The doorman recognized Neil and let us in immediately.

“That must be nice,” I said, “Never having to fumble for your keys. Or worry about whether some homeless guy is going to try and push in behind you.”

“There are perks,” Neil said.

It was a lavish building. A mosaic pattern decorated the highly polished floor of the lobby. Some dark and expensive wooden panelling, oak or teak I guessed, accented everything. And the ceiling rose high over our heads.

In spite of still feeling rather drunk on Neil, I started trying to figure out what rent in a place like this would be.

Rent? If you can afford a place like this, you own.

The elevator was quiet and smooth and modern, all brushed steel and digital displays. Neil kept his hand resting on my hip and I liked the weight of it there.

The elevator carried us up to the 15^th floor.

“I really shouldn’t...” I said, those doubts once again resurfacing. There was still another train out to Brooklyn. If I hurried I could make it.

Make it to what? Your apartment with some rushed food, maybe a quick look at Twitter and the news and then off to bed? Bed by yourself?

I didn’t want to think about Twitter or the internet anymore, though. They just meant work to me.

Except was it really work when it controlled every aspect of you? I think they just called that life. And I was beginning to realize that maybe it wasn’t the sort of life that I wanted to live.

“I don’t want you to go, but I’m not going to stop you if you do,” Neil said.

I didn’t go. I got out of the elevator with him, followed him down a hall with that same patterned and polished floor as the lobby. The same oak-panelled walls.

I noticed how clean everything smelled. Was Manhattan supposed to smell this clean? Did it ever smell this clean? I wasn’t certain.

“So... when did you move in?” I said, wanting to hear something other than our footsteps punctuated by the quickening slam of my heart against my ribs.

“Five years ago this November,” he answered.

I also noticed how very few doors lined either side of the hallway. The condos had to be huge. There couldn’t be more than one or two per floor, even.

I couldn’t help a bit of awe creeping into my voice, “You must pretty much run wherever it is that you work.”

He smiled, “Yes, with help. It’s been good to me. Here we are.”

There wasn’t a keyhole in the door. Just the latch and an angled panel above it. Neil pressed his thumb to this panel. Something clicked. Then a deadbolt slid back with a muffled clack.

“I guess you never have to worry about forgetting your keys when you empty the trash,” I said. Come on, Rachel, you could sound a bit simpler if you tried harder!

I wasn’t trying, though. I wanted to sound smart. I wanted to impress him. But I was so far out of my depth I couldn’t even see the shoreline anymore.

“You mean the trash disposing robot doesn’t need to worry,” Neil said.

I stopped. “There’s no such thing.” Is there?

“Just pulling your leg,” Neil said, still smiling, then he nudged the door with his fist and it swung up silently, “Come on in. You’ll like it.”

I noticed that the foyer lights came on as the door opened.

I stepped through the doorway, Neil’s hand still against the small of my back. I guessed that the foyer by itself was half the square footage of my (admittedly small) Bushwick place.

“So... you must have a nice view of the park,” I said, mentally orienting myself and the condo with the rest of the island.

From the foyer I could see two hallways branching off and two doorways. All of them beckoned, and I wanted to explore this new place.

“I do,” Neil said, “But I don’t care about that.”

I turned to face him. We stood close. The sort of space that a chaperone at a Catholic high school dance might ask partners to maintain.

“Why is that?” I asked. In turning around, the bit of breeze around my body pulled that one annoying bit of hair down across my forehead again.

I started reaching up for it in a mostly unconscious, well-practised movement.

Neil interrupted, lightly clutching my wrist. “Because you’re the only thing I want to see right now, Rachel.”

I laughed and smiled at the same time. That line shouldn’t have worked. But the way he delivered it without a hint of self-aware humor, the whole time his eyes locked onto mine. It worked.

He brushed that errant lock back off my forehead, his hand coming to rest cupping my cheek.

I started trembling. It began in my ankles, then worked its way up to my knees and didn’t stop from there.

I was a marionette and my puppet master had the shakes.

“I guess that the tour can wait,” I said.

“I hoped you might say that,” Neil replied.

His other hand went to my waist, then slid around so that it again pressed against the small of my back. The pressure from that hand increased, pulled me towards him.

Our bodies pressed together first, and then our mouths.

This late in the day, his stubble tickled at my lips. Tickled and prickled.

That tremble inside of me turned to a heat wave that spread out from low in my stomach, melting every part of me with which it came into contact.

That heat increased as our kiss deepened. His lips parted mine, his tongue exploring. I responded in kind.

That hand on the small of my back slipped down. He cupped my ass. The cupping motion turned to a squeeze. Into a grind that pushed my hips hard against his.

I trembled on the inside. All thoughts of leaving, of going home and pretending this night didn’t happen, vanished.

Well, not quite all.

We came up for air. My chest heaved and so did his. I could feel my heartbeat in my lips. The tickle-prickle sensation of his stubble remained as well.

I struggled to catch my breath. My lungs couldn’t quite keep up with the demand. Everything felt liquid and hot, inside and out.

“What is this, Neil?” I said. I searched his eyes as though I might find the answer somewhere in their depths.

And they were deep eyes. Vital and alive on some primal level that I couldn’t quite grasp but found myself reaching for. I wondered if that vitality, that yearning that I saw in them, was one of the things that attracted me to this man the most.

Both his hands ended up on my hips. They slid up my sides, cupping at the swells of my breasts for a moment before continuing on over my shoulders. He cradled my face in his hands.

His palms were large and smooth and dry. And I thought I could feel his heartbeat in them. Could he feel mine? I thought that he could.

“It’s just the two of us is what it is. The rest can wait,” he replied.

“I like that,” I said. Oh, how he sweeps aside all my worries. I should be worried by that, but I’m not.

He swept other things, too. Like me, right off my feet.

One moment he was holding my face in his hands, looking down into my eyes, his face the only thing that I could see.

The next moment I was in his arms, smiling and laughing. He moved in one quick and fluid motion.

I put my arms around his shoulders, holding on tight. “Put me down.”

“No. Not here, at least,” Neil said.

“Where, then?”

“You let me worry about where,” he replied. Then he started walking.

I laughed again. No guy had ever done this to me before. I thought it was an experience all women should have at least the once. That feeling of being held and supported by two strong arms. Borne off to wherever he cared to carry you.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling a little self-conscious. But who wouldn’t?

“Neil, are you sure I’m not, you know, too heavy? You don’t have to do this,” I murmured.

“I’m sure,” he said without the slightest beat of hesitation, “I’m sure that I could carry you like this all night. If that’s what you wanted.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said, trying not to smile too much.

He carried me through the foyer and then down the second hallway. He put his shoulder to the first door on the right.

He was also careful to avoid a mood-spoiling bonking of my head against the doorframe, guiding me through the opening with skill and grace.

“You sleep here every night?” I said, momentarily awed.

It was a corner bedroom with floor to ceiling windows. Sheer curtains diffused the light coming in through those windows. A large four-poster bed took up one wall. I could see art and other furniture as well, but my attention was otherwise occupied so I didn’t really focus on them.

“The nights I’m home, yes,” Neil said, “Although tonight I’m not sure much sleeping is going to happen in this bed. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“You’re incorrigible,” I said, trying to sound reprimanding even as my already racing heart kicked it up another couple of notches.

I didn’t think I could’ve slept if I’d already been awake a million years.

“That’s the way you seem to like it,” Neil said.

He carried me over to the bed, then set me down on it. I lay on my back and he, with aching and deliberate slowness, popped every button on my blouse starting with the top and working his way down.

I liked the way his eyes devoured every revealed inch of me. I liked the way his stubble tickled and prickled between my breasts when he kissed the soft and sensitive skin there.

“That’s no fair,” I said when he pulled the tails of my blouse out of my skirt.

“We’ll make it fair, then,” he replied.

He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it carelessly behind him. Then he yanked at the knot of his tie until it loosed enough for him to pull over his head.

He tried tossing that away too, but I grabbed it from him. With a smile, I pulled it down over my head and settled the glossy silk of it between my breasts.

“I think it looks better on me,” I said.

“I think that you’re right.”

Then he sank the fingers of both hands into the gaps between the buttons on his shirt. He ripped his shirt open, many of those buttons pinging off into the darkness. I gasped in delight.

Then I sat up so that I could be the one to push that shirt down off his shoulders and arms.

I didn’t push it off all the way. I did it enough so that the sleeves kept his arms behind him.

I put one hand on his stubbled cheek. Let that hand slide down his chiselled chin. Down his neck, over his shoulder and down to his well-sculpted chest.

“You are so incredibly sexy,” I said.

My fingers continued their exploration down his body, pausing a moment over his heart when I felt that powerful thump-thump beat beneath the slab of muscle.

He breathed steady and deep while my fingertips traced down his abdominal cleft.

That breathing quacking when my hand kept going lower. My fingers found his belt buckle. They went lower, caressing him for a moment through the front of his pants. But only for a moment.

Something about him brought out something playful and teasing in me. My hand moved away from the swell of him and he groaned.

Then he leaned in to kiss me. I leaned back, dodging his lips.

“You’re making me desperate, here,” Neil said not without a smile.

“Maybe that’s just how I want you,” I replied. I leaned in and kissed his neck and then the sweep of his shoulders.

Then he struggled the rest of the way out of his ruined shirt. He pushed me down on the bed and I gasped.

He savaged my jaw and my neck with kisses. His rough mouth moved down between my breasts and then back up again, leaving the skin there flushed and red.

One of his thighs slipped between mine. My breath caught at the delicious sensation of the pressure against me.

He nibbled on the lobe of my ear. His breath, hot with need, washed over my neck and shoulder.

“I need you now,” I breathed. I couldn’t take any more of that teasing pressure against me.

My hands strayed between our bodies, made quick if fumbling work of his belt buckle. I unzipped him, unbuttoned him. Freed him.

Neil pushed my skirt up my thighs. He hooked a finger into my panties and pulled them to the side.

Somehow, I don’t know how or when, he found a foil wrapper. He tore it open. I ached with terrible need while he rolled the contents on.

Then there was more pressure. It built, then the pressure let up and we were together.

My breath rushed out as he filled me. My hands found his shoulder blades. My fingers dug into his flesh. I held him tight against me and in me.

I didn’t expect either of us to last long. I certainly didn’t. My body writhed beneath his. He kissed me hard when I climaxed, every muscle in me going rigid and then languid with heat. My back arched up off the bed, every fiber of me aching to be as close to him as possible.

Our bodies pulsed and throbbed together.

He did last longer. I don’t know how, but he did.

When he finished I held him close. It felt as though our heartbeats had synced. Both of us glistened with beads of perspiration, and once more I found that my lungs couldn’t quite meet the demand for air that the rest of my body wanted.

“Wow,” I said.

“It’s not over yet,” Neil breathed. He barely needed to whisper, his lips were so close to my ear. A pleasant shiver ran through me at the sound of his voice.

Our second time that night didn’t have the wild, desperate need of the first. It was slower, more methodical. He wrung every last bit of pleasure from my body that he could.

At one point he even took his black silk tie from around my neck and used it to tie my wrists together. I’d never let a guy do anything like that to me before.

There was a third time, too. When he told me that we weren’t going to spend much time sleeping in that bed, I hadn’t quite believed him.

But I think we only managed to steal three or four hours’ worth of shuteye. Which I desperately needed.

He touched a button on the nightstand and a thicker set of curtains glided almost soundlessly over the first set, blocking out nearly all the light.

Just before sleep took me, I thought that I should set an alarm. However, I didn’t know where my phone was. And Neil held me against the solid warmth of his body. A position I didn’t want to leave or disturb.

Just sleep in. You’re already in Manhattan so it won’t take as long to get to work.

I hated that. Hated how even then work could intrude into my life and my thoughts.

Neil kissed the nape and my neck, making the fine hairs there stand on end.

But isn’t this the exact reason why you didn’t want to take up with him in the first place? Because it interferes with The Plan?

Plan’s change, I thought back.

Then I let sleep take me.

My final thought before unconsciousness descended over me was that I was going to have to wear the same clothes into work twice in a row.

***

WHEN I WOKE UP I FOUND myself alone in Neil’s expansive bed.

I ached everywhere, inside and out. Then all the memories of the previous night rushed back into my mind and I smiled.

I sat up and realized that I was naked. My second realization was that my clothes were nowhere to be found.

The first nervous thread of panic wound itself into the lining of my stomach.

Then I saw my phone on the nightstand. I snatched it up, more nerves building inside me. I pulled myself up, leaning back against the headboard. I had a waking nightmare, thinking I would push the home button and find it was already 1:00 in the afternoon or something.

It was hardly past seven in the morning.

Then I saw the housecoat draped across the foot of my bed. I swung my bare feet out and stood up, bracing myself for the chill of the floor against my skin.

But the floor was warm. I held the robe up. It was thick, soft cotton with an integrated belt. This belt I tightened around my waist when I put the robe on.

I took another hopeful look around the room, wondering if perhaps my (probably quite wrinkly) clothes had made their appearance.

They hadn’t.

Then I smelled the unmistakeable aroma of bacon. A moment later, as I walked towards the bedroom door, I heard the sound of said bacon crackling in a skillet.

Oh my God, he’s cooking me breakfast.

When was the last time that happened? The only other men who’d cooked me breakfast in recent memory were the teenage line cooks at McDonalds who made me my McGriddle on the occasional morning when I indulged in such excessive and delicious calories.

I grasped the door handle, started turning it. Then another nightmare thought popped into my head.

I must look terrible!

Funny hair. Splotchy skin. The minimal makeup I’d put on for work the day before a complete disaster after a night of my cheek pushing into a pillow.

“I need a mirror,” I muttered to myself. I knew that I couldn’t let him see me the way I imagined I looked.

A guy like Neil was probably used to being around perfect women. The type who bounced out of bed looking like they were born with a perfect complexion.

It always took me a good hour in front of the bathroom mirror to achieve a look like that. I didn’t think I had an hour, but some time was better than none at all.

Not that I had a makeup kit on me. But I figured with a few wads of Kleenex and tap water I could get rid of the worst of the smudges and smears.

And just as I thought, there was an ensuite bathroom. I started towards it just as the door behind me swung in.

“You found the robe,” Neil said.

Then, as though last night hadn’t happened, a full body blush came over me.

“I did. Where are my clothes?” I said. I whirled around to face him, pretending that my blush was out of anger and indignation.

From the way he smiled, I knew it didn’t work. That just made the blush worse.

“Don’t worry about them. Breakfast is ready,” Neil said.

He also wore a white cotton robe, belted at the middle. And he looked perfect. Absolutely perfect, his hair tousled and tossed but not bedhead-y. Not a touch of bleariness or bagginess to his eyes.

“You look great, by the way,” Neil said.

Are you psychic? I thought at him.

He put his hands on my hips and pulled me against him for a kiss. I tasted coffee.

“Is there coffee?” I said with the desperate hope of the caffeine freak in my voice.

“Fresh ground,” he replied.

One of those hulking football defensemen couldn’t have stopped me. I followed my nose to the kitchen. Followed the aromas of sizzling, crackling bacon and fresh-brewed coffee.

What I found was an expansive kitchen with a small, circular dinette set placed in one corner. A white tablecloth draped it. A small, crystal vase contained a single, long-stemmed daisy.

A covered platter, two place settings, a decanter of orange juice and a pot of coffee also sat on said table.

I hardly noticed the professional level stainless steel stove, the enormous pantry, the fridge built into the wall. The smooth, warm tiled floor. Or the way the sun streamed in through what I figured was the living room.

I poured the coffee first, right after sitting. Just the smell of it started waking me up when it hit my brain.

Neil came and sat across from me. He sipped at his own coffee. Gradually, I became aware that he was watching me. I also became aware that I’d already inhaled half the pot of coffee and had already polished off two fired eggs and half a dozen strips of incredibly crisp and tasty bacon.

Not only am I disheveled from sleep, I’m also a total pig!

“I’m... I’m not usually like this,” I said, “I’m usually not this comfortable around someone so soon. And I’m never this much of a pig. Promise.”

Neil smiled. He took another sip from his coffee and set it down. “You’re incredible.”

“...Incredibly bad?” I hazarded.

“Just incredible,” he said.

I leaned into it, “What can I say? I just wake up this way. What about you? How long have you been up?”

Neil shrugged, “A bit more than an hour. I’ve always been an early riser.”

“So, do you care to solve the curious case of the missing clothes? I can’t exactly go to work like this.” I tugged at the robe.

“When I got up I sent them out for a rush cleaning. Don’t worry: they’ll be back in time for work.”

“Oh,” was all that I could manage.

I refilled my coffee. Was that the fourth refill or the fifth? I couldn’t remember. I sat back in my chair, cradling the mug so that it warmed my hands.

Not only did all my clothes come back cleaned and pressed, but Neil also showed me to the guest bathroom which came equipped with a basic but serviceable makeup kit.

As I took out a fresh cotton pad and wetted it with some makeup remover, I wondered just how many women Neil had over to his place.

He was clearly well off. And good looking, and confident, and good in bed. He could probably have his choice of whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

I tried taking some comfort in that. If he was just in this for some good and casual times, that was good, wasn’t it? No commitments, no relationship to worry about.

I looked myself in the mirror. So why me? And also, why did I find myself disappointed at the thought of just being another warm body in his bed?

I don’t want anything more than that. Do I?

***

THAT FRIDAY NIGHT I made some more time after work to get together with the girls. Sharon, Lindsay, Suzy, and myself all got together at Suzy’s place.

It was a NBN. No Boyfriends Night. Prior to this, all such nights out or in with the girls had been NBNs for me.

But now? I wasn’t so certain anymore. Is he my boyfriend? I found myself wanting to answer that question in the affirmative. Even though thinking that way tied knots in my stomach.

She had that same tasty Riesling as before, and a glass of that for each of us loosened things up.

“In Vino Veritas!” Lindsay said, holding up her glass. There was a crimson smudge of lipstick on the rim. She was a petite and pretty strawberry blonde. I’d always wished for hair that color, instead of the auburn genetics gave me.

We all held up our glasses as well.

Suzy, Lindsay, and Sharon all sat on Suzy’s black Ikea couch. I sat on an overstuffed footstool on the other side of the coffee table.

I took my phone from the table and checked it again. Since Wednesday, Neil kept texting me. Some of the messages were sweet. Some strayed into the racy side of things.

I’d never really been one for that sort of thing. But when Neil sent me a text telling me the next thing he wanted to do to my body it got my heart pumping.

And I didn’t want one of those messages to come in for all my friends to see.

“So what’s new with everyone?” Sharon asked. She held the stem of her wineglass in both hands. Her hair was glossy black, framing a long and pretty face.

“Well,” Suzy said, sneaking a glance my way, “I think that we can all agree that Rachel has the biggest news.”

I shot Suzy a look that said. What are you doing?!

Sharon and Lindsay both looked at me expectantly.

“Oh?” Sharon said, “Do tell.”

“It’s nothing,” I said, “Just work. Lots and lots of work.”

Which was the truth. I’d felt so guilty about my night in with Neil that I stayed in the office until almost 10 on Thursday night. I’d also spent the whole day watching my office phone nervously, a dreadful certainty hanging over me that Mr. Diehl’s secretary would ring me up at any moment so that he could chastise me some more.

The call never came, thankfully.

In fact, I was even at that very moment trying to figure out how I could get the next analytics report to Mr. Diehl, write a few clever tweets for the company Twitter, and still find time to see Neil that weekend.

Not much success on that front.

“It’s not nothing,” Suzy said. She got up from the couch, her wine almost sloshing over the rim of her glass.

She came around the table and threw and arm over my shoulder. She smelled like lavender. Her favorite scent.

“Rachel has a man!” Suzy announced.

Sharon and Lindsay set their glasses down on the coffee table so that they could applaud.

I drained my own glass and set it down by theirs, heat burning in my cheeks. “It’s not like that,” I said.

“So then tell us what it’s like,” Lindsay put in.

They already knew some of the basics. Mostly that Neil and I met at the Olive Garden speed dating.

Sharon and Lindsay both clapped their hands over their chests when I related how it turned out I wrote down the wrong table number, and that Neil and I ended up literally bumping into each other on the street.

“It was meant to be!” Lindsay said.

“That is adorable!” Sharon added.

Suzy knew more, of course, because I talked with her the most of any of my small group of friends.

Then the wine kicked in, wrapping my mind in its warm and fuzzy hug. Everything spilled out. Stuff I hadn’t even really consciously thought of.

“I can’t stop thinking about him. We’ve only gone out a couple of times but I want to spend every waking moment with him. I keep checking my phone to see if he’s texted me again. Except I need to do more at work because my boss doesn’t think I’m good at my job and I need to prove him wrong. Oh my God what do I even do?”

The verbal diarrhea didn’t end there. I went on about how he texted me nice things at work all the time, how he asked me to let him know that I got home safe (to which Suzy, Sharon and Lindsay all shared an aww). And I even told them about how he made me breakfast and got my clothes cleaned.

“So you’ve slept together?” Lindsay said.

“How many times?” Sharon added.

“Tell us everything,” Suzy said.

That heat blossomed in my cheeks again, and I stared longingly at my wine glass, wishing it was brimming with more of that tasty Riesling. Anything to give me a break from their anticipatory stares.

“Well... We’ve only been out twice...” I said, hoping that my cute and innocent routine would work on them.

It didn’t.

“So how many times?” Sharon pressed again.

“Once that first night,” I said. I grinned, unable to help myself at the memory of it.

I wished then I was with Neil instead of the girls.

“Rachel!” Lindsay said in mock shock, “I never thought of you as the type of girl to give it up on the first date!”

Suzy, who I hadn’t told about the second date yet, clued in faster than the other two. I wished I was better at lying about or hiding things.

“And the second? How many times?” Suzy said.

I needed more wine. I didn’t care anymore. I grabbed Suzy’s glass, still half full, and drained it in one swallow.

While I did that, I held up three fingers.

“Three? Three times in one night? You’re a machine!” Lindsay said, “A dirty, dirty sex machine!”

They fell over themselves laughing.

I put Suzy’s glass down and took a breath. “I know. It’s all so crazy. It feels like I’m going to wake up at any second all sweaty with the sheets tangled around me. But every time I pinch myself I realize that I’m already awake. I keep thinking that it, that Neil I mean, he’s too good to be true.”

I managed to hold back a few of the juicier details. Like how we’d used Neil’s black silk tie for things it was never intended to do.

I didn’t want to give them too much ammunition to use against me. Even though I found myself enjoying their ribbing.

It was their turn to fall over themselves. Verbally, this time. They told me how I worked too hard and too much, and that Neil was exactly what and who I needed.

That I was guilting myself, that I deserved to be happy.

That they wished their boyfriends could go three times in one night.

“Hell, three times in one week,” Suzy said. And we all laughed again. That was why I loved those girls. They made me laugh, helped me get out of my head.

The last couple nights I’d spent with all the girls, Suzy liked to complain about her current beau. A guy named Devin who managed a Starbucks just down the street from the Suzy’s own job on Fifth.

“So what’s he look like? Have any pictures? Friended him online?” Lindsay said.

They all quieted and leaned forward expectantly, their wine sitting forgotten on the coffee table.

“No...” I started. Then I remembered the trivia night and that waitress (Cindy?) who took a couple pictures with my phone, “Yes, actually!”

I grabbed my phone and opened up the photo album. The two pictures the waitress took came up right away on the roll. I looked them over and picked the second. I didn’t look so goofy in that one.

Then I turned the phone on its side and let them look. I intended to hang onto it, but Sharon snatched it away.

They huddled around her.

“He is hot!” Lindsay said.

“This is fake, isn’t it?” Sharon teased, “You found a super-hot guy at a bar and convinced him to take a picture with you.”

Suzy didn’t say anything, but I didn’t pay her much mind. I was too busy basking in the jealous glow coming off Sharon and Lindsay.

Lindsay actually stood up and bowed to me a couple of times, “Tell me your secrets, O Great and Sexy One.”

“I really don’t know,” I said, “I keep waiting for that glass shattering moment. You know, the one where he reveals he’s racist. Or Republican. But so far nothing.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Suzy said.

That rubbed hard against the grain. The remaining three of us stopped and looked at her.

“What the hell, Suze?” Lindsay said.

Sharon still had my phone. She thrust it towards Suzy. “Yeah. Just look. Even in this picture you can tell they’re crazy about each other!”

Suzy glanced at the phone, then back to me. She shrugged. “I dunno, guys. I think maybe Rach’s right to be worried. I don’t know what it is, something just feels off about this guy.”

Lindsay clapped a hand on Suzy’s thigh, “The only thing you find off about him is that Rachel found him first! Come on, Suze, I know your family’s Irish, but green’s not a good color on you.”

“I’m not jealous! I’m not,” Suzy said, “I just don’t want to see Rachel get hurt. And there’s something about this guy. Look, Rachel can feel it too. That’s why she has those doubts.”

Sharon leaned over the table to hand me back my phone. I stole a glance at the picture and then locked it.

“No,” Sharon said, “She has those doubts because she’s convinced herself that work’s her whole life. And that she can’t let anything get in the way of that. Not even Mr. Perfect Ten here.”

“’She’ is right here, guys,” I said. I hated when people talked about me right in front of me like I wasn’t even there. It seemed like cold and critical analysis, and I got enough of that at work from Mr. Diehl.

“Sorry,” Sharon said.

Suzy looked at me. Her face looked drawn and taut. “Yeah, sorry. Just be careful, I don’t want you getting hurt. No guy is worth that. Remember your last breakup?”

I did. Not that I wanted to. I think I ran the Rexall down the street out of every box of Kleenex that they had.

Tension started filling the room like static electricity.

“Does he seem familiar to anyone else?” Lindsay said.

“Yeah,” Sharon added quickly, “I feel like I’ve seen his face somewhere before.”

“What does he do?” Suzy said, looking at me. They all looked at me.

I shifted under their combined glare. “He, uh, he works at a firm downtown. On Madison. I’m not sure which one. He’s some sort of executive. Pretty high up, too. His place is absolutely crazy. On the Upper West Side.”

But that got me thinking about meeting him at the speed dating. How when I first sat down I also thought he looked familiar. Like I’d seen him on the news or on a magazine cover or something.

And now that I thought about it, we had shared a fair amount with each other. Where we came from, our families, school. But I still didn’t even know the name of the company he worked for.

I got the sense every now and then that there was something else. Something he wasn’t exactly lying about, but wasn’t telling me.

I wondered if that was the biggest factor contributing to my unease. My feeling that this was all too good. That the shoe was going to drop or the glass was going to shatter at any moment.

Why didn’t I know something as basic as where he worked?

***

ANOTHER WEEK WENT BY, and I noticed more and more how my life was basically a seesaw.

There was balance in the middle, of course. And on one end sat my work and professional life, and on the other my personal life.

At the moment, my personal life seemed to have put on a fair amount of weight. Because there was no such as thing balance, as I discovered.

Neil and I texted all week long. We also, and this was a pretty big first for me, spoke on the phone.

I’d get home from work, get out of my work clothes and into my much more comfortable PJ bottoms with an old Columbia shirt.

But not before first shooting Neil a text telling him I got home fine.

Then he’d always send something back.

I’m going to call you.

The first couple nights, Monday and Tuesday, I was so nervous, waiting for that call to come. The final three nights of the business week, excitement replaced the nerves and I often found myself staring impatiently at my Samsung, waiting for it to ring.

Of course, I always let it ring a couple times. It wouldn’t do to pick it up mid-first ring.

And we always had something to talk about, which amazed me. Talking so much, I figured we’d run into that wall of awkward silence as we both searched for something else to say.

If such a wall existed, we must have bypassed it.

On Friday night we went out again. I’d say on Saturday night, too. Except that we never really parted. I slept over again.

And I didn’t go into work on Saturday.

I have to say that again, because part of me doesn’t really believe that could have happened. It was a Saturday. The first Saturday since I started at the firm that I didn’t spend at least a couple of hours at the office, getting a head start on the next week’s work.

I stood in front of a big picture window in Neil’s living room, watching the treetops in the park sway and dance back and forth from the breeze. The lake sparkled in the distance, and scores of people walked, jogged, cycled, and picnicked their ways through the weekend.

A picture perfect Manhattan weekend with blue skies and clean sun glinting off the skyline.

I wore that white terrycloth robe again. With nothing on underneath.

“Maybe I should just pop in. Only for a little. The weekly analytics will be available from Google and Facebook...”

Neil came up behind me. I could sense him there, the solidity of his presence.

He swept the neck of my robe partway down my right shoulder so that he could lay a line of delicious kisses along the newly revealed skin.

“So go, then. If you can,” he whispered.

He’d just gotten out of the shower and finished a fresh shave. His chin and lips were smooth and warm against me, and I found the aroma of his aftershave intoxicating.

I could access some stuff from my phone. The company Twitter account, for one. I’d found an adorable picture of a huddle of fluffy kittens and shared it with the slogan from a laundry detergent we represented.

That counts as work, right?

I bit down on my bottom lip and looked into my translucent reflection on the window in front of me.

I should go. This is exactly what I worried would happen.

Then: I can stop. I can stop anytime I want to.

Except I didn’t want to go. Especially not back to work. That thought should have worried me a lot more than it did.

That it didn’t worry me to that extent was in itself worrying.

Although deep within I knew that I couldn’t stop. Those were the thoughts of an addict. And what was I addicted to? Neil, of course.

The way he kissed me, the way he caressed me, the way he took me to bed and the way he made me feel when he held me.

But not only that. I loved talking to him, spending time with him, enjoying a meal with him.

I wanted nothing less than to spend every moment, waking and otherwise, with him.

And that scared me. Scared me and excited me. It hadn’t been like that with any of my other, admittedly few, boyfriends.

“Are you?” I breathed, scarcely aware that I said anything at all.

“What?” he said, still a reassuring and solid presence behind me.

I thought first to say, Nothing, never mind, but then I realized that I wanted to know what he thought. Needed to know, even.

So I looked over my shoulder at him, unsure how to put it, “This is going to sound silly, like I’m still a teenager or something... But are we going out? Like, officially? Boyfriend-girlfriend officially?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“No hesitation? No let me get back to you, just Yes?” I said.

He wrapped his arms around me, hands folding just beneath my navel, and pulled me back against him. The smell of his freshly showered body, his freshly shaven face, washed over me in an intoxicating wave of masculine allure.

“I don’t beat around the bush, Rachel. Life’s too short to be anything other than direct, to play coy.”

“Good,” I said. How could I say anything else, wrapped in him as I was? “You smell good. Too good.”

He kissed my bared shoulder again. He untied the robe’s belt. We retreated from the window. Then he pushed the robe down from my shoulders and it pooled at my feet.

He shrugged out of his robe as well. Then he pulled me against him again, this time nothing between our bodies.

You still haven’t asked him about work, I thought. I’d been meaning to the whole week, but hadn’t. It was like an annoying loose thread on a favorite sweater. Sure, you could pull at it. But if you did the whole thing might start unravelling.

And I didn’t want this to unravel, what the two of us had.

But then he kissed me and I forgot. Or let myself forget.