It was a light scoop day for Jasper St. James.
He hadn’t been back in town for all that long by the time he’d realized that every couple of months, people liked to take a break from the drama and simply concentrate on continuing to exist. It was the eye of the hurricane period, the months-to-years stretch between earthquakes where everyone began to wonder if they’d finally ended for good. Gravewood was consistent, the town’s drama hangovers occurring with enough regularity that Jasper knew he was about due to shake things up again.
But no one was biting.
That was how he’d ended up prowling the street that morning, looking for news in any place he could find it. Hanging around La Bodega, hesitating around the Mayor’s Office, and eventually landing around the entrance to Marie’s.
He’d just decided that he was probably more likely to get gossip from eavesdropping on the brunch crowd when he opened the door and almost crashed right into Hope Kang.
He hadn’t allowed himself the full disaster moment, the very sight of the girl thankfully having him freezing in place, but at what cost? Because he’d been stopped mid-step. In the middle of the doorway. Like some weirdo.
What was he supposed to do? Or say?
When he’d stumbled upon her on the (now beloved) chat site they both frequented, he’d recognized her instantly. It had also caused a level of panic within him the level of which being arrested at Taylor Swift’s abode hadn’t even managed to rouse (he was feeling some of that again in that moment).
He knew Hope Kang. He had all sorts of ideas in his head of what she was probably like, built up after years of avoiding her from the moment their hands had touched when he borrowed her pencil in the sixth grade. He kept loose tabs on her on Facebook, followed her from his finsta, knew enough to piece things together... he’d sent flowers to her house (anonymously and directed at the family as a whole) when her brother had passed.
It was not stalker behavior.
He had not at all been looking for Hope when he’d hit his low point and ended up legitimately just tipping girls to have someone to talk to. What he’d been after was a semi-to-fully nude therapist, someone to hear his problems and then never see him again. He’d stumbled across a few who had been pretty decent before fate had brought them together.
By that point he’d had to add a little more than a hat to his disguise. He’d lowered his voice, taken on an Australian accent, added glasses, and kept himself in low lighting at all times, his computer screen functioning as close to a ring light as he was going to allow in order to protect his identity.
She therefore didn’t know that the mysterious man who had legitimately poured out his heart and soul to her was Jasper St. James. And at the rate they were going, she never would. He’d asked to meet up several times, but chickened out last minute. By the time he’d worked up the courage to reveal himself at the ski lodge, the universe had prevented it from happening by plunging that place into an unreachable darkness.
How could one not take that as a sign?
But that didn’t mean that he could gracefully dip out of their public encounter. Not when she’d already turned to look at him. He had to make things seem... normal.
So, he spoke up... at a slightly higher pitch than normal, just in case. His body finally allowed him to resume a normal range of motion too.
“Hope Kang! As I live and breathe. How long has it been since we had a chat?”
@hopekang
