When I get home, the answering machine light is blinking. It’s not Mitch, obviously, and I don’t really want to talk to anyone else, so I ignore it. But after two sitcoms and half a pint of Chunky Monkey, I’m ready to listen just to know that someone out there cared enough to leave me a message. With my luck, it will be a telemarketer.

Actually, my luck is worse. It’s Drew. I almost delete it, but then I decide to see what he has to say for himself.

“Hi. It’s, uh, Drew. I’m sorry I didn’t catch you at home. I’d really like to talk to you. About … you know, the other weekend.” Oh, how well-spoken he is. “And I really want to see you. I was … hoping you’d be free tonight. So … call me, I guess.”

Never, I think. Never, ever again.

I delete the message, and go back to the TV.

By eleven o’clock, there’s pretty much nothing even remotely worth watching. I get ready for bed, and climb under the covers, but I’m not even tired.

Well, I guess I’m tired of listening to the same pitiful thoughts chasing each other around inside my skull, if that counts. I keep replaying the scene at Jacks over and over in my head—and every time, I come to the same conclusion, no matter how much I don’t like it.

Trying not to think too hard about what I’m doing, I pick up my cell and dial Mitch’s number. It rings twice and I almost hang up, realizing that if Kari answers I’m going to have no choice but to toss myself out my bedroom window—which does open. Although now that I think of it, there are decorative bars over it.

Foiled again.

Just as the phone rings for the third time, Mitch answers. “Hello?” His voice is thick and heavy with sleep—it’s sexy as hell, of course.

“Mitch, it’s me,” I say hesitantly. “I’m sorry to wake you. I know you have an early morning.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “Luis is driving.”

“Still,” I say. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have called.”

“But you did,” he says. I can hear rustling in the background, and it occurs to me that he’s in bed. My stomach does a slow, lazy flip at the thought of it.

“I did,” I say.

“So?”

“So … I have to tell you something.” I say. “About earlier, and … just about our friendship in general.”

“What do you mean, ‘about earlier’?”

“Why I took off so abruptly, and—”

“I don’t know what’s up with you, but I’m not into playing games.” He sighs. “If you want me around, say so. If you don’t, say that. But don’t say one thing and do another. I don’t have time for that.”

“I’m not playing games,” I say. “Mitch, I—I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Be your friend. I can’t be friends with you, at all.”

“Well,” he says, after a moment. “I suppose that’s up to you, but I guess I’m interested to hear why.”

“It’s … it’s just impossible.” I take a deep breath. “There’s a lot of stuff all mixed up in my head, and I need to get some clarity. I need to focus on what’s important. I need to be who I am, and not be someone I don’t recognize.”

“Okay, but you do realize that didn’t make any real sense?” There’s more rustling as he moves around in bed. “I still haven’t heard a reason. You don’t owe me one, but I’d like one just the same.”

“I’m afraid that’s the best I can do,” I say. “I have my reasons, and that’s all I had to say. I’m sorry to call so late. I just wanted to catch you before … before you went away.” Before I lost my nerve. “I hope I didn’t … wake anyone up.”

“You did,” he says. “You woke me up. I got the impression you intended to? Or at least knew that you would.”

“I mean anyone else.”

“There’s no one else here to wake up,” he says.

“There’s nobody there with you?”

“I’m leaving at oh-dark-thirty. Why would someone be here with me? What are you asking?”

“I was just … asking,” I say.

“I don’t have anyone right now that would be here in bed with me.”

“But I thought—” I find it really hard to just come right out and say Kari’s name, so I pull back, make it more general. “I thought you were seeing someone.”

“I was seeing someone,” he says. “You, for about ten seconds. And I’ve been busy since.”

“You’re not dating anyone now? No one at all. Not even a little?”

There’s a long pause, and then he says, “I am not.”

But—

I mean, no one actually ever said he and Kari were dating. I just … I mean, they went away for the weekend. What was I supposed to think? I certainly don’t go on weekend trips to the West Coast with guys I’m not sleeping with. I don’t go on trips to the West Coast with guys I am sleeping with, either, but that’s not the point.

If I did go on a trip like that, it would be a pretty fair indication we were banging, is all I’m saying.

“Are you sure?” My hands are shaking. This is so important.

His voice is impatient. “Yes, I’m sure. I think I would know.”

“Promise me,” I say.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he says, and hangs up.

Shit.

I start to call him back and tell him I don’t want him to come here, but hang up after three numbers. The thing is, I do want him to.

My teeth feel like they’re coated in Ben & Jerry’s, so I give them a quick brushing. Then I wash my face to make sure there’s no stray makeup and close the bathroom door. I don’t have time to pick up in there. I stop in my bedroom to dig out the bathrobe my mom gave me for my birthday—I never bother with it, but I can’t very well greet him in my usual bedtime attire of a tank top and undies. I go downstairs, find the door already propped open. Great. It’s only a matter of time before the hobos move in.

Then I sit silently in the dark kitchen, waiting for Mitch.

It’s closer to twenty minutes when I hear the knock on my door. I open the door and he steps in; I close it and lean back against it, and look at him—the lines of his body, the planes of his face.

I notice sort of idly that he’s in even more disarray than usual. I think his shirt is even buttoned—snapped—crooked. That’s what I get for dragging him out of bed in the middle of the night.

But even as I’m thinking this, I’m also thinking of how beautiful his eyes are, how his voice makes me shiver.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I say.

He runs a hand through his hair. “What the hell is going on? Whatever this is, we have got to get it out and deal with it. You’re making me fucking crazy.”

He doesn’t swear around me very often—he’s got a weird chivalrous streak that way—so apparently he’s not kidding. I don’t want to make him crazy, but I don’t know what to say, or even how to start. And he’s standing so close to me that I can feel his body heat. It’s scrambling my brain.

I can’t stand it for another minute; this is making me crazy. I reach up, as I’ve wanted to do for so long, and run one hand down the line of his jaw. He’s been unshaven for at least a couple of days now; this is way beyond five o’clock shadow. I feel it rasp against my hand, and he stands completely still; the only indication that he feels anything in particular is the increasing pace of his breathing.

There’s something in the air between us—a tension, a just barely balanced moment when anything might happen.

It feels like a wave about to crash into foam. Like a dam about to break.

“I think I’ve been wanting to touch you like this from the moment I saw you,” I murmur. “I just didn’t know it.”

He moves closer, trapping me against the apartment door, bracing his hands on either side of my head. I couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted to. Which I don’t.

“You’ve been wanting to touch me like how?” he asks, his eyes never leaving my face.

“Like I have the right to.” I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck. “I thought there was someone else,” I say. “But if there’s not….”

I pull him down to kiss me.

He does nothing for a couple of seconds—which, not gonna lie, is alarming.

But then that dam breaks. That wave crashes. He sinks both hands into my hair, and takes my mouth.

Oh, my.

This is nothing like the other time he kissed me. Not even remotely. That kiss was almost a hello from his mouth to mine. This kiss doesn’t have time to say hello; this kiss is fierce and hungry. I’m drowning in it, can’t breathe. Can’t stop.

His mouth leaves mine to travel down my neck, over my collarbone. His hand against the small of my back pulls me closer; I can feel what I’m doing to him, how hard he is, and I move my hips restlessly, trying to find a comfortable way to press myself against him.

He glides his hand down to cup my ass, and moves his other hand off the door to do the same. Then he lifts me, sliding me up, and wraps my legs around his waist. Through the thin cotton of my panties, I make contact with the heavy seam of his button-fly jeans, and the insistent—and impressive—bulge underneath. It’s electric.

I tighten my legs around him and move to run my mouth along the same route my hand traveled earlier—his jaw is rough against my lips, but I don’t mind. The taste of him on my tongue is just as I’ve imagined.

And yes, I have imagined it.

“You taste so good,” I say, and I hardly recognize my own voice.

He makes a sound that’s half groan and half sigh, and shifts me so that all of my weight is being supported by his hands, fitting me even more snugly against the front of his jeans. I moan against his neck and he pulls me away from the door, carrying me effortlessly into the living room and sinking onto the chaise with me underneath him.

His mouth never stops moving—it travels along my neck until he finds the sweet spot just behind my earlobe, and I gasp, tightening my fingers against the muscles of his back. He unties the sash of my robe with one hand while his other hand strokes my hip, my thigh. My bathrobe finally gives way, and he pulls his body away from mine just enough to look down at me.

I tangle my fingers in his hair, and I think Finally.

And then he lifts his head, looks up at me, and says, “No.”

“No?”

He sits up, moves all the way to the other end of the chaise, runs his hand through his hair again. His eyes close; I see his jaw tense, then relax very slowly. Then he takes a long, deep breath, shakes his head a little, and looks at me, his eyes no longer clouded with desire.

A tiny, objective part of me is impressed by his control—but what the hell just happened here?

“Mitch—” I say, and he cuts me off.

“We’re not doing this,” he says. “We aren’t doing this, Jenna—and I have some things to say to you.”