The man watched Jamie walk away. She had a long, ground-eating stride that carried her swiftly to the end of the block and out of sight as she turned left. He wouldn’t follow her, he decided. Not this time. What was the point when he knew exactly where she was going?

He was intrigued by the note she had posted into the letterbox, but there was no hurry for that either. He would read it soon enough. What worried him was that she had sensed him somehow. He had been as still as a mouse, as silent as an owl, but something had made her turn and stare at him until it felt as though her dark eyes were penetrating the foliage and looking right into his soul.
It had been both terrifying and exciting.

When he was sure that she wasn’t about to turn around and come back home because she’d forgotten something, he eased his way out of the bushes and stood in the road brushing his clothes with his hands.

His heartbeat returned to normal and the sweat on his skin evaporated as a breeze swirled around him. Today was a good day, he reminded himself. The day he got to watch her at work. He only allowed himself to watch her once a week, and never twice in a row on the same day of the week. Nothing would be allowed to spoil that.

An hour later, he tucked his knees under a table in the cosy, fragrant atmosphere of Delucia’s Bakery and Coffee Shop. It had been hard to restrain himself for a full hour, but now it was half-past twelve and the lunchtime rush was in full swing. Nobody gave him a second glance among all the other single men glued to their iPads and laptops as they forked food into their mouths.

He propped the menu up in front of his face and allowed himself the pleasure of watching her.

She looked just like her photographs. So many of them didn’t. So many of them turned out to be a disappointment. His hands curled into fists at the thought.

They lied in their photographs. They took extreme close-ups of their faces, or posted pictures that were ten years old. They prevaricated and they falsified. Only Jamie had not lied. Her big, dark eyes were real. Her sunstreaked ponytail was real. Her body was real too – long and lean, but still feminine. And that face. It haunted him online and it haunted him now, with its wide, full mouth and strong bones.

Sweat beaded his upper lip. He rubbed a forefinger under his nose and tried to decide what to order.

***

Tell us: How do you think this man originally found Jamie online?