nervously, as though expecting them to spring out of a closet and leap at him, like pet snakes, or a pair of pit bulls. She saw the look on his face and was once again amused.
“In Europe. Remember? Where they live. In Oxford and Florence. They won't be home till Christmas. You're safe. Although I wish they were here.”
“Did you have a nice trip with them?” he asked politely, as she went back to the kitchen and adjusted the setting on the dryer, and then came back to the living room.
“Very nice. How about you? How was the rest of the trip?” She sat down on the couch, and he sat in an enormous black leather chair, facing her. She looked beautiful in her bare feet and jeans, and he was happy to see her. Happier than he'd ever been in recent years. He had missed her, which seemed crazy even to him. He hardly knew her, but he had thought about her constantly during the last weeks of the trip.
“It was great,” he said, sitting in the leather chair in the towel, while she tried not to laugh, looking at him. He looked funny and vulnerable and sweet. “Actually,” he corrected himself, “it wasn't. It was good. But not as good as Portofino and Sardinia with you. I thought about you a lot after you left.”
“I thought about you too,” she admitted, and then smiled at him. “I'm glad you're back. I didn't expect you to call me so soon.”
“Neither did I. Or actually, yes I did. I wanted to call you as soon as I got back.”
“I'm glad you did. What kind of pizza do you want, by the way?”
“What do you like?”
“Anything. Pepperoni, pesto, meatball, plain.”
“All of the above,” he said, watching her. She looked at ease in her domain.
“I'll order the one with everything on it, just no anchovies. I hate anchovies,” she said, as she left the room.
“Me too.”
She went back to check on the dryer again then, came back with his jeans, and held them out to him.
“Put your pants on. I'll order the pizza. Thanks again for fixing my sink.”
“I didn't,” he reminded her, “I just turned off the water to stop the leak. You've got to get a plumber here on Tuesday.”
“I know.” She smiled at him, as he disappeared into the bathroom again, carrying his jeans. He came back and handed her the folded towel, and she looked surprised as she took it from him.
“What's wrong?”
“You didn't leave it crumpled up on the floor. What's wrong with you? I thought that's what all men do.” She was smiling at him, and he grinned. For a minute, she'd had him worried, she had looked so startled when he handed her the towel. The apartment was so impeccably neat, he couldn't figure out what else to do with the towel other than hand it back to her.
“Do you want me to go back and leave it on the floor?” he offered, and she shook her head, and then called in the order for the pizza. As soon as she did, she offered him a glass of wine. She had several bottles of excellent California wine in the refrigerator, and opened one for him. It was a Chardonnay, and when he tasted it, it was delicious.
They went back to the living room again then and sat down. This time she sat next to him on the couch, instead of across the glass coffee table from him. He had an overwhelming urge to reach out and pull her close to him, but he wasn't ready to do that yet, and neither was she. He could sense the palpable awkwardness between them. They scarcely knew each other, and hadn't seen each other now in several weeks. “You're not exactly typical for me either,” he commented, in response to her astonishment that he hadn't thrown her clean white towel on the floor. “If you were, you'd be having some kind of hysterical fit over the leak in your kitchen, or maybe even telling me it was my fault, or something your last boyfriend or ex-husband was doing to terrorize you, because he wants both of us dead. And any minute, he'll be coming up the fire escape with a gun.”
“I don't have a fire escape,” she said apologetically, laughing at what he said. She couldn't even begin to imagine the women he had been involved with before. And now neither could he.
“That simplifies things,” he said quietly,