The off-duty firefighters, some with their partners, along with Charlie and Shane, met at a local sports bar, pushing a couple of the small, square tables together before ordering a round of drinks. Shane had asked Charlie if she wanted him to pick her up, but she declined, preferring to take her own car. He knew why. He’d done it plenty of times himself. When you went someplace with somebody else, you were pretty much stuck until they decided they were good and ready to leave. One of the primary reasons he always drove his own car anywhere.

He sat next to her at the table, indulging in a round of good-natured teasing with the other guys about who could hold their liquor the best. Charlie smiled when appropriate, answered questions, and overall pretended to be having a good time, but he got the distinct impression that she wasn’t. Not really. Maybe she’d just come along so that she had some company.

She had downed two margaritas while he nursed a single malt Scotch. He wasn’t much of a drinker and didn’t think that Charlie was either, but how much did he really know about her private life? Not nearly as much as he wanted to.

By the time everything wound down and she had just quaffed her third margarita, Shane knew he wasn’t going to let her drive home. The rest of the guys gradually said their goodbyes and left, leaving Charlie and Shane sitting at their table. Several diners had come and gone. The football game on the TV over the bar displayed the game with the Atlanta Falcons in the fourth quarter. He glanced at Charlie, staring idly at yet another screen, watching a commercial about some fancy type of vacuum cleaner.

“Give me your keys, Charlie. I’ll take you home.”

She turned to him with a frown. “I don’t need you to drive me home, Shane.”

Her eyes looked glassy and while she wasn’t slurring too badly, he knew she had deliberately spoken slowly, carefully enunciating each word. “You may not need me to, but I do. You had three margaritas. I’m driving.”

Her frown deepened and she made a face, wanting to argue, but she wasn’t without common sense. Finally, she nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.” She dug her keys out of her pocket and handed them to him.

She was one of the few women he knew who didn’t carry a purse. Usually wearing jeans or cargo pants with pockets on the sides, she didn’t need her purse. She carried a fold-up wallet in her back pocket, just like the guys. She had one of those flip-top phones, refusing to get an iPhone because it wouldn’t fit in her front pocket. Her keys were usually crammed into another pocket.

“Come on, let’s get out of here. It’s been a long day.”

She nodded and stood, carefully maneuvering her way down the aisle between tables still filled with diners. They headed for the front door and he was pleased to notice that she wasn’t wobbling, wasn’t smashed, but he still wouldn’t have felt comfortable letting her drive home. Come to think of it, he didn’t know exactly where she lived.

At the same time, pushing open the front door of the sports bar, she turned to glance at him over her shoulder. “How are you going to get home if you drive me home?”

He shrugged. “Where do you live?”

“At the Tree Ridge apartment complex on the corner of Miller and Applegate. You know it?”

He nodded. “I do.” He thought about it as he escorted her to her car, a maroon 2005 Jeep Liberty. “I’ll call a taxi to bring me back here to my car.” He glanced over his shoulder, figuring that his white Dodge 150 would be just fine where it was for a while.

He pressed the button on the key fob, and the doors to Charlie’s Liberty unlocked, accompanied by a brief flash of lights. Wordlessly, she climbed into the passenger seat, shut the door, and fastened her seatbelt. He did likewise, pausing only long enough to readjust the seat and the rearview mirror. She said nothing but stared out the passenger-side window as he drove through the darkened residential streets toward her apartment. It only took maybe ten minutes before he pulled into the driveway that surrounded the complex. It was fairly large. “Which one’s your building?”

She pointed out the windshield. “The last building there on the right.”

He pulled into an open parking space not far from her building and got out. Charlie climbed out as well, still not saying much. Not telling him good night. Not telling him that he could go now. He walked with her to her building and followed as she took a small footpath around to one of the bottom apartments on the northwest corner. The nearby sidewalk lamp illuminated the pathway, and he lifted her keychain, fingering the keys until he found what looked like a door key.

“This is me,” she sighed, pausing in front of apartment number two.

Without saying a word, he nodded, inserted the key into the lock, and then gently pushed open the door. Just as she stepped inside, her foot caught on the threshold and she half tumbled inside. Shane grabbed her, pulling her up against him in an effort to stop her fall. Charlie pressed her face into his chest and made a soft moan, then he saw her shoulders shaking. Without hesitation, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him. She didn’t fight him, but leaned into his embrace as she wept. The next thing he knew, his finger was lifting her chin and he was kissing her.