Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The one hit for Thomas Brewer is on the website for Mount Sinai Hospital. When I click on it, there's a recent photo of him, followed by a small bio. He looks incredibly handsome in the photo, dressed in a crisp white coat, his dark eyes staring into the camera. His bio mentions an undergraduate education at Cornell University followed by medical school and a residency at the University of Pennsylvania. Impressive. But one thing stands out to me.

I'm fairly sure Tom told me he was working at NYU.

NYU and Mount Sinai are nowhere near each other. When he mentioned it to me, I remember thinking that his hospital was fairly close to my apartment. I would not have thought that if he'd said Mount Sinai.

What the hell?

I return to the search, scrolling to find other hits. There's nothing else. He doesn't have a Facebook profile. I don't see him on Instagram or Twitter, at least under his real name. And when I search on Cynch, I can't find an active or inactive profile.

By the time Tom gets back from the bathroom, I am thoroughly confused. He slides into the booth across from me and grabs the menu.

"Let's get some food," he says. "I'm starving."

At that moment, a waitress comes by with a cart teeming with plates of food. Tom—always an adventurous eater—grabs a plate of chicken feet. I stick with the pork dumplings. But while Tom eagerly digs into his food, I just stare at my dumplings, my appetite gone.

"Hey," I say as casually as I can, "what hospital did you say you worked at?"

This time there's no hesitation. "Mount Sinai."

"I could have sworn you told me you worked at NYU."

He arches an eyebrow at me, an amused smile playing on his lips. "Were you looking me up on your phone while I was in the bathroom?"

Busted . Although part of me feels that he is more busted than I am. "So what if I was? You definitely told me you work at NYU."

"I used to work at NYU," he says. "I recently switched over. Maybe I was so enamored with you that I misspoke."

Is that possible? I suppose it is. But the whole thing, combined with the wrong name, leaves me feeling slightly uneasy. I could accept that one was a mistake, but both?

Then again, I can't forget that the only reason this is happening in the first place is because a woman came up to Tom to gush about how compassionate he was when she was suffering from the loss of her husband. And I believe it. I've dated a lot of guys, and I can tell that Tom is a nice guy. It's hard to believe that he really would have lied to me.

"How come you don't have a Cynch profile?" I ask.

A smile plays on his lips. "Is this a trick question? You and I are dating, right? Do you want me to have a Cynch profile?"

"No," I say. "I just mean, most single people in the city are on that app."

"I'm just not into dating apps."

"Then how do you meet women?"

He grins at me. "Mostly I just look around for girls having nosebleeds and offer to buy them a new shirt. Usually works."

"Ha ha, very funny."

He arches an eyebrow. "But if it bothers you, I'm happy to put up a profile on all the dating apps."

Now he's being a smart-ass, which I suppose is fair given my line of questioning. "No, thank you."

"Or…"—he reaches across the table for my hand—"maybe you can delete your profile too, and we can just see each other. How about that?"

I suck in a breath. Even though things have been getting more serious with Tom, I'm still surprised to hear him say that, especially given his relative lack of previous relationship experience. I'm surprised, but not unhappy. Just the opposite, in fact. Maybe he's finally ready to forget that dead girl from high school.

"That sounds very nice," I say.

And just like that, I have a boyfriend.