He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 233

Chapter 233

Maya’s POV

The maternity boutique had been Lila’s suggestion.

Not the shopping itself… the boutique, which Lila had researched and sent in a message that included the address. and the note they know what they’re doing and they won’t make you feel like a project.

Alex had come with me for fifteen minutes before he had a call he couldn’t defer and had installed Marcus at the entrance and had kissed me on the forehead and said call me when you’re done and left

Which was the appropriate division of an afternoon.

The twins had created a new relationship with shopping.

Not because shopping had changed… because the relationship between what I was choosing and who it was for had changed, had expanded from the single to the multiple, and the multiple were different from each other in ways I was only beginning to understand how to shop for.

A boy and a girl….

The boutique was good at both.

I spent an hour…. more than I had intended….

I left with three bags.

More than I had planned.

Consistent with all shopping that involved hope

The voice came from my left.

I was on the pavement outside the boutique, adjusting the bags between my hands to find the balance that worked, when I heard it.

My name.

I turned

The woman from the Paris hotel lobby…. The collision. The shopping bags. The business card.

She was standing three metres away with a shopping bag of her own…

“What a coincidence,” she said.

Warm. Genuinely warm, or the very good performance of it… I had been running this question, at the background level, since I had photographed the card and sent it to Carter.

Carter had come back with: Company is registered and legitimate. Three years of operation. No flags. No known connections to anyone in our current picture. Still watching.

No flags…

No known connections.

1/3

+15 Berus

And here she was, on the pavement outside a maternity boutique three days after we had returned from Paris.

“I honestly didn’t expect to see you again,” she said

“Neither did I,” I said.

She held up her shopping bag.

The same boutique’s packaging….

“Baby gifts,” she said. “My niece is due in February. I’ve been completely useless at knowing what to get but I walked past this place and it seemed like the right kind of shop.”

She looked at my bags

“It seems we’re here for similar reasons.”

“Twins,” I said.

Her face did the thing that faces did when twins were mentioned – the involuntary widening.

“Twins,” she said.

“We found out in Paris, actually,” I said. “A few days after the hotel.”

“Oh…” She pressed her hand to her chest. “That must have been wonderful.”

“It was,” I said

We talked for twenty minutes on the pavement outside the boutique.

Not from my plan…. from the way conversations moved when they had found their natural pace and neither party had a reason to cut them off.

She remembered things I had said in Paris.

She asked questions that were the right size…. not too large, not too personal, the questions of someone who was curious without being intrusive.

She was good at this.

I noticed that she was good at this.

I also noticed that noticing this could mean two very different things…. it could mean she was a person who was naturally good at conversation, which existed, which was not uncommon. Or it could mean she was a person who had been briefed on what to be good at.

Both readings were available….

I held both simultaneously. Before we parted, she paused.

“I know this might sound strange,” she said, “given that we’ve only spoken twice….. and both times by accident.” The smile, warm. “But would you like to have coffee sometime? You seem like someone I’d genuinely enjoy knowing.”

I looked at her.

At the warmth.

2/3

At the shopping bag with the boutique’s paper handles.

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