you."
"And you want me," he answered, "even when you're not getting a commission."
She nibbled his earlobe. "Aren't you afraid our relationship is already too physical?"
"Ask me that sometime when you don't have your lips in my ear."
"You planning to let go of me anytime soon?"
"I don't want to think that far ahead." He kissed her again.
"You think you can keep doing that while I drive?"
"The real question is, can you drive while I'm doing that?"
Then they burst into laughter and the embrace broke. "Welcome to high school," said Don.
"That's how it feels, isn't it? Does this make me your girlfriend?"
"Do you like me, Cindy? Yes, no, check one."
"But what is it I like about you, Don? The way you rip padlocks off houses? Or is it the way you look when you squat down to check out toilets?"
"It's the hungry way I look at you."
"Like a starving puppy."
"So you want some coffee? Breakfast? Lunch?"
"You men," said Cindy. "Always wanting the same thing."
"Food."
"I don't cook, Don."
"Then why am I so hot?" He couldn't believe he had said that. Was there anyplace for this relationship to go but into bed? Was that all that was driving him on, his long sexual loneliness? He didn't know this woman. Did he even want to?
He finally let go of her and faced forward, untwisting his back. "Drive," he said.
"Yes sir," she answered. She put her arm up on the headrest of his seat as she turned to see where she was backing the car. When she was out of the parking place, she shifted into drive with her left hand so that her right hand could slip down to play with the hair at the back of his neck. "I know a place that has great coffee."
"Fine," he said. Though he wasn't much of a coffee drinker. The last thing he needed was something that made him more jittery by day and kept him awake at night.
They talked about nothing. Real estate lore about nasty surprises at closings, about flaws in houses and how some sellers tried to conceal them from potential buyers, and they laughed together like old friends who already know all the real jokes. In the midst of laughing he realized that she had just driven past her office and was turning onto a road that he knew was purely residential. The place that had great coffee was hers.
He got out of her car and followed her to the porch of her house, a large brick nine-window federal with a deep, immaculate yard. A large house for a woman alone. She unlocked the door and he followed her inside. The living room was like a page out of Southern Living. There was no sign that a human being had entered the room since the decorator left.
"Have a seat," she said. "Unless you need to use the john. That's what I'm doing, I'm afraid." He heard her jog up the stairs.
He sat down, but then realized the john was a good idea and got up and wandered down the hall. A little half-bath with a bifold door that he could barely close when he was standing inside. There was a framed print above the toilet, a painting of a bunch of raccoons and a pink little pig with a mask over its eyes, and the slogan, "ONE OF THE GANG." He flushed, washed his hands, and came out into the hall. But instead of returning to the living room, as good manners required, he wandered into the large eat-in kitchen. It was as immaculate as the living room. No one cooked here. Cindy wasn't kidding.
He opened the fridge. Leftover takeout cartons and containers of juice and soft drinks. The freezer had some diet and no-fat desserts. He heard her coming down the stairs and decided not to close the freezer door. If he was going to prowl through her house, he wasn't going to pretend that he hadn't done it. "I'm in here."
"Can't keep a man out of the kitchen," she said.
He closed the freezer and reopened the fridge. "Restaurant doggy bags for breakfast?"
"Always tastes better the next day."
"Have I met a woman as lonely as me?"
"Solitary isn't necessarily lonely, Sherlock." She began an elaborate ritual of making coffee, starting with the beans. She had changed out of her business suit into a summery frock, which made her look younger at first glance, but then older, as he couldn't help but notice a little looseness and sagging in the arms, the wrinkles in