Resting his elbows on the table and loosely lacing his fingers, he glances at her over his knuckles, then past her shoulder out the window at the brightening morning sky.

She confuses him sometimes. That whole physical/emotional thing. It's no more clearer to him on a full stomach and two cups of coffee than it is after cheesecake and sex.

He flashes back briefly to the first time he kissed her. He wishes he could take it back if only to never see the shock and fear in her eyes.

I don't mind.

How or why she even let him get to this point, he'll never know.

But they are friends. And he's grateful for it.




"Thanks."

It's a word that Tommy says so infrequently that he might as well have forgotten how to pronounce it or what it means.

As he looks at her, an already imperceptible smile is hidden behind his hands, but it somehow manages to reach the hard sharpness of his eyes. Under the table, his knee touches hers.