Page 10 of Biker Orc Baby Daddy
Then she'd kissed me, and talking became optional.
I'd woken up at dawn with her curled against my chest, her hair tickling my nose, and felt something I hadn't felt in years.
Content.
When I reached for my glasses out of habit, remembered I'd left them at home, the panic had set in. What if she woke up? What if she recognized me without the persona? Saw boring, anxious Gunther instead of confident, mysterious Ridge?
I'd pretended to stay asleep, hoping she'd wake first. Hoping we could talk, maybe exchange numbers.
Instead, I'd heard her moving. The rustle of fabric, the soft click of her shoes. The door opening and closing with careful precision.
By the time I got up, she was gone.
No note. No number. Just the faint scent of her perfume on the pillow and a single hair tie on the nightstand.
I'd kept the hair tie and the coaster where she’d scrawled her nickname in that confident, looping hand..
It's in my desk drawer now, tucked next to Clarence and my backup pocket protector.
"Gunther."
I blink. Colum's watching me with an expression that's uncomfortably close to pity.
"You caught feelings."
"I did not."
"You absolutely did." He sits back, shaking his head. "This is why I told you to get her number."
"I was in character. Ridge doesn't ask for numbers."
"Ridge is an idiot."
"Ridge is a persona you invented."
"And you perfected." He points at me again. "So what now? You just pine? Make sad spreadsheets about the one who got away?"
"I don't make sad spreadsheets."
"All your spreadsheets are sad. They have graphs."
I don't dignify that with a response.
Colum leans forward again, his voice dropping to something almost serious. "Look. I know you. You're going to overthink this until you've convinced yourself it was all a mistake. That she wouldn't have liked the real you, that Ridge was better, that it's safer to just move on."
He's not wrong.
"But here's the thing." He steals a chip from my plate. "She's still in the plaza. Sparkle Beauty, right there next to that weird candle shop. You see her every day on your way to work."
I do. I've been taking the long route around the building to avoid it.
"So either you find her and tell her the truth, or you spend the next six months ducking into doorways like a Victorian ghost whenever she walks by."
"Those aren't the only options."
"Name a third."
I can't.
