Page 32 of Woman on the Verge

He must see the surprise on her face because he says, “What? You just wanted to thank me for my services and run?”

Kind of,she thinks.

“No, no,” she assures him, unsure what to say.

“Then join me for breakfast,” he says. “After all, we burned a lot of calories.”

She hesitates. Sitting with him at a dark bar and then going back to his apartment is one thing. Going out with him in broad daylight is another. There is little chance someone she knows would see her, butwhat if?

“There’s this cute little French bistro nearby,” he says.

What thirty-year-old man uses the wordcute?

“Okay,” she says, figuringWhat the hell?She is starving, after all.

He gets out of bed, and she watches him walk to the bathroom, admiring his body, his musculature. Adonis, indeed. She hears the shower go on, and he comes back to stand naked in the bathroom doorway.

“Join me?” he says.

In the shower?she thinks. The desire to giggle returns. She hasn’t showered with a man for any reason other than efficiency since her early twenties. Even then, she remembers thinking it was impractical. There is nothing romantic about togetherness in the shower. If anything, it causes resentment because someone always has to shiver away from the hot-water stream.

“Come on,” he says.

Again she thinksWhat the hell?The last twelve hours have been about completely abandoning everything she thought she knew of herself.

Thankfully, Elijah has one of those showerheads that’s on the ceiling, so they don’t have to jockey for position in the stream of water. Instead, it feels like they are caught in a tropical rainstorm together, which is sort of lovely. He soaps up her body, rubs his hands all over her. She does the same to him. If she thinks about this moment too hard, she will burst out laughing at the absurdity of it. Last week, if someone had told her that she would be standing in a shower with a gorgeous man she’d met at a bar, she would have gone into hysterics.

When they get out, he wraps her in a plush towel, and she can’t help but wonder if he would always be like this. If they were actually in a relationship—which they will never be—would he be this attentive? Unlikely. It’s easy to be the ideal guy when the woman you’ve just slept with is about to drive home to a faraway city.

She dresses in her clothes from the night before, both aghast at and delighted with herself, a forty-year-old woman doing the walk of shame. She wraps her wet hair into a bun and asks Elijah if she can borrow a hat—something she can hide under to help ease her anxieties about someone she knows seeing her. He gives her an A’s baseball cap and tells her she looks adorable in it.Who is this guy?

The bistro is a short walk from his apartment. She feels paranoid, exposed in the sunlight. She’s thankful when they get a table on the back patio.

“I want everything,” she tells him as they peruse the menu.

“Everything?” he asks.

She nods. This is who Katrina is—a hungry, greedy woman driven by her base instincts.

“Let’s get everything, then,” he says, not missing a beat.

They settle on three things—pancakes, eggs benedict, and a scramble. They will share, which seems too intimate for people who will soon part ways and never see each other again, but she really does want to try each of the dishes. And what Katrina wants, Katrina gets.

After the waitress comes and goes, Elijah sits back in his chair.

“So,” he says, a mischievous grin on his face, “I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh god, that doesn’t sound good.”

He laughs.

“You should stay a few days with me,” he says.

She’s both flattered and panicked.

“I can’t,” she says. “I’ve got so much going on, and—”

“Okay, just one more day, then. Play hooky.”