Somehow—she would never tell him exactly how, but he suspected the involvement of a long harangue and a few brief but well-worded threats—the next time Sharona met Randy at a bar, she came alone.

"Been waiting long?" she asked as she sat on the barstool next to him.

"All my life," he answered. She laughed.

"You're not a quitter, I'll say that for you," she said. "Really, though, how long have you…."

He saw the bartender approaching and spoke quickly. "Know what you want? I do."

"Gimme a second, I just…."

"Same as before?" said the bartender.

Sharona stared at him. "That's amazing," she said. "I was here once, two weeks ago. You remember what I ordered two weeks ago?"

Randy was suddenly very interested in the bowl of peanuts.

"No, but this guy here does," said the bartender, jerking a thumb towards Randy. "And he's had plenty of time to tell me about it."

"He has?"

"Well, sure," said the bartender. "He's been here for over half an hour."

"He has?"

"Didn't want to be late," the bartender continued, despite Randy's heartfelt unspoken petition. "Said he's been waiting for this night for a long time."

The peanut bowl had a chip in it. Randy wondered if that would have driven Monk crazy, that chip. Come to think of it, the pile of peanuts wasn't centered….

"A long time, huh?" said Sharona, and Randy looked up and saw that the bartender had moved over to the taps.

"Well," said Randy, "yeah." Suave.

"Sorry about that last time," she said. "But you know Adrian."

"Yeah," he said. "I do."

"You do," she said thoughtfully. "That's right."

"If the price for brilliance is a complete lack of social skills," said Randy, jumping into the silence that followed Sharona's last words, "then I'm glad I'm not brilliant."

"You have social skills?" said Sharona. "Where do you keep them?"

"They like to stay as far away from you as possible," he said. "Unlike me, apparently."

"That chipped peanut bowl isn't driving you crazy, though," she said. "You probably didn't even notice it."

"Barely."

As the bartender placed their drinks in front of them and turned to a customer nearby, Sharona leaned toward him in a confidential way that made his heart beat faster. "Sometimes," she whispered conspiratorially, "I buy chipped things. On purpose. I hide them when he comes over, obviously, but when he's not around…." She straightened again, away from him, and he found himself wracking his brain for a secret to tell her.

"Being surrounded by perfection?" she said. "That would make me crazy."

"Well, then, you'd never be crazy around me," he said.

"I don't know," she said, and there was a glint in her eye as she reached for her glass. "You make me a little crazy sometimes."

He swallowed hard and picked up his own glass gingerly. It was so full it was nearly overflowing.

"So," said Sharona. "What do you wanna talk about?"

Randy blinked nervously. His frequent daydreams about a date with Sharona had never involved actual conversation. In most of them, Sharona was the one pouring her heart out to him, and he was the strong, silent one ready to kiss away any tears. Or, you know. Just to kiss her. He realized he was looking at her lips. Panicking, he regained eye contact.

Sharona was grinning. "You really don't get out much, do you?" she asked.

"I'm sorry," he said swiftly.

"For being a lousy conversationalist, or for wanting to kiss me?"

"Yes?" he volunteered.

"And you expected us to believe you had a girlfriend," she said. "Oh, yeah. You're a player."

"Crystal was real! Is real! She's a real person!"

"Okay, then," Sharona challenged. "How'd you meet her?"

"At the dentist," Randy said automatically. "In the waiting room."

Sharona's jaw fell. She attempted to form words, but for a few moments nothing came. "You—you're serious," she said.

"Of course I am," said Randy. "What have I been telling you for months?"

Sharona shook her head and took a sip of her drink. "Congratulations, Lieutenant," she said wryly. "Looks like there's more to you than meets the eye, after all. What was she like?"

They spent the next half hour discussing Randy's relationship with Crystal—what they talked about; what sort of dates they had gone on; what had worked, what hadn't worked. Randy found himself conversing as easily and naturally with Sharona as he ever had with Crystal. More so, since he wasn't fantasizing about another woman as they talked.

"What was it that made you believe me?" he asked.

"When you said you met her in the waiting room at the dentist office," said Sharona. "You wouldn't make that up."

"But I'd make up an entire relationship. I'd invent a woman to be in love with me."

"I thought…."

"You thought what?" probed Randy.

She smiled and waved a hand dismissively.

"You thought," he said, "that I was making her up so that you would realize what you were missing, become insanely jealous, and throw yourself into my arms."

Sharona shrugged. "I was wrong."

"You were wrong," said Randy. "I didn't make her up for any of those reasons." He raised his glass to Sharona. "Those were just the reasons I talked about her."

Sharona laughed and clinked her glass against his.

They moved from the subject of Crystal to stories of some of Sharona's worst relationships, to anecdotes about Monk, to details about Randy's mom. They talked about how Randy had "always" wanted to be a cop, about what it meant to him and how much pride he took in what he did, even if he'd never be as good of a cop as Captain Stottlemeyer or as good a detective as Monk. They talked about Sharona's struggles as a single parent, about how she hated that Benjy felt torn between her and his father, about how she never expected to be a mom and yet loved it so much she couldn't imagine not being one, about how she worried about her son in more ways than she ever thought possible. They talked about their first impressions of each other, about how Sharona thought Randy was a wet-behind-the-ears boot-licker ("So not much has changed," she said) and how Randy found Sharona confusing and more than a little scary ("Not much has changed on my end, either, I guess"). The hours passed quickly, and then, his courage bolstered by the last drink, Randy asked the question he had been wanting to ask all night.

"Why are you here?"

"You asked me," said Sharona, looking a little bleary-eyed with the combination of the late hour and the alcohol.

"So all I ever had to do was ask."

She shook her head. "Nah. I'd have turned you down more ways than you can think."

"So…."

She thought for a moment. "We've been friends for a while, haven't we?"

"I guess we have."

"Well, I guess I'm just realizing it."

"Better late than never."

Her smile had a hint of sadness in it, almost like pity. "I'm glad I came. Thanks for asking, Randy."

He smiled back, feeling a surge of dizziness coursing through him.

She leaned towards him, still smiling in a way that intoxicated him more than the alcohol had. She was closer—closer—he could smell her perfume—a stray hair tickled his face….

"Wait," he said, his voice croaky and foreign to him.

She backed up, confused. "What?"

"I need to savor this moment."

She looked at him like he had lost his mind. "Huh?"

"In fact," he continued, "maybe we'd better not. Kiss."

"Too much liquor on the breath?"

"No, no," he said, "I'd kiss you if you smelled like a garbage heap. Which you don't. Smell like. You smell great."

"Randy, you're babbling."

"Because I've wanted this for so long," he said, "and I don't know if I can handle it all at once. Maybe we could…save it? For next time?"

"Next time," she said flatly.

"Yeah," he said, swallowing hard. "Next time." He felt a sudden sense of foreboding. "There can be a next time, right?"

"I hadn't thought about it," Sharona said. She looked confused.

They both lapsed into silence, a silence Randy filled with mentally cursing himself.

She was going to kiss you, what were you thinking, she was going to KISS you...

"I think I'm ready to go home," said Sharona.

They took a cab and rode in silence to Sharona's place, Randy's stomach twisting as he thought of how he'd screwed up the perfect evening, and how nobody but him could have screwed it up that badly. When the cab stopped, Randy walked Sharona to her door.

"Well," he said. "Good night."

She stopped fumbling for her keys and looked back at him. He stopped, waiting for whatever she had to say.

"Randy…."

"Sharona." Waiting for her. Expecting nothing. But really, really hoping she was going to look like she wanted to kiss him again.

"Good night. Thanks." Voice shaking. Keys rattling in a trembling hand.

The door closed behind her. Randy stood on the sidewalk, alone.