Page 22 of Picture Perfect Love

“We’re not seeing each other,” I tried to explain. “He asked to see me again. I said I was too busy. The end.”

“Bull shit,” my friend Rachel blurted, sparking laughs around the table. “For one, you have that look on your face that says you just had sex last night.”

My cheeks turned bright red and my eyes widened towards the dinner guests I was not quite as comfortable with. “You don’t know that,” I insisted.

“Actually, I do,” she shot back. “I’ve known you long enough to know that face, and believe me, honey. You’re wearing it. Like a cat that ate the canary. And second off, we all know he has some reason to believe he has a shot with you because he’s been bugging us left and right.”

“What?” I asked, nearly choking on my wine.

Everyone nodded in agreement as they each recalled their own communication with Joshua. My yoga studio and the membership, my hair appointment, my waitressing shifts, and even my favorite flowers. I had been too flustered to really think too much about how he knew so much about me and where I’d be and what I was doing. All of it came from my friends and acquaintances which he stalked down on social media, one by one, squeezing info about me out of them.

“Unbelievable,” I murmured, toying with my fork and the food on my plate.

“He’s determined. That’s for sure,” Rachel laughed.

“And romantic,” another swooned.

“Is that really the sort of thing women go for?” One guy remarked, somewhat bitterly. “It sounds like stalking to me.”

“There’s a fine line between stalking and romance,” his girlfriend suggested.

“It’s not that fine of a line,” I defended. “But he’s been this way from the moment we met. I wonder if this is how he won over his last girlfriend. Only for her to turn around and see his face plastered in the tabloids, being a drunken buffoon with random sluts he picked up at the club.”

“Or random waitresses he managed to sweep off their feet,” someone offered from the other end of the table.

I ate my dinner and sipped my wine quietly while a full-on debate erupted over what Joshua’s true motives were. Was he really a hopeless romantic who found the right one to fight for? Or was this all just a game he would toss aside the moment he won? I was apparently in a group of optimists because everyone was leaning towards the first theory.

Their faces were filled with intrigue, excitement, and this spark like they were witnessing some great love story unfold. But surely they wouldn’t have been so keen on it if Joshua Meadows wasn’t mildly famous, or infamous, I should say, and also rich.

His pursuit of knowing everything about me was either the craziest thing I had ever heard, or the most romantic. By the next day, I was feeling even more on the fence about which it might be. But even there I wasn’t given a fair chance at respite. I was barely an hour into my shift when Joshua appeared. At least now I had some clue about how he was figuring when and where I worked.

He marched towards me with that charming smile, which I hated in that moment. He couldn’t keep interrupting me at work and stalking me all over town, pestering all of my friends. I was leaning towards thinking he was insane by the time he was standing in front of me.

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