Read Die for You for Free Online

to jingle. Snow fell in fat, wet flakes that didn’t bother to stick to the ground and make themselves pretty. I signed his book with a black Sharpie, thinking about my pajamas and down comforter, Seinfeld reruns . Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the clerk at the counter issue a yawn. Other than the three of us, the store was empty; it was nearly nine o’clock.
    I handed the book back to the stranger and then he just stood there for a moment, awkward. He was working up the nerve to say something. I expected him to start talking about the book he was writing, ask about getting an agent or publisher. But he didn’t.
    “Thanks again,” I said. “I appreciate your coming out on such a terrible night.”
    “I wouldn’t have missed it,” he said.
    I stood up then and took my coat off the back of my chair, barely registering the tinkling of the bell over the door. By the time I turned around, he was gone. I was so tired that night, so wanting to go home that, other than his hands, I hadn’t really noticed much about him, wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a lineup. This was unusual for me. I absorbed details, energies, like a sponge, couldn’t even stop it if I wanted to. The curse of the writer. But not that night. Fatigue, maybe, or just a single-minded focus on trying to get home? Or was it something about him, his energy, that allowed him to be overlooked, go unnoticed? Whatever the reason, I didn’t think about him again as I said my farewells to the clerk and headed out onto the street.
    He was waiting for me outside the door under a large black umbrella. I felt a little jolt of fear.
    “I’m not a stalker,” he said quickly, lifting a hand. He must have seen the alarm on my face, how I quickly turned back toward the shop door. He released an uncomfortable laugh, glanced up at the falling snow, maybe embarrassed that he’d frightened me.
    “Is it crazy to ask you to have dinner with me?” he said after an uncomfortable beat.
    “A little,” I said, appraising him, looking into his eyes, assessing his body language. He was tall, powerful looking. His shoulders square, hand tense, gripping his umbrella. He didn’t look like a nutcase, with his expensive leather laptop bag and good shoes. He wore a dark wool pea coat, with a gray cashmere scarf. His eyes were stunning in the lamplight, a wide, earnest light blue. An amused smile played at the corner of his mouth; his jaw looked as if it belonged on a mountain somewhere. I realized I was shivering, all exposed flesh starting to tingle.
    “Well,” he said, “go a little crazy with me, then. A public place, somewhere crowded.” His smile broadened. I could see that he was laughing at himself inside, at the situation. I found myself smiling, too, at his boldness, at his allure.
    “When’s the last time you took a chance?” he asked, undaunted by my silence, by the way I must have been staring at him.
    I might have just walked away, hopped a cab, and headed home. This is what I wanted to do, even started to move to the curb. But I had a rare moment of self-clarity: My sister was right about me. She’d said: You’re not willing to bend or shift anything to let someone into your life . Or something like that. I suddenly, passionately, wanted to prove her wrong.
    I looked at him with fresh eyes; he was still waiting, still smiling. Most men would have already walked away, embarrassed, angry. But not Marcus. What he wanted, he got. He’d wait, if that’s what it took. Even then.
    “Seriously,” he started, and it was in that word that I first heard the lilt of his very slight accent. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already.”
    I found myself laughing with him at that, and the next thing I knew, we were in a cab together, racing through the wet, cold night.
    * * *
    W E WOUND UP at Café Orlin, a dark and cozy spot, one of my favorite East Village haunts, and stayed there until the early hours, losing our sense of time and