I’m not going to lie. I was a little nervous when I saw Lucy come out of the building and head my way. It was an odd feeling. I had not been nervous around a woman in… well... years. I was a cocky son of a bitch and damn proud of it. I made people nervous, not the other way around. Don’t judge me. It was hard not to have an ego the size of Texas when you did what I did for a living, literally holding life and death in your hands one minute, then holding the attention of millions of fans worldwide the next. My fans hung on my every word, post, and Tweet. It was the damnedest thing you ever saw. Being me was almost like being a movie star or a rock star. All modesty aside, when you looked like I looked and did what I did and screwed the women I screwed, well, again, it was hard not to let it go to your head.

The oddest thing was that I didn’t feel the need to show off around Lucy. I had not seen this woman in nearly twenty years and the moment I saw her I felt my entire body relax, as if every muscle sighed at the sight of her. She moved into my arms and melted to me as if we had never been apart. I was totally comfortable around her. There was no pretense. No bullshit. I was completely at ease. It would be interesting to see if that kept up during dinner or if my famous ego would rear its ugly head. The Lucy I used to know would cut me off at the knees if I got too cocky with her. I’d have to keep that in mind as the evening progressed.

“How was your first broadcast?” I asked as she approached with a big smile on her face. “I saw some of it in the car. It looked perfect to me.”

“It went great, but I need a drink,” she said, giving me a hug before climbing into the back of the limo. I climbed in behind her and closed the door. I took a deep breath. The faint scent of her soap and shampoo lingered in my nostrils, making me sigh. The driver glanced over his shoulder to make sure we were in, then pulled slowly away from the curb while we got settled in the back.

“What would you like?” I asked, gesturing at the minibar built into the back of the front seat. I gave her a playful frown. “Wait a minute, when did you start drinking?”

“Uh, when I turned twenty-one,” she said with a smile that was as contagious as the flu. “In fact, I had my very first hangover the morning after my twenty-first birthday. I’ll just take a beer if you have it. What about you? When did you start developing your bad habits?”

I smiled. The fact that I’d never tasted a drop of alcohol was one of those pompous things I liked to brag about. “I’ve developed many bad habits over the years, but alcohol isn’t one of them,” I said as I opened the mini fridge beneath the bar and plucked out a bottle of Coors Lite and twisted off the cap for her. I wrapped the bottle in a napkin and handed it to her.

“You don’t drink?” She said it as if she were astounded by the fact. She settled back in the seat and took a sip of the beer and let out a sigh. “Good for you. What about drugs?”

“Oh, there you got me. I am a crack addict of the highest magnitude,” I said making a silly face. I took a bottle of Perrier from the fridge and sat sideways in the seat facing her. “Actually, I’ve never taken a drug, never smoked a joint, never been drunk or high. I overdosed on sinus meds once in college, but that’s the depth of my drug addiction.”

“Are you philosophically opposed to alcohol and drugs?” she asked. I watched her tongue circle around her lips after taking a drink. “Or do you just think it’s cool to be different?”

“I wouldn’t say that I’m philosophically opposed,” I said, holding out the Perrier bottle to tap it to hers. “When I was younger, I was too busy trying to keep my grades up to get into med school to get drunk or high. I was always the designated driver or the one sober frat brother who dealt with the cops when they came to bust up a party. Now, I’m always on call, so I have to make sure I’m always sober and ready to go.”

“My goodness, look at you, all grown up,” she said, smiling at me. “Little Calvin Walker, a world-class cardiologist and TV star. I always knew you had talented hands, Calvin, but I would never have imagined this. How cool is it being you?”

“It’s very cool,” I said, wiggling my fingers at her, making her giggle. “But I’m sure Ed told you everything there is to know about me. Let’s talk about you.”

“You’re much more interesting,” she said with a sigh.

“I’m only as interesting as other people think I am,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Come on, Lucinda Walsh Rhodes, catch me up on your life over the last eighteen years.” I held out my hands and she took a deep breath, then told me her life story, at least the highlights and lowlights, of the past eighteen years.

She went to Stanford after high school, met her future husband her sophomore year, fell in love even though everyone warned her that he was a pussy-chasing douchebag (her words), graduated with a degree in journalism, moved back to Milwaukee, got a job as an assistant news producer at the local CBS affiliate, moved to Chicago to become an executive producer at the CBS affiliate there, caught her husband cheating multiple times, finally had enough, left him and…

“Here I am,” she said quietly, as if telling the story had exhausted her. She had peeled the label off the beer bottle with her thumbnail as she spoke. She brushed the scraps of paper into her palm and dropped them on the minibar. There was a sad tinge to her voice now, as if she wasn’t really where she expected to be at this point in her life.

“And here you are,” I said. “Where did you think you would be at this point in your life?”

Her pretty nose crinkled when she frowned at me. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You said, here I am,” I said, my hand sliding through the air like some game show model presenting a prize. “Is this where you thought you would be when you were that bright-eyed journalism student at Stanford? Did you think that one day you’d be the executive producer of a cable news broadcast? I mean, you must be pretty proud of where you are, Lucy, all things considered.”

“All things considered I suppose I am,” she said, mustering a smile that could have construed as happy or sad.

“Well, however things were supposed to work out,” I said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. “I, for one, am glad you are right here, right now.”

“Me, too,” she said, her eyes beginning to sparkle again. “I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.”

“Good, me too,” I said. I brought her hand to my lips and gave it a playful kiss. “So, dinner? What sounds good?”

Lucy’s fingers tightened around mine and she leaned toward me. She pressed her lips softly to mine and slipped her tongue into my mouth. Pulling back, she rubbed her nose against mine and said, “What I’m hungry for they don’t serve in restaurants. Take me to your place, Calvin. And hurry, before I change my mind.”