CHAPTER 2–THE MORNING AFTER
709 Words
I didn’t sleep.
Not properly, anyway. I lay there for hours with my eyes closed while my brain replayed the same few moments over and over again — his face, the card, the handwriting on the back that somehow knew my name before I’d ever given it.
I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Anna.
By four in the morning, I’d given up pretending rest was happening. I turned my lamp back on and sat against the headboard with the card in my hand, staring at it like it might suddenly explain itself if I looked long enough.
Heavy cream stock. Expensive. His name pressed cleanly into the paper.
I kept trying to come up with a reasonable explanation.
Someone at the firm probably gave him my information beforehand. Richard seemed like the type to send staff profiles before events without telling anyone. It wasn’t impossible.
Still, something about it bothered me.
Maybe the handwriting more than anything else.
It was neat in a way that felt deliberate, every letter careful without looking forced. The kind of handwriting that made you think the person behind it hated mistakes.
I finally shoved the card into my kitchen drawer — the one full of takeout menus, batteries, and random things I always forgot existed — then started making coffee.
My apartment was small. Very small New York. One bedroom, tiny kitchen, barely enough counter space to function like a normal human being. The window above the sink faced another building directly across from mine, where an older man grew tomatoes on his windowsill every summer and somehow never once looked in my direction despite three years of living there.
I loved the apartment anyway.
It was the first place that had ever felt fully mine.
After growing up in houses where I never completely relaxed, there was something comforting about knowing every object in this space belonged to me because I chose it.
I stood by the sink drinking coffee and tried to stop thinking about Steven Hargrove.
It almost worked.
Then my phone buzzed from the bathroom counter.
Calendar reminder. Monday morning team meeting at nine.
Don’t be late, Richard had added underneath it, which sounded exactly like him.
I showered and dressed quickly. Black trousers. Cream blouse. Good coat. I left my hair down mostly because I didn’t have the energy to do anything else with it.
I was grabbing my bag when the buzzer rang.
I frowned.
“I didn’t order anything,” I muttered, pressing the intercom anyway.
“Delivery for Anna.”
That wasn’t unusual in New York. Half the packages I got showed up days after I forgot to order them. So I buzzed him in.
A few minutes later, I opened my apartment door to find a courier holding a long white box tied with a black ribbon.
“Anna Voss?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He handed it over with a polite smile. “Have a good morning.”
Then he left.
I carried the box into my kitchen and stared at it for a second before opening it.
White roses.
A dozen of them.
Fresh enough that cool air still clung to the petals.
There was no florist card. No receipt. Nothing explaining where they came from.
Just the flowers.
And tucked carefully beneath them was a folded note.
My stomach tightened before I even opened it.
Four words.
Same handwriting.
You looked cold last night.
I read the sentence twice.
Then a third time.
Something uncomfortable moved through me, low and slow. Not panic exactly. But close enough that I couldn’t ignore it.
He had noticed I was cold.
Not generally. Not vaguely.
Specifically.
Like he’d been watching closely enough to catch details no one else would.
I checked the time and realized I was officially late.
The entire meeting passed in a blur after that.
Richard talked about projections while I sat there pretending to pay attention, fully aware of the folded note sitting inside my coat pocket.
You looked cold last night.
Every time I thought about it, I felt the same strange pull in my chest.
I told myself I needed to stop thinking about Steven Hargrove.
I thought about him for the rest of the day.
- Writer
