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Cori stopped, hands braced against her knees as she gasped in great lungfuls of air. Ever since she'd had that verbal spat with Rae, she'd been running. Literally. She'd thrown her gym bag out of the trunk of her car and headed down to the beach. She stood there for a moment, the bay breeze tangling her soaking wet hair and throwing it around. In her ears played a constant stream of music off of her mp3 player clipped to her waist.

'… do you really think you can handle the knowledge that the last person Nick slept with was me? Can you live coming in second to me in Nick's heart?' Cori listened to the words over and over again in her head, the words drowning out the music in her ears. Since when did it matter to her exactly what place she held in Nick's heart? 'Jesus Coriandra, get over it. He doesn't feel the same way…' She tried to make herself believe it, but then that kiss popped back into her mind.

That kiss… sweet, chaste, innocent but with a touch of more to it when he teased her lips with his tongue. And there was the way he looked at her from time to time, like he was seeing something that he liked about her.

"Shit Cori… he's a cutter," she said to herself. Launching herself back into her jogging, she ran down all the reasons that she shouldn't allow herself to fall for him. However, the more she ran, the more and more reasons she came up with why the hell not.

'He's good looking…' So were many mass murderers.

'He's charming…' So was Son of Sam.

'He kissed you…' Cori stopped again. That wasn't truly a kiss… no way it could truly be a kiss. Her fingers came up to her lips again as she stood there panting for breath. Hesitantly they touched her lips and the tip of her tongue slid out to lick them. She could still taste him. Strange to think that she could taste him on her lips…

When the small phone clipped to the waistband of her running pants started to vibrate, Cori yelped in surprise and jumped a foot back. Several other runners out on the beach with her looked at her in surprise. Swearing to herself, she yanked the headphones off and jerked the phone up. "What?" she said, still trying not to sound like she was heaving for breath.

"Cori?"

She rolled her eyes. "Nick, what do you want, I'm occupied."

He heard the breathlessness in her voice mixed with the sound of seagulls. "Where are you? I need to talk with you."

"Not now Nick. I'm busy." Cori hung up the phone and clipped it back to the waist of her pants.

Nick looked at the phone as it went dead in his ear and sighed.

"Conroy's after 5," a voice said behind him. He turned around to see the head peds nurse standing behind him.

"Excuse me?"

"There's a bar called Conroy's. Be there after 5 if you want to talk to Dr. Cori. I've seen her get into these moods before. She takes off, goes for a run that lasts a few hours, then winds up at Conroy's getting smashed on 'fiddich. Next day the problem is out of her system and she's right with the world again. If you want my advice?"

Nick was getting desperate by now and nodded. Anything that would make dealing with Cori easier when he finally got talk to her.

"Pecan Delights as a peace offering, leave her alone tonight and let her drink herself into oblivion. When she comes in tomorrow, craving chocolate as she always does after a good round of intoxication, she'll see the candies and then you can talk to her while she's shoveling the chocolate past her lips. Ravenous chocolate lover, would be the one most likely to dive headfirst into the vat of melted chocolate at the Godiva factory."

Nick had to suppress a laugh at that. That would definitely explain the chocolate taste of her when she kissed him the first time. "Just… what exactly are Pecan Delights?"

The nurse looked at him like he was nuts. "Russell Stover candies? Caramel patties with pecans and covered in chocolate. She's been in love with them since she did her internship down in Texas."

"And… where would I find them here?"

Ellie chuckled and pulled Nick aside. She took out a card and wrote down a name and a number on the back. "Call this place. Tell them you want a bouquet of Pecan Delights sent to this address. I guarantee it'll make things right with Cori in the morning."

"But, I didn't do anything for her to be mad at me. Someone else-"

"Ah. But she's avoiding you, isn't she? She hung up on you and if she weren't irritated at you for some reason, she wouldn't have hung up on you. Do this, and if she wasn't mad at you to begin with, you'll have her drooling in your hand."

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