I spend the next few hours in a post-coital haze, so blissed out that I’m almost sure my customers can tell I recently spent twenty minutes in my back office having what has got to be the best sex of my entire life. The only way I could feel more conspicuous is if I literally had on a T-shirt that had “I just had two mind-blowing orgasms!” emblazoned on the front.

My good mood continues most of the afternoon, and into the evening. It’s so obvious that even Hailey notices as soon as she comes in for her closing shift.

“You’re really happy today,” she remarks. “What’s up with you?”

“Oh, nothing,” I say with a shrug. “It’s just a nice day out, so I’m in a good mood.”

Hailey stops what she’s doing and cocks her head at me. “Are you serious?” she asks, her hands on her hips. I turn toward the front window.

It’s raining. I hadn’t noticed.

“I mean, we need the rain,” I say hastily. “So that’s nice, right?”

Hailey purses her lips. “You’re full of shit,” she says bluntly. “Something’s happened. And you’re not telling me.”

“I’m your boss, young lady. I have no obligation to tell you a thing.”

“Oh, my God, something did happen!” She’s triumphant. “Something happened with the hot biker guy! Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

Dammit. I’d been hoping to avoid the subject of Brick with Hailey, especially since the night he came to the shop and I told her to leave. I should have known it would be impossible. Like most teen girls, she loves gossip, especially about the male of the species.

“Nothing happened!” I exclaim, rolling my eyes. My dad raised me to have a good poker face, but I can tell I’m not fooling Hailey for a minute.

“Oh, come on! Tell me! I promise I won’t tell another soul.” She gives me such a serious, earnest look that I almost burst out laughing.

“Hailey. Listen to me,” I repeat. “Nothing. Happened.”

“Fine. Be a killjoy,” she sighs with a toss of her lavender ponytail. “I’ll just use my imagination.”

Hailey fake-pouts for the rest of the shift, and I let her. I’m not about to give in, so she can just live with it. Tonight’s the last night I’m helping her close the shop before she tries doing it by herself. As eight o’clock nears, I can’t help but sneak glances out the window, wondering whether Gavin will show up. Even though my pulse begins to race at the thought, I know I’ll never get Hailey off my back if he does.

In the end, he doesn’t come by. I’m both relieved and disappointed. Hailey’s mom comes to pick her up, and I lock the shop and go out the back. Even though Gavin isn’t here, I guess his badgering at me to be careful has had an effect on me, because I notice I’m ultra-cautious and aware of my surroundings as I go to my car and lock myself in.

I’m driving back to my place when my phone buzzes in my purse, telling me I have a text. My stomach does a little flip of excitement, even though I know it can’t be him. He doesn’t have my phone number, and I don’t have his.

The euphoric cloud I’ve been floating on for the past few hours dips a little as I remember that Gavin and I are basically nothing to each other. His weird preoccupation with the security level of my coffee shop notwithstanding, we’re more or less strangers. And that’s fine, I tell myself emphatically. You don’t need him to be your boyfriend. In fact, you don’t even want a boyfriend, remember?

When I get home and turn off my car, it’s as if the fates had taken it upon themselves to remind me exactly why I don’t want a boyfriend. I pull out my phone to discover that the text I got is from Devon.

I have to sit in my locked car and force myself to breathe deeply and evenly. My hands clutching the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles are white. He found my new number, my brain repeats crazily. He found my new number. He’s not letting this go.

When I manage to get my breathing under control, I flick my eyes briefly back to my phone again, and then grip my keys with my pepper spray tightly in my hand. My house looks undisturbed, all the lights off except the one on my front porch.

I try to talk myself out of the prickles of fear tingling on the back of my neck. From the mistakes in the text, it looks like he might have been drinking, or maybe even on something stronger. So maybe he’s just drunk and lashing out at me to make himself feel better. Besides, as I’ve told myself before, if he really was coming after me, why would he tell me about it? Why wouldn’t he want to take me by surprise? It doesn’t make sense.

He just doesn’t like losing. He’s just doing this as a display of power so he can feel like a big man. That’s all it is. He’s mad, but he wouldn’t hurt me.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

I have to admit, though, it makes me feel a whole lot safer to have all the security stuff Gavin installed at the coffee shop. Not that I’d tell him that, of course. I smile in spite of myself, instinctively knowing that he’d never let me live it down if I did.

Like the first time, I don’t respond to Devon’s text. I can’t see the point. Instead, I toss my phone on the couch and double-check that my door is locked and dead-bolted. Then I do a nerve-wracking check of the entire house to make sure no one’s here, tell myself off for being such a ninny, and go in the bathroom to take a long, hot shower.

When I come out, wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, I see that my screen is lit up with another text. My stomach lurches sickeningly at the thought that Devon’s messaged me again, but I force myself to pick up the phone and read what it says.

A dizzying rush of adrenaline spikes through my system, making me feel like I might throw up. Shit! Devon’s here in Tanner Springs? He knows where the shop is? My mind races frantically — trying to think what I should do, what I should say — when I realize with a start that the text is all alone on the screen.

And that the area code is for Tanner Springs, not New Jersey.

Weakly, I slump down on the couch and actually start laughing with relief.

I text back:

A couple of seconds later comes the response:

I’m trying to think of a smartass reply when Gavin sends me another message:

I just barely hold myself back from typing a response to him, because I know it will probably come out all super-dorky and overly attached and just plain uncool. Instead, I tell myself that leaving it like that will make me seem casual and self-assured and not reading too much into any of this.

Which is what I desperately want to be.

The sex this afternoon in my office with Gavin was absolutely incredible, so much so that I would pretty much do anything short of murder to do it again. And I’m really, really hoping we do. But I also don’t want to let myself start overthinking it. He’s not exactly someone who screams “boyfriend material,” after all. If anything, he’s probably the kind of guy that probably has mind-melting sex with random women most days of the week.

Thinking this now, I have to ignore a little flush of disappointment. Maybe he just thinks of me as… I dunno, an easy lay, or something. Stop that, Syd. Don’t be stupidly sexist. You’re both consenting adults. He wanted it, you wanted it, so it happened. End of story.

And that’s true, right? It seems like maybe he wants to continue whatever this thing is, and even that he likes me enough to find out my number somehow and apparently to bring me a present tomorrow. I should just be happy with that, and be happy that for at least a little while it looks like I’m gonna be having amazing sex. Where’s the downside in that?

Armed with this incredibly air-tight logic, I decide to make an early night of it and get to the shop bright and early tomorrow. I pull my still-damp hair into a high ponytail and put it in a loose braid, smiling to myself. Soon, though, my thoughts wander back to Devon. In all the excitement of flirting with Gavin, I’d almost forgotten about him for a few minutes.

He said he knows where I live.

Could he be serious? Could he really be thinking about coming here?

I try to tell myself again that there’s probably no reason to be worried. I mean, yes, it is a little concerning that he’s sending me menacing messages. Devon and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms. But it still seems like an overreaction to think they’re anything more than empty threats. After all, the money I took (my money, I remind myself fiercely) was chicken feed compared to the kind of cash he usually deals in. I don’t know why he’d bother following me to try to get it back, when logically it’s not worth the time he’d be away from Atlantic City.

All this time that I’ve been going back and forth in my mind about Devon, there’s a tiny voice in my head that keeps growing louder. I’ve been pushing it away, but it’s clamoring to be heard, and finally I can’t ignore it anymore.

You know what Devon wanted from you went far beyond just the money you could make him. You know he doesn’t let go easily of what he thinks of as his.

I shiver, and pull my bathrobe more tightly around me.

That may be true. Maybe I underestimated how attached Devon was to me romantically. Our affair was never something I thought of as permanent. I just assumed he felt the same. Or maybe I just hoped that was how he felt. If I’m completely honest with myself, sometimes Devon’s proprietary attitude toward me veered toward the controlling, especially when he thought one of the other men on our team was getting too friendly with me.

Still, it seems crazy that he would come all the way here to hurt me. I can’t have been that important to him. And besides, in all the time I knew Devon, he was never violent toward me.

No, a little voice in my head says. But he was violent toward other people. Particularly when he felt like he had something to prove.

It’s true. The only times I ever saw Devon hurt someone was when he was cornered. When he’s in serious trouble, he reacts like a caged animal. Unpredictable and dangerous.

A little cold knot takes root in my stomach.

Has something happened? What has Devon gotten himself into?

And is he really coming for me?