I think we need to talk. She could feel the words echoing around inside her head, and for a second she considered putting her hands over her ears and just trying to pretend she hadn't heard them. She knew all too well that that strategy didn't work for anyone over the age of five, though, so after a few second she just sighed and picked up the container of soup and the pan of lasagna, carrying them toward the fridge. "I was afraid you were going to say something like that."

"I -" He stopped abruptly and stared at her. "You were?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I know you," she said with a shrug. "You can't be awake without thinking, so it was only a matter of time until you tried to analyze . . . you know, this."

" 'This'," he echoed slowly. "And what, exactly, is 'this,' in your opinion?"

She slid the lasagna onto a shelf, set the soup down next to it, and reluctantly turned back to face him, shutting the fridge behind her. " 'This' is us the morning after, uncomfortable and not sure what the hell we just did and whether it made things better or worse."

Bobby, who had been expecting to hear an artful evasion, blinked. "Oh. That was . . . pretty much what I was thinking, too, actually."

"I figured. Is there anything else in that bag that has to go in the fridge?"

He was about to call her on her obvious subject-changing - he even went so far as to take a breath and open his mouth to speak the words - but before he could do it, the part of his subconscious that was so good at understanding Alex warned him to hold onto the complaint. Who was he to deny the voice of sanity in his head? He cleared his throat and said evenly, "No, I don't think so. All that's left is a pan of brownies."

"So much for that distraction," she said with a sigh, wiping the condensation off her hands with the hem of the t-shirt she was wearing. "Can I ask something before we officially start 'talking about this'?"

"Uh, yeah. Should we go . . ."

"Living room's probably easier." She started to leave the kitchen, then stopped and looked around as if she'd just remembered something. "Do you know where the dog is?"

Bobby automatically did a similar visual sweep of the room. "Uh, no. Should he be in here? Where does he usually sleep?"

"With me, but we had the door closed last night, so he would have had to find somewhere else." With a sigh, she made for the front of the apartment. "I swear to god, if he's hiding out and chewing one of my shoes to get back at me . . ."

Chuckling, Bobby turned deeper into the apartment to do his share of the search. "He's a puppy. I don't think he's that conniving, at least yet."

"Hah." Her head buried in the closet she was searching, she had to yell to make herself heard. "That shows how much you know about male tantrums. Trust me, he's plenty conniving."

"Men don't have - Here he is!"

"Where?"

"Spare bedroom."

Alex jogged the length of the apartment and entered her extra bedroom to find her dog sprawled on his back across the bed, blanket wrapped around him and paws in the air. Noticing that Bobby was standing just inside the room, laughing, she reached out and poked him in the side. "This wouldn't be anywhere near as funny if you were pinned under him like I am every morning."

"He sleeps like that when there's someone else in the bed?" he asked incredulously, trying to visualize how a person could possibly fit in the small amount of space the dog wasn't using.

Smirking, Alex moved toward the bed and gave Canis's haunch a light slap to wake him up. "He can sleep with us tonight and you can find out for yourself, if you really want to know. Get up, lazybones! Walk now, or forever hold your peace."

The word walk worked wonders on the sleeping canine, and within seconds Canis was up and trying to launch himself into Alex's arms. "Ok, ok," she said, laughing in spite of herself as she tried to avoid getting a paw in the stomach. "I should have waited to use the magic word until we were dressed, because he's not going to leave us alone now. Want to go throw on a shirt and shoes and we'll take him for a pre-shower walk?"

Bobby nodded and started to leave the room, then paused. "Can we talk while we walk?"

"If you insist," she sighed, keeping her eyes on the dog. "Grab my sneakers out of the bedroom too, would you?"

"Sure." He took one last look at the scene in front of him - Alex, wearing his undershirt, playing happily with her dog - and allowed himself to think for a moment about how much he'd like to see the same thing every morning.

Then he smiled to himself and left the room.

"Ok," Alex said ten minutes later as they stepped out of her building onto the sidewalk, "I'm resigned to the inevitable. Go ahead and talk."

Bobby wrapped the dog's leash securely around his hand and gave her an unreadable look. "We're not going to get anywhere if I'm the only one doing any talking."

"Let's head for the park. Turn left here." She gave his arm a corresponding tug, which only unbalanced both man and dog and got her foot stepped on by a large paw before they managed to make the turn. "And I didn't say I wouldn't participate in the discussion, but since I have no idea what, specifically, you want to talk about, you're going to have to start."

"Sorry," he said, automatically tightening his grip on the leash to keep the dog from stepping on her again. "Before I say anything . . . you said there was something you wanted to ask first."

"Oh, right." Moving casually, as if it was something she did every day, she slid her arm through his and moved a little closer as they walked. "I was going to ask if you plan on this being a 'feelings' conversation or a 'decisions' conversation."

"A . . . what?" He looked down at her, brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Hmm." Biding her time while she tried to think of a coherent way to phrase her question, she leaned forward to scratch the dog's ears. "Well, there are conversations where the goal is to try to understand, and then there are conversations where the goal is to work out a solution. I want to know which one this is going to be."

"I . . . guess I want to understand, then, not resolve. At least for now."

"For now?" she echoed, looking up at him teasingly.

Bobby just nodded, not willing to give her a straw man to knock down this early in the game. "For now."

Alex, all too familiar with his ability to steer conversations exactly where he wanted them to go, sighed. "Ok, fine. 'For now.' So, go on with whatever you need to talk about."

"Now?"

"Yeah, now. We can let him off the leash in here," she added as they turned into a fenced area of park set aside for dogs. "Just help me keep an eye on him so he doesn't jump the fence."

"Ok." He bent to unclip the leash from Canis's collar, earning himself a wet swipe of the dog's tongue on his cheek. Straightening up, he wiped his face on his sleeve and grimaced. "I don't know how you keep any makeup on around him."

"The trick is not getting within licking distance when you're not prepared," she said with a grin as she watched Canis lope off to tackle something a few feet away that might have been either a giant cotton ball or a shih tzu in need of a haircut. "Come on, let's walk."

"Ok." He dropped an arm over her shoulders, hesitated a second to see if she reacted, then allowed himself to relax when she just smiled up at him. "I want to make sure you know I didn't . . . you know, I didn't plan for last night to . . . happen," he managed awkwardly.

"I know." She slid her arm around his waist and studied the ground they were walking over. "You thought you were going to be staying in a hotel. I think it's pretty clear you didn't plan this. But I never thought you did, to begin with." Giving him a gentle squeeze, she shrugged. "And for the record, I didn't plan for this to happen, either."

Bobby nodded and tightened his arm around her, the tips of his fingers slipping slightly under the neckline of her shirt. "I know. Are you sorry it did?"

"No. At least not yet. Are you?"

"No," he replied decisively.

She looked up at him curiously. "You sound pretty sure of that."

"I am."

"Hmm." She twisted around to check on Canis, assuring herself that he hadn't picked a fight with the barking cotton ball, then turned back to Bobby. "You haven't had any time to think about it, though. How can you be so sure?"

"I . . ." He shook his head, not sure how to express it. "It's just something that's . . . there, in my head. I think that maybe last night . . . wasn't the wisest course of action we could have taken, but I'm not sorry we took it."

Alex just looked at him with raised eyebrows, waiting for him to resolve his statement into something that made sense.

"I mean that, well . . ." He sighed. "It's . . . too easy for people to fall back into a physical relationship and . . . convince themselves it's an emotional one."

Her eyebrows rose a little more. "Those words made sense, but I have absolutely no idea what you just said. Could you translate it to English, please?"

"I . . ." He paused for a second with his mouth open, then shook his head, purposely allowing himself to be distracted by a spaniel that came running up to them, barking, as he tried to sort out his thoughts. "No, I can't explain it yet. We need to back up a step first."

"Uh . . . ok. Back up to where?"

"Back up to . . . to the 'why'. I know what was going on in my head, but why did you let last night happen?"

"Let's sit," she said, pulling him to a stop beside a bench just inside the dog enclosure. "Last night . . ." She lowered herself to the bench with a shrug. "Because you were there, and I was hurting, and I knew you could make it stop, I guess."

A slow nod from Bobby, who was being careful not to look at her and, in fact, appeared to be utterly fascinated by a small chip of paint that was flaking off the bench. "That's what I figured it was."

"What do you mean, that's what you 'figured'?" she demanded, leaning forward across his lap in an attempt to see his face. "Why did you let it happen, then?"

"Alex . . ."

After how eager to talk he'd seemed a few minutes ago, his reticence now was making her nervous. "I answered it when you asked; you should damn well answer it when I ask," she informed him tersely, crossing her arms.

"I know, I know," he said, holding up his hands in surrender. "It's just that I'm not sure you're going to like hearing my answer."

"Bobby." Taking hold of his hand again, she laced her fingers into his and rested their joined hands on her knee. "Try me."

He sighed, knowing she had him backed into a corner. "I did it for completely selfish reasons."

"Like what?"

"Like I was afraid it might be the last chance I ever have to . . . really be with you, and I couldn't make myself pass it up . . . even though I knew it wasn't smart."

Alex, keeping her eyes on the frolicking dogs and not on him, drew in a slow breath in response to that. "Your last chance? Why?"

"I . . ." Bobby gently pulled his hand away from hers. "It would be . . . presumptuous of me to assume things have changed enough for there to be . . . more chances."

That gave her pause. She just looked at him for a few seconds, trying and failing to read his expression, then glanced down at her hand where he had laid it on her leg when he took his away. "Presumptuous," she repeated neutrally. "Of course. Can I ask . . . how you know when thinking something is presumptuous, and when it's not?"

Swallowing, he looked up at her, meeting her eyes for the first time since the conversation had started. "All I have to do is watch you. Your face . . . tells me more than you think it does."

"Oh yeah?" she asked, trying to sound only amused, rather than unsettled, as she actually was by that revelation. "So then, what's it telling you now?"

Bobby obediently studied her face, eyes drifting from her mouth up to her eyebrows and back down. "It's telling me you're afraid of what I've seen. And that's how I know that optimism would be . . . presumptuous."

He looked . . . defeated, she thought as she quickly looked away to keep him from seeing anything more in her eyes than he already had. "Bobby . . ."

"I understand it," he interrupted softly, touching her hand but not taking hold of it. "You don't owe me explanations or excuses. Look, I . . . I'm sorry I forced you into this conversation."

"B-"

Before she could even say his name again, he'd pulled away and jumped to his feet. "I think we should head back. I'm sure you have . . . things to do today."

"You have to give me a chance to explain, Bobby!" Alex exclaimed indignantly, standing up and grabbing his arm to keep him from moving away.

"No," he said tiredly, "I don't. At least, not right now. I need . . . I need some time, ok?"

The quietness of his voice alarmed her much more than his abrupt movements had. Abruptness was part of his personal style of interaction, but Bobby rarely spoke in such subdued tones. She tightened her grip on his arm determinedly. "What does that mean?"

He just shook his head and concentrated on untangling the leash that has been lying in his lap. "I'll get the dog."

And that was that, apparently. He seemed to forget she was there as he turned away and headed for a knot of twisting fur and tails that vaguely resembled a group of dogs.

Alex stood and watched him for a second, wondering what the hell she'd said to set off such a strong self-defensive reaction in him, then, with a quiet sigh, shook her head. If he wanted her to know, he'd tell her. And if he didn't . . . she'd just have to figure out a way to get the answer out of him without his cooperation.