Hey y'all! Sorry, I got a little wrapped up in school the last few weeks, projects, papers, and assignments were due, and I let this story lapse (guess what my major is, ha ha)! My apologies! But here's a few more chapters. Read, review, and enjoy! XOXO

I stepped off the train with my rolling suitcase into Grand Central Station in New York City. I had been to New York before, but always by plane. Steve was easy to spot in the crowd: just slightly taller, dark blond, wearing that leather bomber jacket. His eyes had already found me in the crowd.

"Steve!" I cried, dashing across the floor, trying to avoid running into people.

He held his arms open for me and I jumped onto him. I suddenly was too shy to kiss him, so I hugged him. "How was your trip?"

"I got a lot of reading and studying done for my finals," I said. "I brought you something, though."

"What?"

"I'll give it to you when I get unpacked," I said. He took my rolling suitcase from me without asking and took my hand and we walked out of the train station.

"You're really going to like New York," he promised. "I've already made plans."

"You didn't have to," I said. "I'd be fine just hanging out with you, studying, while you, I don't know… sketched or read a book?"

"No, I'm going to show you a good time," he said, taking me towards the taxi line. "I got a good recommendation on a restaurant. I can't wait to see what you like. It's Asian fusion."

"It sounds amazing," I salivated.

"But you probably want a chance to stop off at Natasha's first, and get changed."

"That would be good."

In the back of the taxi, he wrapped an arm around me to keep me warm. "I like having you here," he said softly after giving the cab driver the address.

"I like being here."

"You just arrived!"

"I know," I said, grinning stupidly.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to kiss him so badly and hold him close. But we were both so nervous about being the first one to initiate physical affection, at least in public.

We crossed the Williamsburg bridge as Steve asked me about my courses and how I did on the group projects. I tried to make them sound interesting as the arrived in DUMBO. I had been to New York a few times, but we had always stayed in Manhattan, never Brooklyn. The cab pulled up at a brownstone apartment building. Steve paid cash to the driver and helped me out with my suitcase, buzzing apartment 3C. The door buzzed and opened. "This is Natasha's building, she's actually going out of town tomorrow, but she wanted to be here to meet you," he said as he lugged my suitcase up the stairs to the third floor. I followed behind him, panting from the effort of carrying my laptop bag, he wasn't even breaking a sweat, but he had my entire rolling suitcase.

Natasha's apartment door was cracked open, Steve knocked before walking through the threshold. The apartment was all in neutral colors, clean lines, black leather furniture, and glass. "Hey, Nat?"

"Hi," she said, emerging from the kitchen. "I just made some spice tea, there's cookies on the coffee table. Hi, Dani, it's nice to see you again. Come on in, sit down, Steve, can you put her things in the spare bedroom?"

"On it."

I took a seat on the leather couch as she came back with a few steaming hot mugs of tea. "How was your trip up?" she asked.

"It was great; I had all the time in world to study and just relax. I love living in cities where you don't have to have a car." She handed me the mug. I took a sip: it was delicious, but not as sweet as the 'Russian Spice Tea' I used to get at the cafes in Nashville that had Tang in them. I had the feeling this was the genuine article. "This is really good."

She smiled, pleased. "Thank you. I'm happy your travels were uneventful. Make yourself at home, though. I don't know if Steve told you, but I'm leaving town tomorrow, so you'll have my apartment to yourself after tonight. Just a warning: I don't care if you go into my bedroom, but I am not responsible if you hurt yourself with any of the weapons I have in there."

"Oh, I understand," I said. "I was raised in a household with guns."

"They're not guns," she said a smirk on her face.

I swallowed. What?

She winked at me. "As long as you stay out, you'll be fine. But I'm happy to show you, anytime."

"I'll keep that in mind. I actually have something for you as a thank you for hosting me," I said, "it's in my suitcase-"

"You didn't have to go to the trouble."

"Oh, but I did, I'm Southern, we don't arrive as guests empty-handed."

"Well, that's very Russian, too. I think we've got that in common. Please eat the cookies, or I'll end up snacking on them before bed!"

"Don't spoil your appetite, we're going to dinner tonight," Steve said, emerging from the spare bedroom. "I'm taking her on a tour of Brooklyn afterward."

"Have you ever been to Brooklyn?" Natasha asked.

I shook my head, smiling nervously, picking up a ginger snap cookie. "Manhattan only."

"Ah. Well, you'll have to tell me about all you saw. The key is on the kitchen counter. I wish I could stay, but I have a date of my own."

"What?" Steve asked sharply. "Who is it? So I know him?"

"Can't a girl have a private life?" she snorted. I sensed a big brother-sister vibe between the two of them. "The TV remote is on the end table if you want to watch, there's a fresh towel in the bedroom, make yourself at home. Oh, and you're welcome to my hair styling products. Have a good night," she dusted off her spotless pencil skirt and strode out of the apartment on at least four inch heels like she had been born in them.

"Call me when you're ready for dinner. I have reservations at six," Steve said, getting up.

"Okay, I'll be ready at 5:30," I stood and kissed him quickly before he left.

After a hot shower, my energy returned and I realized Steve was going to be here to pick me up in twenty minutes.

Was I going to go home with him? I wasn't sure. My legs were shaved and I put on some lacy, matching underwear while I got ready. I rushed through my makeup and hair routine and the door buzzed while my hair was only half straightened. I rushed to answer it, fumbling with how it worked.

"Hey, are you ready?" he asked

"My hair's like half done," I admitted. "Come up, if you don't mind waiting."

I thought I had cracked the door open to Natasha's apartment, but there was a knock on the door a moment later.

"Hey, sorry," I apologized, opening it. "My hair does not want to lay flat today."

"Why do you want it straight?"

"Because curling it would take longer," I muttered in the bathroom, sectioning off a layer.

"You don't just get out of the shower and go?"

"No, my hair is not naturally like this at all," I said. "I'm not as naturally adorable as you, Steve."

"Hilarious." He sat down on the couch to channel surf and I finished my hair and put on my dress. I packed my clutch so I wasn't carrying my purse all over Brooklyn, putting in a compact, my lipstick, license, my debit card, and… I decided on a condom and lube, just in case.

"Hey, can you zip me up?" I asked, coming into the living room.

"Oh, sure," he muttered, mid-bite with a cookie. "You look beautiful." He reached for my half-zipped dress and gently tried to tug the zipper cord up.

"Thanks," I whispered. "You're not so bad yourself."

"Ready?" He asked, turning off the TV.

I grabbed my clutch. "Let's go."

We arrived at the restaurant on time, and the table was waiting. "I am starving," Steve admitted.

"I have only seen football players eat like you do. Where do you put it all? A hollow leg?"

"I have a fast metabolism. When I was a kid, if I ate too fast or too much, I'd puke."

"Then what changed?"

"Eh, I grew up."

Steve and I talked about what was going on in the news, and I told him how it affected me as a therapist in training. He asked me all kinds of questions about myself, and again, I ended up being the dominant subject in our conversation, almost like he was afraid of telling me something. I watched him eat like a horse while I dug into my pad thai.

After dinner, he took me out for a drink at a pub across the street. "Why do I feel like I'm always the one extracting things from you?" I asked.

"You know why," he replied, taking my hand as we crossed the street.

"Well, tell me something about growing up here."

"That," he said pointing with his freehand, "alley is where I used to get beat up all the time."

"Beat up?" I responded shocked.

"I had a bad habit of mouthing off to obnoxious people that were bigger than I was when I got out on my own."

"But didn't you get to your full height by like, age fifteen?" I asked, confused. He said his mom died when he was eighteen.

"No, actually, had a growth spurt after that," he said. "And that's where there used to be a movie theater." He pointed at an office building. "It showed uh… movies from the thirties and forties."

"Oh, that's a shame they tore it down," I sighed.

"They have a few theaters in Manhattan that show old movies during the week. Midnight showings."

"I wish I could be there for it."

"Maybe in the future," he said, opening the pub door for me.

We had a few beers and talk about some older movies. "I love Heddy Lamar. You know she invented the secure frequency that the military started using during World War II, but she never really got credit until after she died. Such a shame."

"What?" He cried, almost spitting out his beer. "You're making that up!"

"No, true story."

"How? I thought she was just some British dame for MGM!"

"Oh no, she was a lot more than that," I said. "She invented a lot of things when she wasn't at the studio."

"I'm going to have look that up," he said shaking his head. "There were some incredible ladies on the allied side during World War II."

"And a lot of them didn't get recognized until a few years ago," I added in. "Like Nancy Wake."

"Great lady," Steve agreed. "Did you know about Peggy Carter, the special agent from England?"

"Yeah, I heard about her in my women's studies classes," I said. "She worked closely with Howard Stark, your friend Tony's grandpa. I know she was close friends with Captain America before he disappeared."

"That Captain America guy sounded like a giant meatball to me."

I laughed. "You know she was one of the first agents working for S.H.I.E.L.D. In Hollywood."

"She went to Hollywood?" he asked, looking stunned.

"Yeah, under the guise of being a secretary."

I did a search on women allied spies in World War II on my phone and read them off to Steve. He enumerated on what the internet got wrong. Steve had an incredible knowledge of World War II, it seemed. "How do you know this stuff?" I asked.

"Uh, studying World War II is important with strategy," he said. "Like the Civil War, World War I…"

"Oh, okay," I said. "Daddy loved making history come to life for us, that's how I learned about them. When we were stationed in Germany and he had a few days off, he'd Lauren and me to historical places, like the last piece of the Berlin Wall standing in memorial in the middle of the woods."

"It still blows my mind that we're friends with the Germans and Japanese, now, and not Russia."

"My father lived through the Cold War, and he's not. West Germany got a do-over after World War II. Probably one of the most efficient and wealthy countries in the world, now, asides from the Middle East."

"They kind of get a bad rap, I guess. Hitler was very charismatic and there were other factors at play."

I nodded. "Germans know how to throw a party," I added.

He laughed.

After a few drinks, he closed our tab, and we decided to walk back since it was unseasonably warm and all I needed was my peacoat. I needed to get the alcohol out of my system.

"That's where I live," Steve said, pointing with his free hand at a building on the corner. His other hand held mine.

Was he asking me up for me to spend the night? After all the trouble he went to so I could stay with Natasha? "Would you like to show me your place?" I asked, my nerves coming through my voice.

"It's not much," he said. "But, okay."

The building had an elevator, an old-fashioned cage type. On the second floor, Steve opened his front door for me and let me in.

I was surprised how little personality it had when he flipped the lights on to the living room. It might as well have been a hotel room, the furniture was so plain and there was a complete lack of wall decor as the lights came up. It was so tidy, too, like it had just been through a deep cleaning. There wasn't even a bookshelf that I could see or television.

"Have a seat," he said. "I've never had a girl up here before."

"Since you moved in?" I asked. The lack of personal items made me wonder if my worries that he was using me to cheat on another woman go wild. Was this a city apartment where he brought unsuspecting women to so he could seduce them without his wife knowing? Was Natasha in on it?

"Can I make you a drink?" he asked, opening a cabinet. "I have a single malt whiskey, a scotch, I've got a few beers in the fridge, too…"

"I could go for a beer," I said, trying to keep my faculties.

Things just didn't add up with him, I realized in a moment of clarity. Yeah, he was hot, a gentleman, and told me all the things I wanted to hear, but was putting off sex with me a method of buttering me up so that I felt so much towards him when it happened that if I found out he was married, I'd be involved too let him go? Was he manipulating me so much that I'd do something like that? Because he was so earnest and everything about him screamed that he was genuine. Was he the best liar I had ever met? If he was, I wasn't sure how I'd ever go in psychology as a therapist. It would mess me up royally.

"I notice you don't have a TV in here," I said as he brought the beers in. "What do you do to relax?"

"Read, mostly. I used to sketch a lot."

"I like your sketches in our letters," I admitted, resting my free hand on his knee, then pulled my hand away.

"Your stick figuring drawings are cute, too," Steve said. I saw a slight grin on the edges of his lips. "I especially liked the one with heart eyes."

I blushed and grinned. "I was inspired by emojis," I admitted.

"This world is so strange sometimes. I don't know where I fit into it, but there are other times I feel like you understand," he said. "I guess that's why I keep up with you."

I leaned into him, pressing my head into his shoulder. "Same with you." He laced his fingers into mine.

"Dani, do you ever feel like you could accept the strange and abnormal being real?"

"What?" I asked, taking a sip of my beer.

"Like science fiction… not being fiction."

I shrugged. "They always say Star Trek is getting closer and closer to reality."

"Yeah, something like that. Like time travel."

"Oh, I loved Back to the Future! And HG Wells, the Time Machine? "

"I didn't read either of those."

" Back to the Future is a movie trilogy. You've never heard of it?"

"Uh… no, not really."

How? How had he missed one of the greatest science fiction action summer movie franchises of all time? Daddy had gotten me excited about it when I was a kid because it was one of his favorites. "You don't know Doc Brown and Marty McFly?"

He shook his head.

"Deloreans?"

"Is that the plural of 'Delores'?" he chortled. "I knew several women named Delores."

"Okay, if I can find a showing, we need to go. If I had my computer, I'd play it for you," I said. We sat in amicable silence for a few minutes. When I turned to look at him, and his eyes were closed. "Are you asleep?"

"No," he said, eyes opening. "I'm just enjoying this moment with you is all. You're alright?"

"Yeah," I mumbled, although it wasn't quite true. He balanced his beer down on his knee as I closed my eyes, too, the day weighing down on me. His fingers snaked through my hair, and it was a pleasant sensation. I wished I didn't have these concerns weighing me down, distracting me.

"Dani, I um… can I kiss you?"

"Yeah," I said, hoping kissing him would put these concerns to rest.

He cupped my cheek with one hand and lifted my face. I closed my eyes and his lips pressed against mine. I felt myself trembling. He lips trembled, too, and he applied a little more pressure, and my lips parted to take his lower lip in.

Why are you just laying there like that, Dani? Are you a pillow princess now? Is that your new name?

My eyes flew open and I push him away. My red lipstick was on his lips, and he looked stunned.

Steve was not Chad. Chad was an asshole. It had been a year since we broke up and I needed to stop carrying the weight of that bad relationship. It had spurned me to leave Nashville, but it made me worry. It had exposed me to the realization that men could take something like your trust and shatter it, and men just did that.

"Steve?"

"Yeah? Are you okay?"

"I think I need to get back to Natasha's," I said. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay, um... are you alright?"

"I-yeah. It's just been a long day."

"Okay I'll call a cab for you."