After a few minutes, he paused, breathless, to meet my eyes. “I really need to thank you for leaving that voicemail.”
I met his right back. “I really need to thank you for saving my life.”
* * *
WHEN WE FINALLY walked back to the party, it was winding down.
Daniel was still there, and when he caught sight of us, rumpled, wind-blown, clearly together, secretly holding hands … he gave me a nod of appreciation, like, Mission accomplished.
Mr. and Mrs. Kim waved good night at us from their table, as if they already understood everything that had happened and were sending me their full approval.
But Sue wanted details. She walked up to us and put her hands on her hips. “Where’ve you two been?”
“Oh,” I said, waving absently toward our personal corner, “just over there.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You look suspiciously happy.”
Joe coughed. I smiled and looked down.
“What’s going on there?” she asked, pointing at our clasped hands.
We broke them apart, like we’d been caught.
“What just happened?” Sue asked. “Did you two—？ Are you two—？ Hey, I know it’s very pretty and romantic up here, but—”
“Funny story,” I jumped in before she got too outraged at the notion of me just giving in to a man who had cruelly ghosted me. “And this is going to sound so crazy…”
“Nothing could be crazier than what’s going through my head right now,” Sue said.
“Wanna bet?” Joe said.
“Remember,” I said, “how I was totally crushing on my veterinarian, but then he stood me up for our first date and then I wound up—how to put it—transferring my affections to Joe from the building?”
“Yes,” Sue said, like, Hurry up and get to the point.
“Turns out,” I said, “as impossible as it sounds…”
Sue put a hand on her hip, like, Move it along.
“They’re the same guy.”
Sue froze. Then she shook her head.
So I nodded mine, trying to help her get there. “The dashing veterinarian, whose face I couldn’t see … and the douchey guy in the building—”
“Hey!” Joe protested.
“Whose face I also couldn’t see…”
I let Sue catch up. “Were the same guy?” she finished for me.
Joe and I nodded at her. Then he grabbed the moment to take my hand again.
“How is that possible?” Sue asked, still shaking her head.
“My brain’s been a little wonky lately,” I said with a shrug.
“This isn’t wonky,” Sue said. “This is…” But then she didn’t know what it was.
“Dr. Nicole kept warning me about stuff like this,” I said. “About how the five senses really work together, and if one of them is suddenly altered, it can throw your whole perceptual game off for a while, especially if you throw in our human love affair with confirmation bias.”
I was gearing up to do a whole TED Talk, but Sue was pulling out her phone. “What’s the vet’s name?” she demanded as she started googling.
“Dr. Oliver Addison,” Dr. Oliver Addison supplied.
“Are you googling him?” I asked.
“What’s more likely?” Sue said, scrolling. “That you thought one person was two fully different people—or that this guy…”—she gestured with her phone—“is some kind of scammer trying to lure you into his sex dungeon?”
“Likely?” I started.
But then before I could refer her back to the intricate workings of the ecosystem of the brain, Sue said, “Oh,” and held up her phone for us to see.
And there was Dr. Oliver Addison. In a photo on the vet clinic’s Meet the Staff page on their website. In that white vet coat and tie, with his hair back in that Ivy League do. Looking utterly dashing, legitimately crush-worthy, and exactly like the guy standing next to me.
It was hitting Sue now. “You are Joe from the building?” she asked him.
Joe nodded.
“And you are also this guy?”
Joe nodded.
Sue turned to me. “You thought this one guy was two different people?”
I nodded. “I also did it to a barista in the coffee shop.”
Sue was turning it all around in her head. “So the night the veterinarian stood you up…”
I looked over at Joe.
“I didn’t stand you up,” he said. “I was just late.”