Anna was thrilled that he’d confided in her something so embarrassing, but she was also alarmed. This was a crossroads, and they both recognized it immediately. They could keep up the pretense of a friendly meal filled with light chatter and family stories, or they could move on to more serious fare: talking about the undeniable chemistry between them. Vronsky would have liked to broach the subject, but there was no part of him that wished to talk about his reputation with Anna, and he couldn’t talk about the one without bringing up the other.

This wasn’t out of fear that Anna would discover all the girls he had wined, dined, and 69’d before her. That was common knowledge he was sure she had heard. No, he strongly felt his past no longer mattered. His view since he met her was that Anna was his only future and no other girl mattered to him. Every moment he spent in her presence felt dreamlike and came with a beautiful yet disconcerting need to feel powerful in her eyes. Every single thing about her he found enthralling: the way she twisted her napkin while she talked, how she covered her mouth with her hands when she laughed too loudly, the way she leaned ever so slightly forward when he told an entertaining story. Against all these things he was powerless.

“I was wondering what your thoughts were on whether we should return his dog,” he said in a quiet but firm tone. Anna was confused and her face showed it. Vronsky continued. “The homeless man from the train station. He’s posted a few lost dog signs. I found one the other day and was planning to call you about it.” Vronsky reached into his inside jacket pocket and removed a folded-up piece of paper. He handed it across the table to Anna.

She took the paper and opened it, finding a crude homemade LOST DOG flyer with a hand-drawn charcoal sketch of a dog with a large square face that looked like a cross between a pit bull and a Rottweiler. The dog’s name was Balboa. There was no phone number listed, only the name Johnson listed as the owner and Grand Central Station as the address.

“This is the dog you rescued … on the day we met?” Anna asked, sad to remember the other one who had died by her train on the night of their first encounter. She looked up to meet Alexia’s eyes and he nodded.