The cord whitened the skin of her fist, but, pulling it firmly, relentlessly, the cork edged up and then slid out with a pop. A splash of red wine splattered the kitchen floor. “Sorry about that,” she said, looking down at the tiles. She held up the shoelace between them. The cork bobbed at the end. “You might want to keep this shoelace handy in case you ever throw a formal dinner party.”

That made him smile. This one was quick-witted. He hoped he could keep up. He took down two of his mother’s best Royal Dalton teacups and set them on the table. Eve poured formally, her thumb in the hollowed bottom of the bottle, while Keegan dabbed the wine-splashed floor tiles with a paper towel.

They raised their teacups and clinked them. Eve took a sip and looked up at the ceiling. She swallowed and smiled. “Very good,” she said. “I believe I made an excellent selection. And, do you know, I think it tastes better out of a teacup.” She smiled again.

Keegan thought of what his mother would have made of this sight—stolen wine sipped from her best teacups, her son alone in her house with a woman nearly half his age. He took a sip. The wine was tart and mellow on his tongue, and it warmed his throat when he swallowed. He’d never had an appreciation for wine before, but now he wondered if he’d just never been able to afford the kind of wine worth appreciating. This was good. “Not bad,” he said.

He followed Eve into the living room, studying her every lissome movement as she crossed to the armchair facing the sofa and sat. Keegan abandoned the baseball game and tuned his mother’s old RCA radio to some big-band music. ‘Sleep Lagoon’. Perfect. He turned the volume loud enough to be a presence in the room without demanding attention.

The wine seemed to make conversation easy, a teasing banter about tastes and diversions and penchants—though he wasn’t quite sure how to hold the teacup. That tiny handle just got in the way. They had almost nothing in common, but that somehow gave them everything to talk about. The table lamp next to Eve lit her cheek softly and seemed to imbue her features with a lovely pensiveness as the darkness outside deepened. The cut of her armless blouse made her bare arms look soft but toned. Keegan could imagine the warmth and smoothness of her pale skin under his hand.

“I do like travel,” she said at one point. She was looking down into her teacup, her knees drawn up to her side in the big armchair.

Keegan thought of his mother’s humdrum spoon collection on the wall behind him. San Antonio. Yellowstone. “Where’s your favorite place?” he asked Eve. “If you could be anywhere right now?”