A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing and all that great stuff. I remember saying something about faster updates – and I really meant it at the time. But my middle name isn't Lazy for nothing. Anyhoo...

--&&&&&--

"I bet you miss teaching." James said, playing with his full, dark beard.

"It's hard to miss something you sucked at," I joked.

"Now, you know that's not true."

At that moment, the waiter approached the table and handed us the wine list.

"What would Lisa like?" I asked him. His wife had gone to the bathroom shortly after we were seated.

With an amused glint in his eye he said, "Something tells me that she wouldn't want any."

"Meaning?"

He shrugged, still very pleased with himself. James was usually quite normal and very generous, which meant that he wasn't one to hold back or hide things. We hit it off when I worked as his Graduate Student Assistant and even though it had been two years, we still kept in touch. As I watched him act strangely, it dawned on me.

"Oh my God, James, I'm so happy for you!" I shrieked, flinging myself at him. I was sure that other patrons at the frou-frou restaurant didn't appreciate my sudden burst of excitement but it wasn't everyday a friend revealed that his wife was pregnant.

"When is it due?" I was still holding him.

"When is what due?"

Shit, what had I said? With my arms still around him, I moved back to look into his eyes. "Lisa... You were saying...."

"Anna, don't look at me like that... I was only kidding! What happened to your sense of humor?"

I picked up my napkin and hit him playfully. "Gosh, you scared me! For a moment there--" My words were cut short by the image I caught from the corner of my eye.

I reacted by leaning back in my chair and staring at my menu, hoping that my mind was simply playing tricks on me. I wanted to look back just to make sure it wasn't some kind of mirage but was scared to confirm what I'd seen. I eventually succumbed to temptation and after watching him follow the host in his black slacks, a black shirt and the black loafers I'd picked out for him in April, I watched him turn his head sideways and catch my eye. We stared at each other for a few seconds before I caught hold of senses and quickly turned back to the menu in my hand.

"Anna, are you okay?" James asked.

"I don't think I want wine anymore." I took a sip of the ice-cold water. "What's wrong with the waiter? Shouldn't our dinner menus be here by now? And why is Lisa taking so long?"

"Anna, I don't know the answers to your questions, but," he said, looking over my shoulder, "some people are coming this way."

I caught a whiff of his aftershave before I heard his voice go, "Anna, how's it going?"

I planted the most sincere smile I could manage on my face and said, "Hey, Ryan, how's it going? Carly, it's nice to see you!" I sounded so much like a cheerleader, that if my head wasn't attached to my body, I was sure it would have floated away.

Ryan must have thought so too because he narrowed his eyes and studied me.

"Hi, Anna, it's been a while," Carly said. She was wearing a low-cut lavender dress that made me wonder if she'd invested more than $50 in achieving that cleavage.

"Has it? It doesn't really seem that long to me." Shit. I kicked myself. Why was it that when I was trying to sound natural and unaffected, I had to say the dumbest things?

"Oh... okay," she replied, a bit taken aback. "It's been a few months at least, hasn't it?"

Why wasn't she shutting up? Just to let her know that she bored me, I went back to my menu.

"So how have you been?" Ryan asked.

"Fine, you know," I said looking up at him. "My job is going really great. The office is beautiful and it's not far from where I live and my boss is cool, so everything is great. Sometimes it gets so overwhelming because I have so much work to do, but it's something I enjoy, which is great. I've only been there for a few months now, but I think I've settled in quite nicely - how great is that? I've made a few friends and sure, I thought I'd go into research after graduation but this great opportunity came to me and you know I'm really glad that you --"

The mixture of worry and amusement I saw on face jolted me back to earth, so I said, "But you knew all that stuff already, didn't you? Because I already had the job the last time we spoke and I'd already told you about the location, my boss, the work and all that great stuff." I tired to play it off and when I felt I didn't succeed, found refuge in the menu I'd already begun to memorize.

When nobody said anything, I asked, "So, Ryan, how have you been?"

"Great."

"Hmm... okay." Was he making fun of me? It's not like I'd meant to say the word so many damn times.

"Would you like to join us?" James piped in.

I almost fell off the chair kicking him underneath the table. What the fuck? Why the hell did he think that was a good idea?

"Oh, I'm sorry. We're meeting the new artists Carly discovered, so this is pretty much a business thing," Ryan said, looking from James to me.

"Well, I won't exactly call them new considering they've already recorded four albums," Carly corrected, smiling at us.

Ryan also smiled, looking at no one but me. "Well, four albums on an independent label means they are new to us."

My eyes were still locked in his gaze when James coughed. We were all silent for a few moments when Carly looked at her watch. Touching his shoulder, she said, "Ryan, lets go to our table – the guys should be arriving soon."

Two seconds after they left, James very dryly commented, "I guess there's no point asking who that was."

--&&&&&--

I felt like a fool for the rest of the evening. What was wrong with me? I was a calm, young, intelligent woman, who didn't go batshit crazy when she ran into her ex-boyfriend. I'd already spent two months convincing myself that Ryan was just my rebound guy, that we hadn't really had a real relationship and that we only lasted that long because we were both in denial and were trying to compensate for hurting Seth -that was all it was.

I'd thought it and had even begun to believe it when things finally started feeling alright. My tiny bed felt big because my every movement didn't result in anyone yelping in pain. I didn't have to try to wake up early just so I could slide into the shower before anyone because if I didn't, I'd probably get to work late. I was finally able to use the leftmost part of my closet and if I wanted to put something in the bottom drawer, I could. I noticed all these positive changes and embraced them.

Even when I was out with a guy from work and he tried to be funny, I didn't care that his jokes were just as dry as Ryan's or that he wouldn't look as good, lying on my bed in a white wifebeater, highlighting sentences on a document he'd brought with him from work. And when I watched David Letterman's late night show, I didn't remember the day I'd attended it alone.

Although I did come to regret that. Time had given me the clarity of mind to step back and analyze my behavior. I realized that I hadn't always been attentive, and that I was a little caught up in my drama with Seth, but Ryan hadn't been perfect either and all that was just further proof that we were a mistake from the start. I didn't dismiss our relationship or anything - I just regarded it as practice for another one; lessons to use when I finally met the man I was supposed to be with.

Sure, there were times I missed him and wished we were still together. But so what? That was normal after every failed relationship. All I had to do was stop his name from popping into my head whenever I had any news to share and I knew I'd soon forget him. Sixty-eight days wasn't long, and I'd actually stopped reaching for the phone to call him at odd hours of the day, which was why I was so pissed that I'd destroyed it all by acting like a stupid, idiotic, lovesick, nincompoop at the restaurant.

I'd been lying on my couch for over three hours when for the first time in a long while, when I picked up the phone and dialed his number, I let the call go through.

"Hello," he said, in that rich baritone that usually accompanied his fatigue.

"Hey, Ryan, it's me Anna," I said. My heart was probably beating at record speed but I crossed my fingers and hoped my voice didn't betray anything.

"Hi, Anna." From his tone, someone at the other end of the line might have thought he was speaking to a telemarketer.

"Ehm, I... I was just calling to see how you were doing."

"Oh, I'm fine."

"Great. Did you enjoy your meal?"

"It was fine. You know how these things go. How about you?"

"It was alright. James' wife joined us shortly after you left and we had a nice dinner."

"Cool."

"I was going to say goodbye to you but I couldn't find you. Were you seated upstairs?"

"No, in a private room."

"That's nice." How special. Ryan and Carly in a private room.

He didn't say anything, nor did I, for about thirty seconds. I could hear the television in his apartment and wondered what he was thinking.

"So, I just wanted to call you to say goodbye." I slapped my forehead. What the fuck was I saying?

"Okay, that's nice."

"I bet you thought James was my boyfriend." Okay, so that was the real reason I called him. With all the shit that had gone down, and not speaking to him for a while, I still wanted him to know that. Maybe it was my way of letting him know that I respected our relationship and wasn't seeing James while we were together, or maybe it was because he'd made a point to tell us that his dinner with Carly was business, either way, I needed him to know it. "Didn't you?"

"No."

"He's just a professor I worked with but he couldn't attend my graduation because, at the time, he was a visiting professor at the University of Nairobi, so he decided to take me to dinner to compensate. We are not dating or anything."

"Anna, you don't have to explain anything. Besides, as I said, I didn't think that."

"Liar."

He chuckled. "Honest. Just because I see a girl hugging a guy doesn't mean I automatically assume they are together."

Touché. "Oh, really?"

"Really."

"Good for you." Did he want a medal or something?

"And since we're doing this, I might as well tell you that I never cheated on you with Carly. We are friends and that's about it."

"I pretty much figured that out." Though it didn't change the fact that I didn't like seeing them together -she just annoyed me. Plus, she was his ex, even though it didn't amount to much in the end. "Give me some credit, Ryan," I added.

Once again, he reminded me of how much I missed hearing his soft laugh. "So what are you doing right now?"

We spent the rest of the night just talking about a whole bunch of crap and I didn't realize how much time had passed till I looked at my clock and saw that even if I had only three hours of sleep, I'd still end up getting late to work.