5. EVERETT

It was fate. There was no other way to put it. Although if he had some knowledge about him, he would've been able to put together the clues I'd given him yesterday about who I was, which would've led him to my neighborhood of the city.

Bryce called me immediately, I answered in the rain in the middle of the street. His voice was distance, immediately recognizable as being on speaker phone. I didn't mind it too much, but the entire coffee house seemed to be listening in.

I continued to walk in the direction of my apartment, my jacket on my head now, letting the raindrops slick off easily.

" So, this is my number. You can save me as Bryce, or princess, and make sure there's a little crown emoji right by my name as well, you know, just in case your phone is full of other Bryce's, " he said.

"Don't worry, I won't forget you," I told him. "And with that being said, keep your evening free tomorrow for that date."

His soft giggle had me on edge, a delicate sound that I desperately needed to have on repeat somewhere. " I'm at Hive again tonight, if you dare to handle another trip there. "

"It's not my scene," I said. "I do prefer the scene where it's just the two of us, a nice dinner, a bottle of wine, and a different type of music."

" How about I provide the music if you provide the food. "

"You don't want to go to a nice restaurant?"

He giggled again. " You're right. I do, and for a man with your connections, I have big expectations. " He paused often, almost like the group around were coaching him on what to say. I didn't blame them, or him, I had a flashy suit, quite literally with the glitter still there, and I handed him a company card where an easy search would glean the multi-million deals we were closing.

"Ok. Done. I'll speak to you later," I told him as I reached my apartment and the doorman nodded. "Make sure not to burn all your energy tonight though. I'll need you to save some of it."

The sound difference when he came off speakerphone was nice. His voice clearer. " You don't have to take me anywhere expensive," he whispered.

"But I do," I said, waking into the nice, dry foyer of the apartment building. "You're a princess. You deserve to be treated like a princess."

As he rushed to say goodbye, I heard him squeal and giggle.

I regretted not asking for a kiss, and maybe he thought the same thing. I was having an out of body experience, not made any better because of the lack of sleep. Half of it felt like a dreamscape where I could fall and find myself in an alternate universe.

My hands were shaking as I looked at the call end screen on my phone. My entire body was shivering, the adrenaline of seeing Bryce out in the wild, while not being completely convinced he hadn't stalked me, or vice versa. I didn't know what my subconscious knew about him.

"You're soaked, Mr. Harper," Noreen the lady at the front desk said. "You should've taken an umbrella out with you." She was in her sixties, an absolute gem.

"I know, I know," I said. "But in my defense, I didn't know it was going to rain."

"Oh, what are you like," she said with a chuckle. "Well, now that you're here, I have a package for you. It arrived this morning but you must've been out already." She walked around her desk area into a tiny backroom.

I didn't have the heart to tell her this was the first time I was home since last night. I didn't want to scandalize her. "Thanks," I said. "You know if there's anything good in it?"

"You know I don't check any of the mail," she called out from the back room. "But it wasn't big. A small box. Ah." She went through the motions of what she was doing until coming back out with a small brown box.

"Oh." It was something I'd ordered online the other day. "Nothing important."

She clicked her tongue. "Not what I like to hear."

It was a fancy wine bottle opener, the type that kept the freshness of the wine in the bottle. It had some mechanic that stopped the air getting into the bottle and ruining it, especially if you didn't finish entire bottles in one sitting. I told her about it. She just looked at me with a wide eyed blank expression and nod.

"Sound wonderful," she said. "You should get yourself out of those wet clothes. You'll catch your death in those. Go on."

Noreen had worked here for as long as I'd owned my apartment. It was a large apartment, all minimalist from what I'd asked of the interior designer. High ceilings, large windows, and the walls were covered in contemporary art. Each piece worth quite a bit of money, but not enough to turn my apartment into an art gallery. Everything was a shade of white-beige, I liked how it gave everything an air of cleanliness, although the cleaning ladies who came by hated it because every speck of dirt was highlighted. I also had scent diffusers placed around distributing sweet citrus scents.

Immediately kicking my shoes off by the front door and peeling my wet socks off with them, I could finally find some peace. There was no greater stress than the squelch of wet socks. Home was where I could relax, even if it wasn't everyone's idea of relaxation.

Most people considered my space cold or frigid, unable to find comfort in the hard cream leather sofa, or fear of putting drinks on what they might consider an art installation for the coffee table between the sofa and the TV unit pressed flush against the wall.

Undressing out of my wet clothes and heading into the large open kitchen-dining space, I placed my wet shirt, jacket, and slacks each over the back of three different dining chairs.

Grabbing a bottle of wine from the wine cupboard in the kitchen, I used my new gadget, a wine preserver as per the highlighted subtitle on the packaging. The wine of choice was Italian, a bottle ofSerragghia Fanino Catarratto Pignatello from 2010. A red wine. I plunged the device through the cork and operated it as instructed, tipping the bottle toward the glass and pressing the release on the device.

It worked a treat. I'd never been a big wine snob, not until taking classes in it. Part of being a CEO was schmoozing other companies, and that meant knowing your wine.

Cherry red in the glass, I swilled it around a little. It had a nice body. I pressed my nose to rim and inhaled. Hint of spice. And the taste. Citrus fruit, like orange, but only slightly. There was a smoothness to it, going down a treat with a tingle of spice on the edges of my tongue as an aftertaste.

I only had the one sip before releasing I needed to eat. After the excitement of my evening into morning and being thrown into an afternoon where I met Bryce again, my nerves were shot. I knew after a single meal and the rest of my wine, I'd be out for the count.

And I wasn't wrong either. After frying up a little steak, boiling a little pasta, and then covering it in an Alfredo sauce. A meal that was quite frankly all over the place. I devoured it all, then found my way to bed where I stayed until nine the next day. I'd never slept for so long, not since I was teen and did all-nighters after playing video games.

My bedroom was the only space that had color to it, and that because I liked to sleep in complete darkness. The furnishings from the bed to the bedding were all black, even the walls were papered in a navy and with flecks of silver pattern the wall in swirls. The designer's choice.

On my bedside table, my phone flashed with notifications.

Saved in my phone under Bryce/Princess and crown emoji, I had several texts from him, starting from late last night.

— I might have stalked you online a bit. I just wanted to tell you. I don't want it weighing on my mind.

—Does that sound weird? I bet you think I'm a stalker now.

—Well, I did admit to stalking. But like online. I didn't know you would be outside. it's where my friend works.

—Oh god. Please disregard what I've said. I'm not weird. I just haven't met anyone who takes the princess thing serious, and I got carried away.

—One last message before I go and jump off a cliff because you clearly think I'm insane already.

—Me again, hi. Let's start over. I'm Bryce and I'm an overthinker. I'm also not super open with my emotions.

—Actually last message, what if I said my friend took my phone and sent you all of that? Would that reset the way you saw me?

It brought a smile to my face. I related to him hard. I was an overthinker and an over blurter. I could see the timestamps for all of it. None of it had woken me, surprisingly. All it did was make me like him more. Bryce was a ball of anxiety, and his Princess Valeria side was the confident one, considering the way I'd seen him in that blue dress the other night with the tiara and wand.

I sat upright in bed and looked around the completely dark room. The one benefit of blackout blinds was never waking to streams of light hitting you. I used the remote by my bed and the blinds retracted up, illuminating the room with another day of clouds.

— That was thoroughly entertaining to wake up to. If you're going to admit to that, I will admit that I had a friend look you up as well, on a computer at work. Don't worry, it didn't reveal any skeletons in your closet. In fact, it revealed what I knew about you all along. You're a sweet, precious princess and my invite to dinner still stands. I hope you'll accept it. I'm also an overthinker, it's a blessing and a curse. Thank you for blessing me with that information about you.

It took me a moment to craft the message. Going back an forth trying to find the right words to say to him. The truth was, I'd never been more drawn to someone the way I had been to him. I hadn't been behind him at the nightclub for no reason. Part of it was to see him viewpoint, and another point was to be close. It's not every day you see someone in a poofy blue princess dress hyping up a club of people and sprinkling glitter on them. I was a sucker for the infectious energy had had over them.

Bryce messaged me back, although I was in the shower at the time, discovering glitter on my arms. He'd really gone to town with those shakes on me. And when I thought I'd washed them all away, another caught my eye in the overhead lighting.

His message was broken up in several shorter messages. Maybe a sign of our age difference.

— Are you fucking with me?

—I mean, I bet you think I'm an absolute mess.

—I'm not a mess, I promise. I just don't do emotions.

—Sorry. I do emotions, but they're overwhelming.

—Overwhelming because I like to know what people are thinking at all times.

—If that's something you're like, it's not for me, then ok, cool, we can just lose each other's numbers.

—Now it sounds like I'm trying to convince you not to date me.

—That's not it! I want to go on a date with you.

—Ahhhhhh! Brain be quiet.

It was genuinely nice to see the raw emotions come right out of him, out of anyone really, but specifically him. It was refreshing.

Drying my hands off first to message back.

— Relax. Being overwhelmed is natural. I want to take you on a date. But you've got to save some stuff for me to find out for myself. But since you've offered so much of yourself up already, I'll let you know that I was in therapy for years for mental health reasons, and through that, I've come out stronger.

I never told anyone about my mental health stuff, but I needed him to know that I related to what was happening in his brain right now. That anxious need to overshare in order to assuage the anxiety beast.

— Thank you. But you're you, sorry, I deep dived you online. And I've not been on a date in years. He sent.

— I'm the one who should be anxious because you're a princess. I don't know how I'll be able to impress you. And the last date I went on wasn't actually a date but someone trying to get a job at my company. I sent back.

Bryce was a relative stranger, but Daniel said he hadn't seen anything worrying on the search, so I didn't feel too scared to share more about myself with him.

I finished drying myself as three dots appeared in the corner of the texting app. Bryce might've been compiling his thoughts before spilling them all now.

The lights above my mirror was warming, almost like a ray of sunshine themselves. They were part of a plan to help alleviate potential seasonal affective disorder. They paired well with blue light therapy too.

— Don't worry about that. I have a job. I'm gonna stop screaming my every thought at you now. Let me know when and where to show up tonight.

—I will do. Also, I still have glitter on me. But I'm not mad about it.

A couple of years ago, someone posted an article online about me and my company losing it's sparkle. It was safe to say I'd found it again, but that was something published by a company trying to build their reputation on the back of putting mine down.

Just as I was caught reflecting, a call came through from Mark, my COO. He'd heard that I'd loaned Daniel money and then given him work. The two of them butted heads often at the company, which was a spot of contention and I was in the middle of it.

I changed the topic, telling Mark about my date.

" Seriously?" he responded.

On speakerphone as I applied moisturizers to my skin and tried not to get up close and personal with every pore on my face. "Yes. You remember I went to the nightclub."

"I offered," he said. "Before you start."

"You were going Upstate," I reminded him. "And I didn't need Gen bringing me a bottle of passive aggressive bodega wine to the next dinner I had you over for."

He laughed. "Gen would never. Except for one time. And in her defense, You added extra salt to her food."

It had happened once, and I never wanted it to happen again. I loved Mark and Gen, they were the epitome of a perfect couple together. And she actually made it up to me with a special vintage wine the following week.

"Anyway, back to this date," he said. "Who is he? I know how you met, but was he in the crowd or was he the manager? Although I thought that was a woman." I could heard his tone become pointed.

"He's a DJ and a music producer," I said.

"I can't picture it. Someone that cool, there's got to be a catch," he said, continuing to laugh. "Did you lie and tell him you were into his type of music as well?"

My sex life and areas of kink I was into weren't public knowledge, even within my small friend group. Looking at myself in the mirror, I didn't have an immediate response. "The beat of the music was good," I said. "You know I listen to that sort of stuff when I'm working."

"Oh the lo-fi stuff," he said. "Honestly, I'm glad you've got a date. You might quit going into the office on the weekends."

"I'm not going to get carried away with it," I told him. "And I'll work whenever I want to work."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just saying and I have been for years, a relationship or a hobby would be good for you."

It was true. I had tried both, but hobbies were a pain because I needed to be an expert in them overnight, and relationships were worse because I never found the perfect middle ground with them. I needed someone to play with, and not all types of play are for everyone. But I had high hopes that Bryce was into my type of play, and that was a hope I clung to currently.