Nancy looked at Paul and he smiled. She started to laugh. "That's two for you, St. Paul," she said.

"It's Pope Paul now," he corrected her. "At least, that's what they call me in Washington."

"I'm not surprised," Nancy said. She walked toward him. "Coined, I'm willing to bet, by a frustrated female admirer."

"As a matter of fact, it was," Hood said. He blushed.

Nancy walked up to him, and he began to turn away from her. She put her hands on his waist, hooked fingers into his belt loops, and stopped him. She looked up into his eyes.

"All right, Pope Paul," she said. "What did you want to ask me about my work?"

Hood looked down at her. He didn't know what to do with his arms and put them behind him, his left forearm in his right hand. One of her knees was beside his, inside his leg.

Well what the hell did you think was going to happen? he asked himself. You knew this wasn't going to be easy. What bothered him more, though, was that this was exactly what a big part of him had wanted. God help him; but it did.

"This is silly," he said. "How am I supposed to talk to you like this?"

"You just did," she pointed out softly. "Now do it again."

Hood's forehead was hot, his heart was on overdrive, and blood was racing everywhere. He smelled the apricot shampoo in her hair, felt her warmth, saw those eyes he had looked down into so often in the dark- "Nancy, no," he said firmly. He took her wrists and held them as he stepped back. "We can't do this. We can't."

She looked down as her magnificent, sensual posture deflated.

"Your work," Hood said, breathing deeply. "I need you to tell me-- I mean," he said, calming, "I'd like you to rtell me what you're working on."

She shot him a disgusted look. "You're out of your mind, you know that?" she asked. She crossed her arms and half-turned.

"Nancy--"

"You reject me and you still want me to help you. I've got a teensy-weensy problem with that, Paul."

"Like I said before," Hood told her, "I didn't reject you. I didn't reject you at all."

"Then why am I here and you over there?"

Hood reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his wallet. "Because you rejected me."

He took out the two movie tickets and let them flutter to the bed. Nancy looked at them.

"You rejected me," he said, "and I made myself another life. I won't jeopardize that. I can't."

Nancy picked up the tickets, ran them gently between her thumb and forefinger, then suddenly tore them in half. She gave one set of stubs to Hood and put the other in her jeans pocket.