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Pulling outto call ers fu the carpet It seems like injustice rather than divine intervention when the screen lights with a photograph I should’ve deleted o

Alexander, not quite in profile, his face angled away as I’d snuck the picture on my way to the bathroom in that Latin club

I should delete it now

Instead, I study the sharpness of his cheekbone and the colour of his hair This is the kind of face that stops a girl in her tracks Not that I think he’d notice, not because he’s stupid or oblivious—far froer notices it I mean, look at how hard I had to work to be seen by hi And now he’s rescuedme this job

Yep, this is a face that is no doubt handsoance to the man, too I’d felt it in the way his hands followed the curves of my body and the coain, and so

I i over the delete button The little trash can And with one last look, I tell n his handsome face to the past

Delete

13

Alexander

It was easier when she was a tourist When I knew only her first na back to There was soain That she would be the kind of obsession that lived only in my head A fascination without chance of an outlet But then I saw her again, and the fascination took a more manic turn Like an addict just one call away from his dealer, it see exactly where she is

Soht recall snippets of our night together Soination takesI’d acted on idly cold lane to nore the tehts of her out of reat

“You’rea Viking” The sound of her lilting accent see on the papers spread out on the desk in front of e in idle fantasies this evening No tiht echoes in my head

“Is it the beard that gives it away?” Reaching out, I’d curled a lock of daers down her bare shoulder

“I think you look like a ht the rasp of stubble on my cheek