On Thursday morning, as Mike sipped his orange juice, read the Enquirer, and entertained his daily erotic fantasy about Mae, she was straddling him on the sofa this time, her plump breast filling his mouth, his fingers creasing the firm globes of her bottom she moved up and down on atop him, he remembered suddenly that it was his turn to run an errand today.

"I need to run by my apartment for a few minutes." He announced.

"Whereabouts do you live?"

"Here in the city." He told her. "Not far from the hotel, as matter of fact."

"The night we arrived, you said you had to concentrate on your driving because you weren't familiar with this area."

She arched her delicate eyebrows in surprise. "Oh, there's a shocker."

"You know a lot about men lying to woman?"

"I know enough." She said.

"Look, after the last several days, I'm inclined to agree with you that your father is just paranoid and that there's no threat to you or your sister here in town. But I'm still reluctant to leave you along, if for no other reason than I promised your father I wouldn't. I mean, its one thing for me to run next door to the gym while you're still asleep, but I'm not comfortable leaving you here alone on the hotel premises entirely. Do you mind coming with me to my place? As I said, I won't be long."

Instead of answering his questions, she backpedaled to the first part of his statement. "You agree with me that Daddy was wrong about there being any danger here?'

He nodded. "I haven't sensed any threat to you at all since we got here. No one's tried to contact you, and I haven't noticed anyone suspicious hanging around. When I've spoken to your father on the phone this week, he says he's heard nothing more from whoever threatened you to begin with. Does JR have a history of." He paused. "How can I put this?"

"Mental Illness?" Mae supplied helpfully. "Delusions? Paranoid schizophrenia? Feeling of being persecuted? Voices in his head? That kind of thing?"

Mike bit the inside of his jaw. "Um, yeah. That, delicately would be what I meant it."

She chuckled wryly. "My father's not the most level-headed man in the world. But he's not mentally ill, either. Yes, he has some odd ideas and yes, he's a little paranoid but, I'm not worried about anyone hurting me or Milly, either, Mike. But if it would make you feel better, I'll stay close to you today."

Oh, he really liked the sound of that. Not just the way she called him Mike, now and the way his name rolled so naturally off her tongue, but the way she said she'd stay with him.

"Thanks." He said. "I'll make it brief."

"What do you have to do?" She asked.

"I have to water my plants."

Mae had never known a man to voluntarily keep plants. Nor had she ever known a man to be as tidy as she discovered Mike Mizanin was upon entering his home. Then again, she hadn't really been privy to any man's private life, had she?

"You have a nice place." She said.

"You sound surprised." He replied.

She shook her head. "No, I just didn't know what to expect."

"Because you don't think about me at all."

She didn't answer him. She just looked around the apartment. She picked up one photo in particular and turned to Mike. "Is this you?"

"Yeah, that's me." He replied noticing what she was looking at.

"The boy in the middle?" She asked. "The, um, the, uh, the ah."

"The fat kid." Mike finished for her without looking back. "Yeah, that was me. That was who I was the whole time I was growing up, the fat kid. The fat kid with a stutter, in fact. The fat kid with a stutter named Mike, who inspired laughter and merriment in many people. After I graduated from high school, I decided I was tired of being the fat kid with a stutter. I started eating better, started working out, read more, that kind of thing. Conquered the stutter with the help of a good doctor and continuous deep mediation."

"What kind of weird years were in between?"

"It took me a couple of years to lose the weight and tone up. But once I did, a very strange thing happened to me."

"What?"

"Women began to notice me."

Mae couldn't quite halt the chuckle that escaped her at his remark, so surprised did he sound by the realization. Of course women would notice him when he looked the way he did. In word, duh. A lot of them would probably betray their country or at the very least, give up chocolate for a month, just to have a meaningful or better yet, a not so meaningful, conversation with him.

"What's so funny?" He asked turning around.

"You." She said. "You standing there sounding so surprised that women would notice you."

"Why shouldn't that surprise me?" He asked.

Oops, Mae thought. She'd sort of dug herself in on that one, hadn't she? Now he was going to know that she herself thought he was attractive. "Well, it shouldn't be surprising, that's all." She walked to another picture. "So then I take it your childhood wasn't especially wonderful." She said changing the subject.

"No, it wasn't. My adolescence was even worse."

"Teenagers can be vicious."

"Yes, they can. But in hindsight, I'm grateful for the experiences I had in high school."

"Really why?" She asked surprised.

"When you're one of the social outcasts in high school, you see things others don't. It's a trait that stays with you, when you become an adult. Comes in handy in my line of work."

"What do you mean?"

He studied her thoughtfully for a moment more. "Like from the minute you laid eyes on Chris Irvine, when we were sitting in the car outside of his house that first night, I knew there was more going on with you and him then you were letting on."

"Oh."

He nodded. "And when we saw him at the restaurant that day, I could sense then that you wanted to find him for reasons other than the ones you'd described."

"I, um, I don't know what you mean."

"I'm not sure I do either." He said thoughtfully. "I just know that whatever reason you came back here for Chris, it isn't because you want to start a romance with him. Not a healthy kind of romance anyway."

"No, that's not the reason I came back for him."

"And I sense something in Chris." Mike continued. "That's kind of.."

"Off." She supplied helpfully.

He shook his head. "Evil."

"Ah. Well, I see that you really do have an insight into people that others lack."

"You want to talk it."

"Not here." She replied.

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