Why not just press a handwritten note into my palm and be done with it? A pair of panties slipped into my carry-on? She is begging for it, he imagines as he gives that faux chuckle of his, the good one that most everyone at the office likes and chuckles along with. “Well, let me be the first,” he suggests. “You go stand over there near the receiver and I’ll have them page you with a desperate message or something.” That could’ve been better, a stronger joke at the end or maybe a wink thrown in, but it seems to work.

“And what would the desperate message be? Huh?” Complete amusement on her part now. Absolutely complete.

“Oh, I’d think of something.” He chuckles again (risky to use it twice in the same conversation, but so far so good). A bull’s-eye. She looks up expectantly while blowing a stray piece of auburn hair out of her eyes. Waits another second. People are grabbing things from around them now, realizing that a “moment” is officially taking place here.

“Come on, don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me what it would be.”

“Umm … something like, I dunno, maybe like ‘Hey, tell the redhead that I’m nuts about her and to get home safely, because I already miss her.’ Something like that,” he says without even looking over. He doesn’t need to. That was a cruise missile, that one. If she were an Iraqi, she’d be dead now. He gives it another beat, throws some straws down near the three corn dogs, then glances over. She’s still staring at him.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in six years,” she whispers. “Seriously, since I graduated, that’s the best line I’ve heard.” It’s not a tear, but something’s definitely going on in those blue, blue eyes of hers. Liquid of some sort.

“Then you’re welcome, and it’s not a line. You deserve to hear it every day. Twice,” he says, chuckling one last time. A new personal best. Three chuckles, and not a sliver of suspicion out of her. Excellent. He realizes it’s time to make a move, see what happens. Test the theory. One last smile on his part, what the hell, he even tosses in the wink, and then he turns to go. At the last possible second, it happens. Her voice lifts, up over the throb of the crowd.

“Listen … you wanna sit together or something?”

To turn quickly would be wrong—too desperate, he figures. Better to stop slowly, maybe sigh or something, with a slight but perceptible drop of the shoulders, and then gracefully look back. A weary frown.

“Geez, you know what, I’d love to, but …”

“You can’t, no, I understand …”

“It’s just, I’m with some colleagues,” he finally offers. “I’ve got their stuff here, and they’re way down by D23.”