I HADN’T SEEN Connor since the day at the gym when we both went on our small apologizing binges.

Part of me was afraid he was still upset with me…and maybe himself.

But the other part was trying to remember that I had a life outside of Connor Ryan.

I managed to get some work done, and go to a movie with Jenna, went over to Jenna’s friend Jane’s—yes, the other Jane—house so Jenna could play with her baby and I could play with their dog, and went to the gym.

All the stuff that had been normal and fun and made my life feel full before that darn Connor Ryan.

But, today, we were off on another one of our dating adventures. He’d called first thing that morning and asked if I wanted to get lunch. Since I had to be seen with him and needed to eat, I said yes.

Of course it had absolutely not a thing to do with not seeing him for a couple days.

I put on yet another set of casual clothes from Becca’s binder. Amazingly, I still was tearing tags off things. She’d be horrified if she came over because two-thirds of the clothes were still in their bags.

It wasn’t like I was hosting the Oscars and needed to do costume changes here.

I had no idea what we were doing, but Connor had said to put on “wander around shoes”—whatever that meant. I assumed that excluded all the cute heels I almost kept killing myself in on our messed up sidewalks.

He showed up almost on time—which was right on time for us—and gave me the prerequisite once-over before handing me my jacket. At this point they didn’t even seem insulting. It just seemed like the thing he did. He was a people watcher and this was part of that.

We got to the sidewalk before I asked him where we were going.

“Oh, just to grab some lunch. I know this little place, it’s a couple blocks away. I think you’ll like it.”

“What’s in the bag?” I asked, nodding to a plastic bag he had tucked under his far arm.

He gave me a wink and answered, “Supplies.”

Well, I guess that’s all I was going to get.

He left it at that, tossed his arm over my shoulder, and soldiered on down the windy, fall-leaf covered sidewalk. We walked on, Connor telling me about Gavin’s latest dating misadventure and how he was trying to find Ms. Right. Hilarity ensued. The girl ended up being the sister of someone he’d dated last year and had accidentally dumped in an email when he was trying to dump someone else so he could then be exclusive with the girl he accidentally dumped.

There was much groveling and flower sending, but in the end she wouldn’t take him back.

He made the mistake of calling the sister the 2.0 version and got dumped by yet another member of that family halfway through a date.

Sounds like one Ryan boy was a picket fencer.

Failing miserably at it, but definitely a picket fencer.

He had me laughing the few blocks we went before we cut down a small, one-way side street I’d never been down before. Halfway down was a small glass fronted bistro with two wrought iron table and chair sets framing the doorway.

“What’s this?” I asked, peeking in the window.

“This is my Brew.” Connor gave me a grin and glanced both ways before pulling me in after him.

Inside was a cramped, but sweet little set up with only a few small booths lining each side of the room. We ordered at the counter, a mix of everything Connor felt like eating for his six meals that lunch and headed over to a corner where the sun still lit up the room and heated the air.

A young girl brought over our drinks and smiled at Connor, asking him how he was, but otherwise treating him like he was just some guy.

“Do they know who you are?” I asked, because I felt like I was in Bizarro World, where Bizarro World was normal world. Which was…bizarre.

Connor smiled at me, a huge smile and glanced around looking more relaxed than I’d seen him out in public. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”

That seemed like an odd answer, but since he was perfectly happy with it, I was perfectly happy to let him be happy with it.

“Isn’t it great?” He smiled at me and I realized he was sharing something very special for him. “Oh. The supplies.”

Connor grabbed the bag out from next to where it sat on the bench beside him, pulling out a Sports Illustrated then a National Geographic. He slipped me the National Geographic before flipping the SI open.

“This is great, right?” He asked before diving into his magazine.

I looked at the National Geographic, surprised he’d realized from the few sitting around my apartment that it was my favorite magazine. It was the newest copy and I hadn’t even seen the topics, so…bonus.

We read in silence, sipping our drinks, reading our mags, enjoying the late fall sun, until our food came.

The waitress made small talk with Connor as if he were any regular before slipping away to where her husband shouted at her in French from the kitchen.

It was, by any stretch of my imagination, one of those perfect days.

“Why’d you pick this place? Didn’t you want to go walk around and do the picture thing? Check off another day?” I thought about how quickly we were running through our time and hoping that everything had been enough to make a difference.

He shrugged. “I just wanted to chill out with you.”

“Really?” I tried not to sound surprised, but…really?

“Yeah. Sometimes it’s just nice to be quiet and eat some great food and be left alone.”

Connor Ryan wanted to be left alone. With me.

And that’s when I started to worry if I was going to make it out of this alive.