CHLOE BAKER'S LOST DATE

Chapter Nineteen: I'll Have The Eight Ounce Glass

After the spin studio, I hobble into work, barely able to walk. I don't care what Kit thinks of me, there's no way I can do this again. I thought I was in shape, but that was a fantasy. Like my life these last few weeks, full of the dream that things might be different if I just wished for it hard enough. That hasn't worked and I'm not magically going to be some amazing athlete either.

When I finally hobble up to my desk, Tabitha is there, waiting for me.

"Contest day, Chloe," she says, her eyes sparkling with mischief. She's wearing a kaftan made out of some vibrant material, and I can't believe she isn't sweating profusely under it, no matter how cold they keep the temperature in the office.

"What's that?" I say with a sinking feeling.

"We need to tell our readers who came closest to providing information on our missing man."

I lower myself gingerly into my desk chair. I feel like I'm a hundred years old. "We're still doing that?"

"Yes, of course, why not?"

"I thought when I found him another way ..."

"Oh, no. We have to keep our promises."

"I don't think anyone actually identified him." I'm not sure this is true. I stopped checking the emails and messages on social when I found Ben for real.

"Then pick someone. But make sure you go through all the entries first. You know what happened last time."

I sigh as I try to find a comfortable position in my chair. My quads on fire, my butt a bruise. Six months ago, we'd run a contest and had gotten lazy going through the entries. Someone who lost took it badly and ended up figuring out that the winner didn't meet the criteria. There'd been a threat of a lawsuit, and our Instagram got suspended for a week. That one wasn't my fault, but that girl wasn't working here anymore, so I most definitely didn't want to make that mistake.

"I'll check them now."

She nods and walks away. Creating this contest was a mistake, no matter how good it was for the subscription base. Classic Chloe—do something impulsive then suffer the consequences for it for weeks or months afterwards. I have to stop doing that.

Only, how do you change your personality? Is it even possible?

I'm not going to figure that out today, so I open my computer and go to the email address I was using for the contest. There are at least a hundred emails I haven't checked. I start to open them, scanning through the included pictures and names which are not Ben. Another collection of sad missing man stories—this is apparently a popular M.O. these days, a few dates and then poof!

It's depressing and I want to delete the rest of the emails. But then I see an email from someone named Kaitlin Hamilton. That's Ben's last name. There are two emails from her, actually, stacked on top of one another in a thread. I open the first—it's dated a week before I figured out who Ben was.

Hi, I saw your contest on Insta and I'm almost certain that's a picture of my brother, Ben Hamilton. I've attached a picture so you can confirm. Do I win?

I open the picture she's attached, a sweet shot of Ben a bit younger on a beach, his hands on his hips, staring at the camera with a laugh. He's tanned and relaxed and happy and I can't help it, I start to smile too. What is it about this guy that gets to me so much? Ugh.

I x out of the photo and read her second email.

Hi again,

I never heard back on this, but Ben told me that you've figured out who he was. I'm Tyler's mom. Thanks so much for being so great to him the other day. He's still talking about it.