“Yeah, they do. I miss them all the time too,” she said. I sensed she wanted to change the subject before she did. Something about the way her spine straightened. I wondered if this was what she meant about traveling light. Like revealing vulnerable parts of herself weighed her down.

Thinking about the things we had in common wasn’t helping my heart rate. Neither was the current position of our bodies. We’d both shifted on the stoop at the same time, and my right hand was now trapped between my thigh and Tabitha’s. We realized it at the same time. I could feel her muscles flexing against the back of my hand. The tips of my fingers grazed the inside of her knee. I froze. Didn’t move.

Tabitha did move. Maybe it was coincidence. Or an accident. The pressure against my hand increased, like she was pressing into me.

I didn’t dare look up. The sexual desire storming through my brain was a temptation I didn’t need. Eating dessert on a summer night was innocent even if she was being cute and teasing. But now I wanted to drag her inside, to splay her out on my couch and let my fingers glide up her thigh. I could work open those shorts, then work my hand inside.

I’d make her come on my fingers over and over. See that satisfied look on her face for a totally different reason.

“I probably should have asked this before I invited you over to…eat my water ice. But you don’t have a Mrs. Machine hanging out in there, do you?”

It was dangerous to make eye contact. I did it anyway, lured by the soft tremble in her voice.

“Are you asking if I’m single?”

She was staring at my mouth. I got hard. Immediately. “Just being neighborly. A super nosy one.”

“I’m single,” I said in a raw-sounding voice. “What about you?”

“I’m definitely single,” she said with a breezy smile. “I was seeing this woman in Sacramento. Shelby. But I broke things off before I came back home. I travel so much, it’s better if I don’t get too attached to anyone. Or for anyone to get too attached to me. Right now, I’m more interested in temporary hookups than bouquets of flowers.”

A strange sort of jealousy twisted in my stomach. Who the hell were these people who could have sex with Tabitha and not want more?

“But that’s good,” she continued. “Knowing this block, someone’s been watching us chat on this stoop all night, which means by dawn half of South Philly will believe we’re engaged in a passionate and torrid love affair. Especially if they think I’m the other woman.”

I felt my lips twitch. “My innocent reputation will be ruined.”