The Follower by Jason Starr

I wasn’t gonna do it. I went over to Jessica’s place last night and I was, like, I
gotta be crazy doin’ this. She gonna be freakin’
, know what I’m sayin’? I gotta
lie to her, make up somethin’
. Then I was like,
Naw, maybe Peter’s right
. So I tried. I mean, I did everything you said I should do, man, said everything you said I should say. I was lookin’ into her eyes, being nice and sweet and all that shit, and I just told her, I was like,
We gotta break up ’cause I’m in love with Lucy and that’s just the way it is
. I didn’t say it like
that
, but that’s kinda like what I was sayin’, you know, and she was like, ‘Yeah, you wanna break up. That’s cool. I just want you to be happy, I wanna be friends.’ I’m serious, yo, that’s what it was like.”
    “I’m really happy for you, man,” Peter said, consciouslytrying to talk like Hector, even taking on a bit of a Puerto Rican accent.
    “Yo, I owe you, man,” Hector said. “Serious. Anything you want’s on me. Tonight, do any pay-per-view, take whatever you want from the mini bar, whatever, and you won’t get charged for nothing.”
    “That’s okay—I’m just glad I could help you out. I’ll talk to you later, all right?”
    Peter took the elevator up to the twelfth floor and went into his suite. He was still very excited about how well everything had gone with Katie and he couldn’t stop replaying their conversation in his head. There wasn’t one thing he’d said that he regretted; if he’d written his lines in advance and read from the script, it couldn’t have gone any better. Again, he took out the business card with her name on it and, touching the writing gently with his forefinger, he had to resist calling her. He wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to know if she sounded different on the phone than in person and he wanted to make sure she was okay. Of course, he didn’t think anything
bad
had happened to her, but suddenly he felt protective over her, as if she were his child, and he knew it would make him feel better, more relaxed, if he could just talk to her.
    But he reminded himself that this was only the beginning. There would be days, months, years, a whole lifetime of talking on the phone. Soon they’d have so many phone conversations that calling her would be something he wouldn’t even have to think about or prepare for; it would come as naturally as eating or breathing.
    Peter felt grimy from the city, so he took a quick shower. Afterward, he opened the closet, which he had filled with his new wardrobe—upscale, conservative clothes that he knew Katie would like—and picked out beige chinos and a black mock turtleneck. He didn’t want to leave anything to chance. If something went wrong between him and Katie and things didn’t work out as perfectly as he imagined, he didn’t want to look back later and wish he had done something differently. He knew there would be a greater chance of winning Katie over if he looked and acted the right way.
    He was planning to have a mellow day alone. He figured he’d take a walk downtown, hang out for a while at a Barnes & Noble or a Starbucks, grab some sushi for dinner, and then maybe go to a movie. He had to go somewhere because if he stayed in his hotel room all day, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about Katie, and he didn’t want to do something stupid that he’d regret.
    It was a beautiful November afternoon—clear sky, chilly but not too cold, leaves whipping around on the sidewalks. Before heading downtown, Peter decided to stop by the co-op he had purchased in the brownstone on East Thirty-second Street, to see how the renovations were coming along.
    He opened the door to the building and went up to the second floor. The door to the apartment was propped open with a piece of wood and a worker was using a power tool in one of the back rooms. Peter checked out the dining room and kitchen, very pleased with how things were progressing. The