took a deep breath. It’s none of your business, he told himself, whether she’s sexy or not. You’re just friends. That’s all you’ve ever been.
Except that crazy night in July.
But that had been a mistake. An aberration. They’d each had reasons for letting it happen—fine. But now they’d moved on. Put things back to normal.
A moment later Melissa tossed her apple core into the trash and went off to see to her patients. Kyle forced his attention back to his paperwork and phone calls.
He’d been running the health clinic, designed to serve the homeless and low-income population of Portland, Oregon, since he’d moved out west six years ago. Needing a change of scene. Needing to get away from all the memories of Felicity.
It had taken awhile to adjust. He’d had experience in nonprofits, but twenty-six had been young for this kind of position. Yet he’d thrown himself into the job, welcoming the challenge and the distraction. He’d barely had a personal life that first year, but he hadn’t wanted one—he’d found it almost intolerable to interact with anyone when it wasn’t part of his job.
Kyle remembered all the nights he’d gone home to his empty apartment, unable even to summon the energy to feed himself dinner before collapsing, still clothed, into bed. Welcoming the blankness of sleep.
But things had gotten better. He’d emerged from that brooding, self-pitying year and started to recapture his old self. Back in Boston, before Felicity’s suicide, he’d always been a social, fun-loving guy. He’d made new friends in Portland and begun to date again. Not seriously, of course—Felicity’s death had cured him of any impulse to get serious—but he’d learned to enjoy himself once more. And then Melissa had become a volunteer at the clinic.
Their friendship had evolved. She’d been wary at first, and had quickly made it clear she wouldn’t be one of his conquests. Relationships that involved sex or romance, he’d noticed, scared the devil out of her. She certainly didn’t want a dalliance—which was all he was prepared to offer.
So their acquaintance had taken a different route. They’d respected each other’s differences and limitations and boundaries, and gradually, without any intent, they’d developed the unlikeliest of friendships.
No, they didn’t tell each other everything. But sometimes they didn’t have to. Sometimes they just understood each other.
And sometimes, he suspected, they just kept secrets—from the world and themselves and each other.
SIX O’CLOCK ARRIVED before he could finish his work. It always did. He needed an assistant, but the clinic couldn’t afford one, so he made do with occasional volunteer help. This month they were short on volunteers.
Barbara Purcell, the large, attractive, forty-five-year-old black woman who served as the clinic’s nurse practitioner, walked into the room and snatched the papers from his hands. “That’s it. It’s closing time, boy. I’m hungry, Melissa’s hungry and that perky little college-girl receptionist is hungry.” She tapped the papers on the desktop to straighten them, then laid them down on a corner of the surface. Just out of his reach.
Kyle didn’t bother to protest. Three hungry women—especially these three hungry women, none of whom deprived themselves of daily nourishment to attain an impossible female ideal—were more than he could go up against. Not to mention he was hungry himself.
“Thi’s Pho Shop?” he said.
Barbara gave him a who-stole-your-brain look. “Where else?”
The four of them collected in the waiting area a couple of minutes later. They locked up and headed down the street, laughing and groaning, complaining and elbow-ribbing, a close-knit, animated group.
The restaurant, which served nothing but beef noodle soup, stood at the corner. It was always packed with Vietnamese Americans during the first half of the day, as traditionally pho was eaten for breakfast and lunch.
This evening the shop hummed with a mixed clientele. The proprietor’s daughter, a teenager in combat boots, jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, led them to a table by the window.
“Nice spot,” Melissa commented, taking the seat beside his. “In fact, it’s the nicest spot in the restaurant.” She winked at him. “I think that girl’s got a crush on you, Kyle.”
Whitney, the college student who worked several afternoons as the clinic’s receptionist, rolled her eyes. “Every straight female he meets gets a crush on him.” She reached for some napkins and spoons and chopsticks from the dispenser on the table.
“Hey, I’m straight,” Barbara said.
“Me, too.” Melissa looked at him, tilting her head in feigned sympathy. She patted his shoulder. “Sorry, Kyle. We can’t all join your mass of admirers.”
Everyone laughed, aware of Kyle’s undeniably sexy good looks.
The waitress brought them ice water and took their orders. After she left, Kyle steered the conversation to a different topic. He told himself it wasn’t because he minded Melissa’s teasing. But he felt edgy and a little raw tonight.
Melissa had spoken about his interactions with women the way she always had. She’d been tolerant, amused, occasionally chiding. Nothing had changed. His love life didn’t affect her. Yet he wondered how she could act that way so easily after what they’d done last July.
Damn it, Kyle. You should be grateful she’s handling it like this and not flipping out. Not getting all needy and emotional. Not trying to rope you into a heavy-duty commitment.
Their bowls of pho arrived.
“Oh, yes.” Barbara closed her eyes and inhaled the ambrosial aroma of beef stock rich with onions and ginger and star anise. “Sometimes I dream about this soup.”
“No kidding.” Melissa added bean sprouts and fresh herbs from the condiment plate, then a drizzle of lime. “Mmm. I might just have to have seconds tonight.”
AFTER THE MEAL Barbara drove home to her daughter and son-in-law. Whitney, like Kyle, had taken the bus to the clinic that day, so Melissa gave her a ride to Reed College before heading for his apartment.
Every Wednesday night after Melissa’s volunteer shift and the group dinner, they went to his apartment and watched X-Files reruns. The pattern hadn’t changed since the summer. It hadn’t changed since they’d made love.
They’d gone to bed together, shared a night of mind-blowing sex and then miraculously gone back to business as usual.
With anyone but Melissa it would have been absurd. Unthinkable. But she had a way of making it seem like the natural thing to do.
Pretend it didn’t happen. Ignore it. It doesn’t really exist, this knowledge of what we did together, of the tastes and textures of each other’s bodies; we don’t really know that.
We’re just friends. Best friends, yes. But nothing more.
Melissa parked her car, a safe, dependable white sedan, outside his apartment building. Two years ago she’d moved with her sister into a little house around the corner; she wouldn’t have to drive again until morning.
They entered the lobby and stopped by the bank of metal mailboxes, discussing some clients at the clinic. Just as they usually did. They took the stairs instead of the elevator to his third-floor, one-bedroom apartment, as usual.
Kyle let her in. He tossed his black leather bag onto the dining-room table, thumbed through his mail and tossed it down, too.
The answering machine said he had two messages. He played them back as he opened the fridge and grabbed a beer for himself and filtered water for Melissa. One of the calls was from a professional contact, the other from his mother in Massachusett.
“Haven’t phoned her in two weeks, hmm? Tsk, tsk.” Melissa pulled out a bag of gingersnaps from a kitchen cabinet. “Better shape up, Kyle.”
“Yeah,