"So you live around here?" The blonde's lips entranced Eve as she articulated these words (or maybe it was the alcohol slowly pulsating through her veins). She found herself beginning to smile at their implication.

"Yeah, around the block. I moved a few months ago." Eve's eyes glazed over.

"Any particular reason or just felt like it?"

"Oh...," she lingered on the thought. "Just felt like it." A handful of middle-aged men at the bar yelled something in agreement with each other. Eve glanced at them and felt the soft touch of the woman's fingertips slide up the side of her hand on the table. A shiver of pleasure went through her. Her body began to lean toward the woman and she caught herself with a jolt before going too far. "I - I should go. It's getting late and I have to get up early for work and…" You remind me of her, she said only in her mind.

"Of course. Well…" the woman tapped her fingers on the bar table. "Would you like some company on the walk home?"

In the 10-minute stroll to her apartment building, Eve's mind had already shuffled through a myriad of excuses for not letting Katie (the woman's name, as she'd finally figured out while sloppily taking her number) into her new abode. Even tipsy as hell, she could picture the mess she'd left before heading out that evening: clothes, both clean and dirty, thrown across every piece of furniture and boxes still covering most of the living and dining areas. For a person who spent as little time at home as possible, Eve somehow always managed to leave it in a state of chaos.

They reached her door and she fumbled for her keys, dropping them in the process. After she picked them up, she held them and looked at them.

"Listen, Katie..." She began.

"I know, it's late. I don't mind being dismissed," Katie replied. "I really did want to make sure you got home safe."

Eve chuckled. You have no idea what that might entail. She could smell the blonde's perfume: an earthy scent tinged with a kind of musk. It was making her body lean toward her again, and again she caught herself. Their eyes locked when she glanced up. In that moment, she decided she wasn't going to be alone that night.

"Could you, um, wait out here a minute? I'll - I'll just be a sec. Is that alright?" Katie nodded, smiling.

Eve opened and closed her door, acutely aware of the presence of the woman now behind it as she stood in the darkness of her apartment. Attempting to not sound like she was rushing around haphazardly tidying, she rushed around and haphazardly tidied. Clothes in closet, dishes...uhh...let's put you guys under the sink. Boxes...in the corner you go!

Dusting off a crowd of crumbs from the bed comforter, she thought she heard the sound of voices whispering fiercely on the other side of the door. She figured it was her neighbor, a young woman who worked at the market down the street, and her neighbor's weird boyfriend. To her perpetual annoyance, they often stumbled in, arguing, about this time.

She grabbed two clean glasses from a cabinet and the half-downed wine bottle resting by itself in her fridge, taking a quick swig before placing them on the coffee table by the couch. A breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding released and she went to let her evening company in.

"Hello?" Eve's voice echoed throughout the empty building hallway. Her grasp on the handle of the open door tightened. "Katie?" The all-too-familiar feeling of a growing lump in her throat being swallowed and traveling down to the center of her chest came to her. It couldn't be stifled and the feeling radiated outward. She went back inside and searched through her purse for her phone. No messages.

She locked the door, flicked off the lights, and laid down on her couch. Alone again, naturally.