Warning for those of you who are staunch about your ratings: The second half of this chapter is really PG13. I'm sure you'll all be fine.

"So you were in the Peace Corps?" Annie asked. She was on her second refill. Parker was waiting on a slice of banana bread. They were getting along far better than Annie expected.

"Eritrea," Parker nodded.

"And how was that?"

"Eye-opening," Parker said. "The culture shock was enormous."

"That's the best part," Annie said. "Going to a new place and discovering that there's so much more than you. Can't beat it."

"It really is amazing," Parker agreed. "And I loved just being with the people. There's nothing like the look on someone's face when they receive clean water."

Annie nodded, smiled. "I actually worked with the Peace Corps for awhile after college."

"No way."

"Yeah, I traveled for about seven years, spent two of them with the Corps in Kiribati. I think they closed the program in 2008."

"Where'd you go to college?"

"Georgetown. I studied linguistics. You?"

"International relations at the University of Richmond."

"You really are a Virginia girl, huh?"

"Through and through," Parker smiled. "I never meant to stick around like this, but sometimes life doesn't turn out like you plan."

"No kidding," Annie said, her thoughts flickering once again to the baby.

"Hey, Annie?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something kind of... personal?"

"Go ahead."

"Why was it just a one-night stand? You and Auggie, I mean."

...

Annie wiped her mascara- stained eyes and attempted to compose herself as Auggie slid open his front door.

"Annie Walker. What are you doing here?"

"Danielle kicked me out," Annie tried to keep the hysteria out of her voice, and failed.

Auggie opened the door a bit further, leaving room for Annie to enter. She stood still and silent in his kitchen, trying once again to rationalize the day's events. First, the defection gone wrong, the innocent man who was now dead and would never see an American baseball game. All that time in the hospital. And then, when she realized life was too short not to come clean to Danielle, an eviction. All Annie had wanted to do was go home. Now she wasn't sure where that was.

To her surprise, Auggie didn't seem to want to talk it out. He went to the cupboard and found a bottle of Patron.

"This," he held up the bottle. "Is my emergency tequila."

He got two shot glasses and filled them over a spill tray. He placed one on the island and raised the other. "I promised myself I wouldn't open it unless the shit really hit the fan."

"How long have you had it?" Annie managed, sniffing her shot.

"Three weeks," Auggie smirked.

"The shit hit the fan three weeks ago?"

"Define 'shit,'" Auggie took the shot. "Define 'fan.'"

Annie swallowed her shot and coughed.

"You all right?" Auggie asked.

"Hit me again."

"You pour," he handed her the bottle. "We'll get drunk faster."

"To the shit and the fan," Annie toasted, and they threw them back.

She poured another.

"To honesty," Auggie declared.

And another.

"To American baseball," she called.

And another.

"To whoever invented Patron," Auggie laughed.

"And to the man who slept in a public hospital because he couldn't wait for the gift shop to open."

"To the woman who values the truth."

But they didn't drink. Instead of connecting with the shot glass, their lips connected with one another. Auggie pulled her in at the waist and she immediately found herself grabbing for his shirt. They knocked around the kitchen, joined at the mouth. Admittedly, Auggie had a navigator's advantage. Everything was fuzzy at the corners and moving too fast. Even in the impossibly low ambient light of his apartment, bright spots coursed through her field of vision. She cursed into his mouth when she realized his pants had a button. He reached down and rectified the situation himself.

Annie had been known to black out under the influence of tequila, but not that night. Maybe it was the day's constant disappointment, or the endorphins from her tears, or the extra oomph of a fresh bottle and a sturdy shot glass, but she was more present than she'd ever been. She woke the next morning with the hiccups and a hangover.

"We got really drunk last night," she said as she rolled out of his bed the next morning.

"I'll make some coffee," he said, buttoning his shirt in the corner of the room.

"Thanks, Auggie," she said, patting his shoulder on her way out of the room in search of her top. "I needed that."

"We all need to blow off steam sometimes," Auggie said as he made his way into the kitchen. "No shame in it."

Annie considered his words. No shame in it. There didn't have to be, right?

"But hey," he turned, two cups in hand. "While we're still coasting on my knowing exactly what you need, can I offer one last piece of advice?"

She smirked. "Sure. What?"

"Set up that safe house. You can't afford to waste any more time."

"I just realized I don't exactly have a change of clothes."

"I'm gonna do something I never ever do," Auggie grimaced. "Come here."

He pulled open a bottom drawer and retrieved a pullover sweater. "I have no idea whose this is, but someone left it here after a sleepover. I shudder to think I let a topless woman loose in DC, but no one's ever claimed it."

"You have a drawer of discarded conquests' clothes."

"First of all, that is undeservedly harsh. None of them were conquered or discarded, thanks. Second of all, no. This isn't a Katherine Heigl movie. I just have the shirt."

Annie slipped into the top. "It fits."

"All right! Please don't give it back."

"I can do that."

He made coffee, they drank it in his kitchen and proceeded to work like nothing had happened. As far as Annie was concerned, it was so innocent, it might as well have been Ben & Jerry's and a movie. Just a pity party between friends.