Page 64 of The Boyfriend Material Novellas

I swallow nervously, grab my computer, and send a wish out to fate.

Anticipation builds in me as I google “bike races in Paris” during the time I was there.

And I find one.

My heart speeds up. It races like a locomotive along the tracks as I scan the names of the teams, then the members.

And I gasp.

Because there it is.

Reid Martin.

My whole body is tense, alive with possibilities.

I drop the name into google, and I gasp in a whole new way.

He’s a designer.

And he lives in New York.

* * *

I spend the morning trying to figure out what I’ll say when I email him at work. But I don’t plan what to say if he walks into the shop that afternoon.

I am speechless.

13

REID

I check out a florist on the Upper East Side.

I pop into a jewelry store in Murray Hill.

I stop by a lingerie shop in the Village.

It’s getting to be a habit with me.

But it’s one I can’t break.

I haven’t broken it since Lucas asked me to set up shop with him in New York a few months ago. We’d already been working together on a number of projects, and most of our clients were in the city. It only made sense to pack up my bags and follow the business.

That’s what I’d been building toward for the last few years in London.

I didn’t move here to find her.

I moved here for business.

Yet looking for her has become a hobby.

Perhaps I am a stalker.

Or maybe I’m just a guy who can’t quite give up.

I give myself a deadline.

I tell myself that I’ll allow myself three months of checking out shops, of looking for her in person, since I’ve had no luck finding her through online searches. I simply don’t have enough details.

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