He nodded and the two of them walked the few blocks in silence. He could practically feel her fatigue spiraling off of her like heat from a light bulb left on too long. It was still a bit too early for the dinner rush, so they were in and out with their to-go bag pretty fast. John was grateful that this place was too expensive for him to regularly patronize because there was no one working there to recognize him with this gorgeous blonde ray of sunshine. There was no one to rib him about who the pretty girl was, to reveal loudly and obnoxiously—the way they would have done in the burrito shop—that he never brought pretty girls around here.

John clung to the fact that the man who’d farewelled them at the Cuban joint had barely acknowledged John and Mary. The man’s eyes hadn’t goggled at the idea of the two of them having dinner together. Maybe it wasn’t so outrageous.

They walked back to his house, and John’s heart started to bang. “It’s a walk-up,” he told her in a voice a little more cracked than normal. He took a deep breath as he started up the stairs to his apartment.

All right, John, he coached himself. You cannot be ashamed of your home. You worked hard to make it here. You live on your own in a clean apartment. She knows you’re not a Rockefeller. Don’t do yourself the disservice of apologizing for your life. There’s nothing to apologize for. She wants to be here.

He took another deep breath and didn’t linger in front of the door. He merely unlocked it and let her into his life.

“OH, NO, YOU DON’T,” John growled as he bent down in front of his door and scooped something up from the ground.

Mary was relieved to hear that his voice was back to a more normal pitch than it had been for the last few minutes. She’d begun to wonder if he’d been regretting bringing her here. Mary wanted nothing more than to just get inside his house and crash.

“Oh,” she laughed as John straightened up and stepped in the door, holding it open for her. He had a wiggling, black-and-gray-striped ball of fur in his arms. At first glance the cat looked to be struggling, but when Mary looked closer, she saw that the little beast was actually just wiggling farther into John’s arms, attempting to get comfortable in its throne. “I didn’t know you had a cat!”

“You’re not allergic, are you?” he asked immediately. “Crap, I should have mentioned.”

“No! I like cats.” To prove it, Mary leaned forward and scratched the kitty under the chin. To her delight, the cat tipped its head back, luxuriating.