie- Raven.” He tilted his glass toward his wife, who was telling a very animated story to a group of her radio friends. “Twenty years wasted. I knew she was the one at five years old. And now, we’re forty and just finally figuring our shit out. You’re not getting any younger, oh big brother of mine. Do something crazy. Take a risk. Show up and shout it from the rooftops.”

So I did.

I spent the rest of the wedding thinking about Sarah, our relationship, what we wanted in our future. We’d always made plans for dream vacations but somehow never found the time to take them. The few times we had taken vacations, they always turned into work trips. The hazards of owning hotels, I guess.

By the time I landed in Boston two days later, the entire plan was set in motion. A cruise around the world. Seven months and destinations on every continent. Hopefully when we came back, Sarah Miller would be soon-to-be Sarah Ellis. Or Sarah Miller-Ellis. Whatever she chose I was down with it. I knew she would be coming up on some down time. She’d mentioned repeatedly the partners wanted her to take time away from the office to get creatively inspired because she would be running point on a massive new project set to break ground in 2024. They wanted her fresh and brimming with new ideas. Which meant she’d have absolutely no issues getting permission for an extended sabbatical. What better way to refill the creative tank than exploring buildings of the world?

The twenty-five-minute ride to Back Bay seemingly dropped me in some weird time bubble where the minutes couldn’t move fast enough. It was as if every person in Boston metro decided to take a trip on the 28 in some weird conspiracy to double my travel time and make me suffer those last few miles home. I didn’t want to make idle chit chat with Kevin the Uber driver anymore. I wanted to be home, with Sarah. I wanted to hold her and see that excitement in her eyes and a ridiculous smile on her lips when I revealed my grand surprise. We’d order dinner from her favorite Middle Eastern restaurant and pore over the cruise itinerary. I’d slip my Amex into her wallet with a note telling her to spend her lunch hour getting some new clothes for the trip.

“Huh… What are the odds?” Kevin’s voice broke through my daydream. I couldn’t tell if he was speaking to me or to himself. It didn’t matter. He would offer the explanation anyway. The moment would forever be etched in my psyche as the last point of normalcy before the nuclear explosion took everything away from me. “4334 Marlborough Street?”

“Yes, that’s me.” I told him, collecting my backpack and pushing the door-handle to let myself out of the backseat of his Escalade.

“I didn’t think this was a multi-unit. I thought you Back Bay Brahmins converted these all back to houses.”

Brahmins. Boston slang for an elitist. Normally I’d have something to say about that kind of comment, but he’d hooked me in with his previous comment about odds, and I needed to get to the bottom of that.

“It is a single occupancy residence.” I told him, my patience quickly unraveling.

“You gotta roommate or something?”

I don’t know why it was any of his business. Something made me answer him anyway. Perhaps because I still wanted to get to the bottom of his original remark.

“I live here with my girlfriend. Is there a point to this discussion? I’ve been traveling all day and I’d like to get inside.”

“I guess it’s my day to play the lotto or something. My wife, she’s always saying that when the universe delivers you something funny like some weird common thread or something that stops and makes you pause that you should recognize it as the universe speaking to you and capitalize on that shift, you know? Like it’s a sign that the winds of change are bringing in something new. Something good.”

“What exactly does this have to do with me?” I ask, meeting him at the back of his SUV to collect my suitcases.

“The pickup right before you was from this address, 4-3-3-4 Marlborough Street, to the Delta terminal.”

“A woman?” I asked.

I didn’t think Sarah was traveling any time soon for work. Her projects from what she told me were all Boston based.

“Nope, it was a guy. Didn’t talk much, and no tip.”

I will forever ask myself why I needed more information. Why couldn’t I leave well enough alone? Make the assumption that he’d made a mistake or Uber’s location services made a mistake and it was actually one of my neighbors heading to the airport. But I didn’t. While we stood there, in the strengthening flurries, I just needed to know more.

“Do you remember what his name was?”

Kevin pulled his cell out of his jeans and opened his app.

“Name was Paul. Paul G.”

It was still entirely possible that my neighbors in 4332 or 4336 had someone named Paul G. staying with them. I didn’t know every going on with either one of them. Sure, we were friendly, but certainly not best of friends. Kevin handed me my luggage and wished me well, aloof to the fact that he’d just potentially ruined my life.

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