When Your Name Found Mine
Chapter Three — Three Daves
By Monday morning, I'd decided on two things:
1. The letter was not going to solve itself.
2. I wasn't going to straight-up ask Dave Moreno if he wrote it.
Partly because that would be awkward if the answer was "no," but also because a part of me wanted to find out in a slower, more careful way. I didn't want to scare off the possibility before I knew if it was real.
I still had two other names from the campus directory: Dave Kendall and Dave Sinclair.
The plan was simple: locate them, talk to them, see if anything about their voice, their eyes, or the way they spoke made me feel the same strange pull I'd felt in the café.
Kayla, my roommate, was less subtle about it.
"So basically," she said, chewing a granola bar while perched cross-legged on her bed, "you're speed-dating three guys without telling them you're speed-dating them."
"It's not speed-dating," I said, shoving my laptop into my bag. "It's… investigative."
"Uh-huh. And when you figure out which one wrote the love letter, what then?"
I didn't answer. Mostly because I wasn't sure.
---
The first opportunity came that afternoon in the library. I spotted Dave Kendall at one of the long study tables. His name was easy to confirm — it was printed in blocky letters on the sticker attached to his laptop.
He was surrounded by textbooks, a sketchpad, and two empty coffee cups. I took the chair across from him and set down my notes.
"Hi," I said.
He looked up, blinking like I'd pulled him out of a deep mental tunnel. "Uh… hey?"
"I think we had bio lab together last semester," I lied.
"Oh, maybe," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. His voice was warm but distracted, like he was still halfway in his work.
We chatted for a few minutes about classes, dorm life, and the weather — nothing heavy. He seemed nice enough, but there was no spark, no trace of the careful longing I'd read in that letter. When I left, he gave me a polite smile and went back to scribbling in his sketchpad.
If Dave Kendall was the writer, he was doing an Olympic-level job of hiding it.
---
That evening, after dinner, I decided to track down Dave Sinclair. According to the directory, he was in the music program. That meant there was a good chance I'd find him in the practice rooms in the arts building.
Sure enough, I heard the sound of a piano drifting down the hall before I even reached the right door. I peered through the small window and saw him — short sandy hair, glasses slipping down his nose, his fingers moving fast over the keys.
I knocked softly, and he stopped playing.
"Hey," he said as I stepped in. "Sorry — was I too loud?"
"No, you're fine. I was just… passing by."
We ended up talking for nearly half an hour. He was funny in a dry, understated way, and every so often he'd lean back from the piano and tell me some absurd fact about composers or music history.
But as I left, my gut told me the same thing it had in the library — this wasn't the Dave from the letter either.
---
That left Dave Moreno.
Which was complicated, because the more I thought about him, the more I wanted him to be the one — and the more that possibility scared me.
On Wednesday, I ran into him in the student union. He was sitting at a table by the window, sketching something in his notebook.
"Hey," I said, sliding into the chair across from him without asking.
He looked up, smiled. "Evelyn. Psychology major who secretly likes blueberry muffins."
I blinked. "How do you—"
"You were staring at the muffin display for like two minutes the other day in the café."
I laughed, but inside my pulse had quickened. The letter had mentioned rain, laughter, glass. Small, specific details. Was this another one?
"What are you working on?" I asked, nodding toward his notebook.
He flipped it toward me. It was a quick architectural sketch of the old clock tower near the quad, drawn in clean, confident lines.
"You ever draw people?" I asked.
"Not unless they sit still," he said with a grin. "But maybe I could make an exception."
For a second, it felt like the air between us shifted. My fingers itched to pull out the letter, to lay it down between us and ask, Is this yours?
Instead, I just said, "I'll keep that in mind."
We talked until his phone buzzed again — another class pulling him away. He left in that same easy, unhurried way he had in the café, and I sat there for a moment, feeling like I'd been given half of an answer but not the whole thing.
---
Back in my dorm that night, Kayla was sprawled on the floor with a pile of laundry.
"Well?" she asked. "Any progress?"
I pulled the letter from my bag and set it on my desk. "Maybe. I think I've narrowed it down."
She sat up, grinning. "So it's Moreno, right? It's always the guy who smiles like he's keeping a secret."
I didn't confirm or deny. Because the truth was, I wasn't sure if I wanted the mystery solved just yet.
Somehow, not knowing made the air around me feel charged, like every walk across campus, every conversation in the café, every glance through a rain-streaked window might be leading me toward something worth finding.
And for now, that was enough.