“Me too.” His gaze narrowed, became searching. “Does it bother you that I’m on parole? That I’ve been arrested?”

“It…it concerns me….” I hugged myself tighter. “Especially since I don’t really understand what just happened, and though I was certain before the arrival of your parole agent, now I can’t tell if you’re dangerous or not.”

His smile flattened. “I’m not dangerous—not to you. And I wasn’t convicted for anything violent.”

“Drugs?”

“I don’t do drugs.”

“Did you sell them?”

“No.” His gaze grew darker, and he seemed a little aggravated. “I didn’t hurt anyone. It had nothing to do with drugs.”

“Did you steal something or try to steal something? Commit fraud?”

“No-o-o….” he said, drawing out the word; it was elongated, over pronounced. “Like I said, I didn’t hurt anyone.”

I thought about the remaining possibilities in light of what seemed to be his key phrase: I didn’t hurt anyone.

Sometimes people, criminals in particular, have a tendency to justify bad behavior by insisting their actions have no real negative consequences or that their victims were deserving of their offense. This is typically termed pathological distortion in severe cases, neurotic rationalization in moderate cases.

Alex’s behavior thus far—especially the way he’d been so quick to help Marie that night at the restaurant—demonstrated that he did know the difference between right and wrong.

In fact, the more I was exposed to his decision-making, the more he resembled an Eagle Scout or an honorable knight from King Arthur’s roundtable.

I attempted to sort out the conundrum of contradiction that was Alex. “Were you innocent? Wrongly convicted?”

His jaw flexed. “No. I was guilty.”

“Do you think what you did was wrong?”

He gathered a deep breath. “I understand why it’s illegal, but I don’t think what I did was necessarily wrong.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Are you going to tell me what you did? Or are we going to stand here playing twenty questions, the guess my conviction edition?”

“I’m not going to tell you what I did and I don’t want to play twenty questions.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Alex paused, his eyes searching mine. He lifted his hands as though he was going to grab me, but then he balled them into fists and crossed his arms over his chest. Perhaps his stance was so defensive because his next words were so vulnerable. “Because I like the way you look at me, and I don’t want that to change.”

I blinked my surprise and allowed it to show on my face. “How do I look at you?”

“Like you want me.”

I momentarily lost my ability to control my expression. “Uh….”

“Like you want to know me.” He quickly added, but it was not quite an amendment to Like you want me.

“Alex, I’m pretty sure a lot of women look at you like they want you. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you’re very handsome?”

“Yes. But usually they pair it with a giggle and use the word hot.” He took a half step closer.

I nodded, pleased by his honesty. “Good. Because it’s true. So, here is my question, and I know I’ve already asked you this, but what does a handsome young guy like you, capable of making all the girls bring their milkshakes to his yard, want with an old lady like me?”

“You’re not old.”

“I know. I’m not old. But I’m older than you.”

“So?” He shrugged.

“I’m not complaining. I’m just curious.” I mimicked his shoulder shrug and glanced around his apartment. Everything about this moment felt surreal.

I was unused to throwing myself at a man.

I was unused to throwing myself at a man for the sole purpose of a physical mutual appreciation society.

I was unused to learning that the man I was throwing myself at was a convicted felon.

I was unused to having a two-way conversation with a man that was so free of pretense.

In truth, I was feeling a bit flustered—again.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you’re very beautiful?”

I smiled, liking all conversations where it was implied or inferred or outright stated that someone thought I was beautiful. “You mean other than you?”

His smile was small, sincere.

I couldn’t help my next question. “Do you actually think I’m beautiful?”

“Obviously.”

“This is the best and strangest conversation ever.”

He breathed out a bitter laugh and turned away. Alex clasped his hands behind his neck and shook his head. “This isn’t going to work.”

I watched his back for a moment and felt the words he’d just spoken as if I were trying them on. They felt wrong. It was like trying on a pair of jeans that won’t button, even though your brain keeps telling you they fit and were a smart purchase.

Even as my brain said, Damn it, he’s right, everything else said, No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!

As usual, I allowed my brain veto power.

“Okay,” I said.

He turned just his head and peered at me over his shoulder. “Okay?”

“Well, we gave it a shot, and maybe we’re just too weird for each other.” My voice was strained as the sentiment felt lodged in my throat like a pointy, inadequately chewed tortilla chip. Even my brain hoped that he would contradict me.

His eyes moved over my body, his expression blank. After a long moment of open inspection, his eyes met mine and held my gaze. Then he bodily sighed, maybe even groaned—I couldn’t be certain—and walked away from me to the far end of the room.

“Yes. That’s right. This was never going to happen. Any delusions to the contrary were just that, delusions.”

I didn’t know if he were talking to me or to himself. Truly, it didn’t matter. The effect it had on my heart was the same.

I firmed my bottom lip, nodded once, and said, “Okay then,” and marched to my discarded coat. Careful not to expose my backside, I retrieved it from the floor and tugged it on.

For some strange reason my ears were ringing, and I felt like crying. I would not cry, not in his apartment anyway. I might cry later, at home, while watching Steel Magnolias and dressed like a homeless person. Sometimes I applied mascara before crying just to heighten the experience.

Alex watched me. I knew this because I felt his eyes follow my movements, and his gaze felt like a corporeal, physical touch. The sound in my ears became shriller as I reached for the door; my hand closed over the knob, I turned it, and paused.

Something needed to be said. This…whatever it was between us, deserved more than okay then as a eulogy.

I faced him, my hand still on the knob. Just as I suspected, his eyes were trained on me, though they—and everything else about him—were shrouded in an impenetrable force field of enigmatic defensiveness.

“I just wanted to say….” I huffed because I didn’t know what I wanted to say. But it was too late. I had to say something, so I just started talking. “I just wanted to say that you are not unbalanced. I know unbalanced, and you are not it. You are strange, you do strange things, you say strange things—but I think it’s because no one ever taught you that those things are strange. Like when you told me I was beautiful, the first time, at the show. And definitely the thing you did before that with my hand and your…your….” I made a deliberate decision not to say the word boner. “Well, you know. But I liked it. I liked all of it.”

He gave me nothing back, just stared at me—or through me—as if I’d already left.

“I like you, a lot.” I said. I owned it, and felt a little lighter for having admitted it to him.

I turned to the door and slipped through it, and shut it slowly and reverently behind me. A soft click sounded as it closed, and it felt like the end of something.

I was on the seventh stair when I heard the first crash. I stopped, stiffened, glanced over my shoulder at the closed door. Another crash sounded from within his apartment, followed by another, then another. Soon they were indecipherable from each other, and a shiver raced down my spine.

I descended the rest of the stairs to the soundtrack of Alex destroying his apartment and wondered if I’d been wrong. Maybe he was unbalanced.

But then I heard his voice in my head ask me, You can’t think of any other possibility?

CHAPTER 10

Tuesday’s Horoscope: You are tempted to ignore a difficult situation—don’t. Facing a predicament head on takes courage, but it can bring the resolution you desire.

“Dr. Fielding.”

I turned toward the sound of my name. A woman was standing at the edge of my table—half-inspecting, half-glaring at me. I’d expected a colleague based on the matter-of-fact frankness of her tone, but I didn’t know this woman.

For some reason, though, she looked familiar.

My gaze drifted over the busy hospital cafeteria and back down to the stack of grant proposal requests I’d been reading, then back to the stranger.

Just…great. I was in no mood to talk—not to anyone.