❁ Asher ❁

Junie’s possessive touch remains on my skin long after I return to my penthouse. I can’t shake how I both crave her attention yet worry about letting her close. She was so much more beautiful up close. Her eyes are lighter, and her smile feistier. I was fooling myself if I thought I was obsessed before today. Now I’m dived headfirst into a desperate fascination with a woman I still know next to nothing about.

Unable to relax I head to my personal gym where I push my body past the point of exhaustion. Running on the treadmill, I can’t turn off my worries or thoughts of Junie.

Even after a brutal two-hour workout and the nearly scalding shower that follows, I still feel her fingers squeezing at my arms and stroking my hands.

I retreat to bed and reach for my earphones and black sleep mask. Resting on my back, I cover my eyes and ears, eliminating their stimuli. Legs straight, arms away from my body, I feel the world fall away.

In the darkness, I see Junie’s smiling face. Despite the white noise from the headphones, I hear her voice teasing me about needing a hug.

Giving up on resting in bed, I pour a glass of bourbon and sit on my deck next to the pool.

A year ago, my business partner, Garrett, sold his half of our company and left Dietrich for Seattle where he’s a small fish in a big pond. I didn’t take his leaving well. Friends are not something I make easily, and I trusted Garrett completely. He understood me and never asked for more than I could provide.

Then one day, he abandoned me as most people do.

Now he lives with his plastic wife and their nanny-raised baby in a place where no one knows the real him. Possibly, Garrett wanted to be someone new, but no matter what masks we wear, people eventually uncover the truth.

After Garrett’s departure, I languished in a funk until leaving the penthouse proved impossible. I even lacked the will to descend ten floors to my offices. Rather than allowing depression to crush me, I tried seeing a psychiatrist for a few months.

The experience proved exhilarating. I spent my time refuting everything Dr. Disher said rather than focusing on Garrett’s abandonment.

Therapy irritated me enough to get out of my funk. I couldn’t stand how Disher tore apart my every choice and relationship to prove I had a habit of picking the same kind of people and making the same kind of mistakes. He was useless at fixing my quirks, but he did lead me to Junie.

After a visit to his office, I decided to stop at the diner Garrett swore served the best chicken and waffles. I sat in the back booth and waited for someone to recognize me.

No one did, and I ended up sticking around for an hour after I finished my plate of food. Reading a paper, I occasionally glanced up whenever the door’s bell rang. I noticed the prostitute and the man with no front teeth who laughed at everything. Minutes before I planned to leave, Junie skated into the diner and plopped down at the front counter.

I remember thinking she was probably a hippie. Her home was likely filled with pottery and maybe even birds. I’d heard about a woman in East Dietrich whose house was a giant bird cage filled with nearly a hundred of her feathered friends. I didn’t remember the details, but I could imagine the Bird Lady wearing roller skates while out for a meal.

On that first day, I mentally mocked Junie while paying my bill. Leaving the diner, I caught a glimpse of her upturned hazel eyes, and they were all I needed to get hooked.

So I returned to the Flamingo Exit Diner the next week. Junie showed up like clockwork, and we began a routine. I’d forced myself to leave the tower and drive across town to a diner where I’d eat the best chicken and waffles while stealing glances at a woman in roller skates. Every week without fail I swore I wouldn’t speak to her. Knowing her secrets would make me responsible for them. She was best left a desirable mystery.

Now I hold a file in my hand with her basic data. The private investigator said he’d keep digging, but this information was a useful start. If I find something I don’t like, I can cancel our dinner date before things get out of hand. It’s why I used a fake name when we met. I want to keep all my options open.

Juniper Lynn Voss, twenty-seven years old; a graduate of the local Kitley Technical College; employed at IT Zen for five years; before her computer repair position, she worked in retail; never married and no children.

I repeat her name in my head before saying it aloud. It’s a silly name for a woman, but the more I say it, the more it fits her. Junie embraces silliness until it transforms into ordinary, thus making what’s normal into boring.

Nothing I find in the file inspires me to back out of our date. I also doubt I could walk away if I wanted. The possibility of Junie proves too tempting, and I’m a man unaccustomed to addiction. Giving into my impulse is all I can do until either I lose interest in her or she refuses to see me.