It's a normal Tuesday when everything suddenly stopped being normal. And it's all thanks to the postcard waiting for me when I get home from work.

Not that it had been that normal before. Sure, I had the same colleagues, lived in the same apartment, and had the same routines as before Barbados. But there was something distinctly different about it all. I'd come back from the trip and seen it all in a new light. There was a before the trip and an after.

There's also been a distinct lack of Eden everywhere I look. The only thing worse than her absence has been kicking myself for not getting her number.

It had been some stupid impulse to be chivalrous, to not push her for more than she was willing to give. Writing down my number in the postcard to her was the right thing, I'd told myself at the time.

She was grieving her past relationship. She'd said she wanted a fling. Well... let her be the one to decide if she wants more from me.

I'd hated my restraint the second I boarded the flight away from Barbados.

And now I'm staring at the postcard in my hand, at the softly rounded handwriting on the back, and I don't see any digits. She hasn't given me her number.

I read it once. I read it twice. And then a plan starts to form, one that's not chivalrous at all. Because she had given me her address, and she's invited me to Washington. Offered to show me around.

Hope is a sudden burning flame in my chest. I'd already applied for the Washington consulting case at the firm, twenty-two minutes after the email first arrived in my inbox.

Crazy, perhaps. Wild, yes. But nothing about the normalcy of Chicago has felt right, and I have the strongest suspicion that it's all because of her.

I run my finger over her handwriting. You liked vacation me, I think. Let's see if you'll like the real me.

Because I'm already sure I'll fall in love with the real her.