“Only four years active.” Philip walked his plate over to the same sink and pulled down the power hose. “I enlisted straight out of high school many, many moons ago.” He raised his voice to be heard over the spray. “It wasn’t really for me. Too much yelling. My body seems to remember more of it than I do.”

Philip shut off the water and put his plate in the dishwashing rack. “Don’t worry about that tonight. It costs too much to run the machine for one plate.” He pointed to the bundle in her arms. “Sorry you’re still working. The job will go quicker once you find your rhythm.”

Tonya looked up at Philip’s lined face. His bottom lip folded under the top in a faint, forced smile. He wasn’t exactly handsome—certainly nothing like Mike—but his face had a certain masculine, older man appeal.

“It’s fine,” Tonya said, spritzing the counter with chemicals. “Your wife’s home.”

Philip’s translucent smile faded completely. Tonya wondered if he’d taken her mentioning his wife as an aggressive attempt to dissuade flirtation. Nothing he’d said had warranted her telling him to back off. In fact, she’d been the only one to hint at something happening between them.

“It’s great for Layla to have an adult in the house,” Tonya added, trying to soften the comment. “Whenever I worked the dinner shift, I would often ask one of the neighbors to check in periodically. Lately, I’d been leaving her at home alone without anyone popping in, though, which wasn’t really good. I forget sometimes that she’s only eleven. It’s great to know she’s safe in your house. And the guest rooms are so nice. It’s really incredible to have a house like that in Brooklyn.”

Tonya realized that she was talking too much, making up for an unintentional and likely unperceived slight. She stopped herself on the last compliment, even though it failed to bring back Philip’s slight smile.

“It belonged to my parents.” Philip grabbed a paper towel from a nearby rack and picked up the spray bottle that she’d set on the counter. He drenched the cloth and began doing the job that she, clearly, wasn’t accomplishing fast enough. “I grew up there. They left it to me when they died.”

Tonya resumed cleaning her section, unsure what to say in response. I’m sorry they’re dead, but nice they left you a mansion? It was difficult, given her own financial problems, to feel too devastated about how Philip had received his inheritance.

Philip rubbed down the fridge’s exterior. “It happened a long time ago. I was a kid, just back from the aforementioned marines.”

Tonya peeled off another paper towel sheet. “They were young, then?”

“Yeah. Though I suppose I didn’t think that at the time. But they were barely older than I am now.”