I don’t look too many people in the eye. It almost always leads to something more. I don’t know why that is. I guess for me it is such an invitation, an acceptance of risk, a big door opened wide—who wouldn’t be curious enough to walk through? So I’m very careful not to invite too many in.

He flipped his wrist, snapping the lighter shut. Perhaps he meant the punctuating noise to cause me to look up at him. I didn’t. Most guys don’t even realize I’m not looking at their face when I talk to them, but that’s because they usually aren’t looking at mine either. Whatever the case, I was having a hard time staying focused on the horizon. And I could tell this guy wasn’t just staring at my skirt or my boobs—I could feel his eyes moving over me, trying to place me perhaps.

“You can have it, if you want. I’ve got another,” he said.

As he handed the lighter to me, my fist just opened. “You’re sure?” I asked, my fingers already closing over it.

“Yeah. Sure. Keep it.” He trailed the pads of his fingers across the heel of my palm, not so subtly.

“Thanks, that’s real cool of you,” I mumbled, flipping the lighter over and over in my fingers.

I couldn’t help but be impressed feeling the weight of it. A Zippo. Chrome with the Dukes of Hazzard flag on it. I wondered how to scratch the logo off and wondered what he looked like. I mean, judging from the logo, he probably had a mullet and a beer belly. And still I was drawn to him. Next to the now barren fish tank, it was probably the nicest thing any man had ever given me. If my father was in my life, I wouldn’t have been able to say that. Knowing so depressed me. It also made the gesture so much more touching than it was.

I smiled, flicked my eyes up to him, just enough to seem appreciative but not enough to encourage further conversation. Kori would be out soon.

I took a long drag off my cigarette and stared at the damp cement surrounding me. Just a year ago, I might have thought of this moment as fate. I would’ve analyzed how my mother’s note made me late, and in running to school I knocked down Poor Josh, and in the ruckus lost my lighter. I might have drawn it out to include Cole’s mother and Kori’s magazine habit. But the bottom line was—I would’ve fantasized that those muddy work boots pointing at my hip belonged to my father.

That fate had finally brought him to me.