Page 38 of Letting Go

"Good to see you too," he says.

I don't know what to say. I don't know how to behave right now and all I can do is shove the gun away against the small of my back.

The silence is awkward and needs to be filled. He's playing me.

"What the hell Mateus? What are you doing up here?"

"Trying to find you, bro."

That's when the churning in my stomach kicks in.

I hear another door slam. It's Chloe. I point at her. "You scared the shit out of that girl."

Mateus nods in her direction. "Your Chloe, right? Sorry. This guy," he says taking a step toward me, "This guy won’t return calls, email, letters. He's kind of an ass."

A few more steps and he's closed the gap, clapped me in a bro hug, and released, leaving only a hand on my shoulder.

"Dude," he says squeezing my bicep, "you've bulked up even more. You're looking good."

"So, you know each other." She folds her arms across her chest.

Mateus laughs. "Oh, we know each other we go way back. What's it been now?" His smile fades. "Five years is a long time to disappear."

Chloe looks at me with confusion.

"It's not like that," I say to her, before returning to him. "I didn’t go underground."

"Why did you follow her around though why not just come to me?"

"I tried. I checked out your place in Boston. I checked out your place in Portland. The last place was here, and I had to come up anyway to interview. But I had to make sure it was you. That story that made the news a couple of months ago, the one about the girl that was nearly killed…"

"That's my sister Claire," said Chloe.

"You're in that story, Bryce Tucker. I had to make sure it was really you," he repeated. "Your boss, Finn Colton told me to come this week to scope the place out. In the middle of lunch, I'm sitting there and you two pull up, I figured I'd just follow you back, and then Chloe started driving all crazy."

"So you tailed us?"

Before he can answer my question, Chloe launches one of her own: "I saw you yesterday. At the wine shop and you followed me on the sidewalk."

"I saw the van and the logo from your inn. I was just hoping to catch up with you, but you took off." He shrugs and thrusts a thumb in my direction. "I was trying to figure out a way to surprise this guy. I was looking for a conspirator. Thought you could help me come up with something." He smiles.

Chloe mulls this over and then follows up with, "How did you know my name?"

"What?"

"My name, you know my name."

"From that story in the high school paper the Coastal Chat or whatever it is they call it."

Chloe pales.

"The one about you being the new chef at Echo Bay Inn."

Chloe looks at me and nearly wrings her hands. "It's true then. It's out on the net."

I know what she's thinking. She's worked so hard to hide. And now it seems pointless.

"I'm sure it's fine," I say, still not knowing what the issue is but wanting to comfort her in some small way.