This chapter contains vague unresolved sexual tension, and the barn on Flanders farm burns down in one of the Files, but that doesn't really give away anything else about the book.

On the fifth day since he had heard from her, the invitation came in the mail. Mapleton High School, Tenth Class Reunion. Semiformal dress requested, a response card, a cute clipart graphic in the corner. What a bad time to be between girlfriends. He hadn't heard from Belinda since a spectacularly profanity-laden message on his answering machine, which vaguely disturbed him, but she was out of the question anyway.

Please specify whether you will be bringing a guest.

He'd resisted calling Bess and George, because if Nancy didn't want to hear from him, that was fine. He wasn't going to go back on what he had told her. He'd already pressed enough.

But her silence was killing him. He was pretty sure that she agreed with him, that she was on some level attracted to him, but her self-control was proving stronger than his. On the sixth night he argued with himself for an hour before he picked up the phone and called, and George answered, sounding pleased to hear from him.

"Is Nancy home?"

"No, she'll be back in tomorrow."

"She's... out for the night?"

"She has to travel a lot for work, she's out of town. I'm picking her up at the airport..."

"Oh. She goes out of town a lot?"

"Depends. Do you want me to tell her to call you when she-- oh, hang on," George said, and her voice went muffled before he heard Bess.

"What took you so long, Nickerson?"

Ned laughed. "I was trying to keep from spooking her," he explained. "And I got an invitation to my tenth high school reunion in the mail, and..."

"Arm candy."

"Right. Arm candy."

Bess sounded delighted. "Let me see what I can do about that."

"Have you heard from her?"

"Yeah, a few times," Bess said. "Yes, she's talked to Frank twice. No, they aren't back together."

"Oh. I didn't call about that..."

"Sure you didn't," Bess said. "And I didn't tell you. It did her some good to get away from all this, though."

"To get away from me," Ned said softly.

"She's been with Frank a long time, Ned..."

"I know, I know. And the longest I've ever had a girlfriend is five months," he replied. "But she's okay."

"She's as well as she could be, considering. When's your reunion?"

"Next weekend."

"Good. Just enough time to assemble a fantastic outfit."

Ned laughed. "Glad to see you have your priorities in order."

"No girl can stay sad for long in the perfect pair of shoes, Ned."

When Nancy did show up, he wasn't sure if she was in the perfect shoes or not, but she looked great. Her hair was pulled into a loose bun at the crown of her head, a few loose strands hanging over her ears, which she tucked behind, nervously to match her smile. She wore a soft draping dress in a faded black, the hem just above her knees, and strappy heels that sent a signal through his eyes and directly below his belt, bypassing his brain. Her ankles were slender, her back bare, and he found himself wondering if she was wearing anything at all under her dress. If there was any way he'd find out.

No, he decided, when she raised her hand a few inches, a small sequined clutch in her fingers, and smiled at a point just over his shoulder. "Mind if I come in?"

"Sure, sure," he said hastily, moving to the side. As she passed from the light of the hallway into the muted shadow of his apartment he saw the line of her cheeks and the arch of her eyebrows glisten softly. She looked breathtaking but her cheekbones seemed more hollow, her collarbone more pronounced. She'd lost weight, and Ned almost never noticed such changes, despite the urgings of five high-school girlfriends.

"I almost didn't come," she confessed, this time staring at the left lapel of his favorite blue suit. "But Bess was so excited, she had an outfit all laid out for me, and I couldn't tell her no."

"I'm glad," he said, resisting the urge to brush her hair back, to stop her hand as it cupped another strand behind her ear, to slide a fingertip down the line of her arm, link his finger and thumb around the delicate curve of her ankles. More than that, he found himself wondering if he swept her off her feet and tossed her lightly onto his bed, would she laugh until her eyes lost that exhausted haunted look, would she finally meet and return his gaze.

"I really-- I told Bess not to force you to come," he said, watching her right foot hook behind the other ankle, the tense line of muscle beneath the flesh. "I didn't hear from you and I thought maybe you just needed some more time."

Her blue eyes flashed up then, her foot sliding back onto the floor with a soft click. "I did," she said softly. "Work sent me out of town and I had some time to think about things."

He nodded. "I just wanted to know you were okay."

She didn't talk very much on the way; all her conversation served to draw him out, tell him that she was listening. He filled the silence with stories about work, about a few of the people he expected to see at the reunion, but when he turned to stories about his time in Omega Chi and the friends he'd made there, he finally began to relax.

"College must have been a really good time for you."

He shrugged. "Back in Mapleton, everyone knew who I was. The quarterback, star pitcher, basketball captain... at Emerson, it wasn't just a given anymore. I had to work for all of it, and my brothers were there for me."

"And so modest on top of it," she said, but he could hear the smile in her voice.

"I don't have to be modest. I'd challenge you to a game of touch football anytime."

"I bet you would. Ned... we're going to this thing..."

"As friends," he supplied. "You're just doing me a favor, so I don't have to field the stupid questions about who the lucky girl is, I can just give a little nod in your direction and you smile and we dance a few times, and then I drive you home and we're still friends."

She nodded. "I think I can handle that. I don't know how good you are at touch football, but you're no slouch at dancing."

"And I think you'll make exquisite arm candy."

They groaned simultaneously when Ned pulled into the parking lot at the hotel. "'In the grand ballroom, another memorable night for the Mapleton High Class of--' God, Ned, you're ancient."

He grabbed her arm playfully, twined their fingers together for a moment. "Two years older than you makes me ancient." He could feel her heart speed up under his fingertips.

"There is a huge difference between twenty-five and twenty-seven," she informed him, leaning in to catch his gaze. "At least in girl years."

He stopped just outside the hallway leading to the ballroom, and she raised an eyebrow. Her arm was warm in his. "Just-- need a minute," he said, wishing he'd already rested his palm at the small of her back, but it was too late. "I haven't seen some of these guys in years."

Nancy nodded. "How many ex-girlfriends of yours am I about to meet?"

"Oh... don't think of them that way," he advised her. "Just refer to them communally as 'half the cheerleading squad.'"

"Ahh, a man of discriminating tastes."

"Is it my fault that all the pretty girls happened to be on the cheerleading team?" He took a step and she moved with him. "Was it different in River Heights, and you were the head of the chess club instead?"

Nancy's lips curled up in a smile. "Close," she said.

When they stepped into the ballroom, the slow change was complete; her chin was high, her smile in place, she was poised and charming and gorgeous. He could barely believe she was the same girl who wouldn't meet his eyes an hour before. Almost immediately a woman approached them, a martini glass in her hand and a diamond sparkling in the strobe lights, and Ned didn't even recognize her at first, even after she trilled his name and stood expectantly a few inches too far into his personal space.

"How have you been?"

"I've been great," he said easily, then pretended to remember himself. "Nancy, this is Evie Lancaster..."

"Nice to meet you," Nancy said, shaking her hand with a smile.

"We dated," Evie explained, when Ned didn't elaborate. "Years ago. Ned, you look amazing. Still taking care of yourself?"

"When I can," Ned said. "Well, we need to make the rounds now, maybe get a drink or two..."

"It's so nice to see you again," Evie said, almost staring into his eyes. "Save me a dance?"

"I don't know, he's promised most of them to me," Nancy finally said, and he looked down into her eyes, matching her too-cute smile with one of his own. "Buy me a drink?"

"Of course. See you, Evie."

Nancy slid into a barstool and laid her clutch in front of her, propping her elbow up on the bar so she could rest her fingers lightly just under her chin. "Vodka and cranberry juice," she told the bartender, and sighed before she turned to Ned. "Let me guess. Head cheerleader."

Ned nodded. "She broke up with me a month before prom. I seem to be cursed to be alone at all major holidays."

"Prom as a holiday," Nancy marveled, poking a straw into her drink before she took the first sip. "You know, Ned, you look perfect, but there must be something wrong under the hood if the head cheerleader would break up with you, the star quarterback and a fine piece of ass to boot, right before prom."

Ned burst into surprised laughter. "I have a theory about that."

"Oh?"

"I'm a bachelor."

Nancy waited for him to elaborate, then took a long sip of her drink and made a motion for him to continue. He shrugged.

"They just-- maybe they sense I'm not cut out for a long-term relationship."

"Fair enough."

Ned grabbed his beer. "I say we stake out a table and wait for them to come to us," he said, sliding off his stool. "Easier on the feet."

Nancy looked down at her shoes, ruefully. "Bess sure has an eye for heels," she said. "I just don't have the legs for them."

Ned curved his fingers around hers for a moment. "I beg to differ," he said.

She could always tell, somehow. Under the table, out of sight, her heels tucked safely under her chair, he could feel her bare toes brush against his ankle whenever another of the girls approached. When he saw them through her eyes, he almost cringed; they were so bright that they glittered now, brittle hair and deep tans and eyes that raked over Nancy like they were taking note of her every blemish and flaw, and he was gratified to know that they could find little to judge. She wasn't wearing a thick tennis bracelet or a doorknob for an engagement diamond over the dull platinum of a wedding band. She didn't have collagen-puffed lips or breasts swelled from feeding yet another child or a divorce in her recent past.

"Nancy," one of them said, one of the better in the bunch; instead of marrying young and popping out a pair of kids before the divorce, she had moved to Chicago and worked at one of the major television stations. "Not Nancy Drew."

Nancy smiled politely. "One and the same," she said.

"No wonder I couldn't keep Ned's attention," the woman said, shaking Nancy's hand. "He always seemed a little... bigger than Mapleton. You two been together long?"

Ned glanced at Nancy, but she was the first to speak. "Only a month or so," she said. "So, tell me more about Ned's wandering attention."

The woman laughed. Simone. Her hair was lighter blonde now, and she was more confident, more sure of herself. He could almost remember why he'd dated her. "Maybe it was just always on sports. I think he played everything Mapleton offered, and still somehow found time to study. Never did figure that one out."

Ned shrugged, blushing a little. "And I see you're still charming as ever."

"Just a little jealous," she said easily. "It was good to see you again, Ned. And nice to meet you, Nancy."

Once Simone had vanished back into the crowd, Nancy turned to Ned, smiling, her voice low. "Okay, either your cheerleading squad was four times the size of a normal one, or you made a big impression on half the girls in this room. At least."

"You think there's something wrong with my theory?"

"I don't know whether you were meant to be a bachelor," Nancy replied. "But I think they'd like to do their best to make sure you have to work for it."

Ned finished the last of his beer and stood. "Okay, enough resting the feet," he said. "We have to go out there and dance at least once." He reached out for her hand.

"We have to? My pretending that you're my boyfriend wasn't enough?"

"We don't have to, if you don't want to."

She maneuvered under the tablecloth and then stood on her slender heels again, reaching for his hand. "Okay," she said. "But you twisted my arm."

"Is that your alibi?"

She nodded, her fingers brushing his wrist. "If anyone asks, I didn't want to do this."

He slipped his arms around her and Nancy put her arms up around his neck, and he gazed down at her. "What if I ask?" he said softly.

She looked at his collar, blushing faintly. "Against my better judgement."

"Nancy, I really didn't do this to make you uncomfortable..."

She traced her thumb over his neck, just above his collar. "I know," she said softly, even though he shivered. "I'm not uncomfortable. I just feel like I'm pretending I'm okay, and I'm not, and no one here knows that I'm not your girlfriend, no one here knows about... what just happened. It's strange. And I almost expect you to take advantage of this and try to kiss me, and... damn, don't let me drink anymore."

A smile was twitching on his lips as he turned with her. "You're fine," he said. "I'm not gonna take advantage of you, or of this, just because you were nice enough to help me out for a few hours. Besides, I think it's incredibly bad taste to indulge in public displays of affection."

"Oh?"

"Well, for other people," he said. "If you wanted to indulge in a little making out, I wouldn't stop you. We make such a pretty couple that it'd practically be a photo opportunity."

She laughed, even though that look was creeping back into her eyes. "Maybe you'll get another dance for that."

"I hope so." He held his breath when he brushed her hair behind her ear. "You know I'm teasing you, right? I just... don't want to see that look on your face again."

"What look?"

"The one you had on your face when you knocked on my door tonight. Like you'd rather be covered in tarantulas than go out with me."

"Oh, I'm sure I didn't look like that," she replied, searching his eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't call you while I was gone, I know how it must have seemed to you..."

He shrugged, looking down at the curve of her shoulder, the way the light reflected off her skin. "It's all right," he said, and smiled a little, but there was no humor in it. "If there's anything I'm used to, it's having a girl not call me."

She ran her hand over his hair a few times. "Ned..."

He shook his head. "Confirmed bachelor, remember," he said softly. "I think, after this, maybe..."

"One more dance," she said. "And then some coffee for the ride home."

He could tell that she was surprised when he pulled up in the parking lot of a restaurant. "'The Happy Pancake,'" she read, skeptically.

"They have the best coffee," he said. "And even better pancakes. I used to come here all the time when I was in high school."

"So this entire night is gonna bring back memories for you, huh," she said, climbing out of his car. "Which one of the girls I met tonight did you make out with in the parking lot?"

"I have to say, that's one tradition I never started," he said, holding the door for her. "And you're getting a stack of buttermilk pancakes, you look like you need it."

"What, can you hear my stomach rumbling?"

"No, but I think I can almost see your ribs," he said, gently running his hand over her side. She pulled back, searching his eyes, but the corner of her mouth rose in a half-smile.

She resigned herself to his ordering for her, but only made it halfway through the stack of pancakes. She folded her hands around her mug of coffee as Ned finished them off.

"Do you believe in fate? That some people are just... meant to be together?"

Ned swallowed a bite of pancake and took a sip of his own coffee before replying. "Not really," he said. "But I'm sure you guessed that."

She smiled. "Yeah, I was pretty sure," she told him. "I thought that I was meant to be with Frank."

Ned considered his next bite of pancake, but at the sound of the other man's name, his stomach was suddenly in knots. He put down his fork. "You did."

She nodded. "I mean... we'd known each other practically forever, and then, when I was fifteen, it was like I suddenly realized that I actually did care about him. We were at Fox Lake, and it was beautiful..."

"Fox Lake?" Ned raised his eyebrows. "Did you spend a lot of time there?"

"Every now and then," Nancy said. "Why?"

"My parents have a cabin there," he said, smiling. "It is beautiful. I'm surprised I never happened to run into you up there... I'd remember you. We were going to spend the entire summer up there... it must have been that same year. My Dad got a promotion and Mom decided we should stay in town with him."

Nancy tilted her head, her eyes shining. "That's amazing," she said.

"I know," he said. "But I'm sorry. You were saying..."

She ducked her head. "You don't want to hear about this."

He gazed at her until she raised her head to look at him again. "I want to hear anything you want to tell me," he said. "It's the least I can do. After tonight."

She tilted her head. "So you never feel like you found the one, the first girl you'd ever love, the one you were meant to be with."

He chuckled. "I can't say that I have," he replied. "It all seems so-- artificial. There are so many people out there, and it-- it's almost-- I don't want to hurt your feelings."

She waved her hand. "I won't take any offense, it's your opinion."

"It seems so... egocentric to think that I would find the one person I was meant to be with. It's not all about me; God, it's never been all about me. I finished fifth in my class in high school; I played every sport but I never took a pro contract, and even now... I like my work, but at the end of the day, I have a quiet apartment and the thought of being with you... and now you're the one who's gonna need to stop me from taking another drink."

"So you're not happy with your life."

"You ask me if everyone's meant to find someone," he said, tilting his head. "It feels like a game of musical chairs I've never managed to win."

"I've never even played," she said softly. "He asked me if I would be his girlfriend, and it seemed to make sense then, because when you're fifteen it doesn't matter if your boyfriend lives four states away. It almost makes it even more romantic. But when you're twenty-five and he--" She looked down, her lower lip trembling. "God, listen to us."

Ned gestured to the waiter for the bill. "I think this is how people are supposed to feel after a high school reunion," she said. "Tired and depressed and sad, wondering what could have happened."

"In two years, remind me not to go to mine," she told him. "So now we go back to Chicago and lie awake, wondering what we should have done differently?"

He threw a few bills on the table and let his hand rest on the small of her back as he escorted her out. "I'm a big believer in not regretting," he said. "So we don't regret. We go back to Chicago and park at my place and take a cab to a small quiet little bar a few blocks away, where we can drink until we've forgotten all of this."

"I thought you just said I was gonna have to stop you from taking another drink."

"So you got a better idea?"

She smiled. "You know the way to River Heights from here?"

He raised his eyebrows at her when she directed him to pull into a clearing just off a dirt path. The charred remains of a barn stood in the distance. "This looks mysteriously like the kind of place where high schoolers would go to park."

"So I've heard," she teased him. "Though, I'm sure you're wondering, and no. I didn't ever park here with the star quarterback and make out with him until five minutes before my curfew."

"You want to start that tradition?"

"Nice try," she said, then pushed open the door of the car and stepped out, tossing her shoes back in behind her. When she came around to the front of the car, in the dark silhouette of the headlights, she crooked her finger at him, and it took only a second for him to follow.

"Where are we?"

"Flanders farm," she whispered, when they were out in the moonlight. "I was out here when that barn burned down. Ages ago."

"So the star quarterback was a pyro."

"No... remind me to tell you the story sometime," she said, slipping her hand into his. "It's been a while since I've just stopped for a while and..."

"Breathed," he finished. "I have a blanket in the trunk of my car, I think..."

The blanket, once discovered, was a worn and faded heavy quilt, and he settled down on it and kicked his shoes off and looked up at her, her ankles already wet in the high grass. He patted the blanket next to him.

"I don't bite."

"You sure? Maybe that's why you can't keep a girlfriend," she said, and fell gracefully to the quilt with her legs crossed in front of her. "Because I really can't figure it out."

He pulled up a blade of grass and ripped it in half. "I've heard that I'm too intimidating," he said. "That I never stop and... breathe," he said, and laughed. "With Belinda, it was not paying her enough attention, but I think no one in her life has ever paid her as much attention as she wanted."

"Trust me," Nancy said, patting him on the back, "hers is the last opinion you should listen to."

He looked down. "Yeah, well," he said. "So you burned down the barn over there?"

She laughed. "I didn't burn down the barn," she said. "I just happened to be here. It was kind of crazy."

He nodded. "You don't like to talk about yourself."

She bent her knees and pulled them to her chest, resting her chin on top. "I think practically any other topic's more interesting," she said. "It was really interesting to meet the people you went to high school with."

He smiled. "There you go again," he said.

She looked away. "Do you really want to know what I'm thinking about?"

He nodded. "Sure."

"That I am so scared that I will never find another guy who... understands me and loves me the way Frank did."

"What's so difficult to understand about you?"

She smiled. "You know how you feel about your work? That you're good at it, but it's just something you're going to do to save time until you can do what you really like?"

He nodded. "Sure."

"I... love my work. Love it. I've been doing this... Bess and George say it's solving mysteries, but it feels like so much more than that. It's like a drug. When I'm between, I just wait for the next one, the next puzzle, and there is nothing like a new case."

Ned remembered Bess's comment again. "I think Bess even said you get this particular look on your face..."

She grinned and looked down. "They like to tease me about it."

He stretched out and studied her silhouette. "So you found something you love to do," he said softly. "That's not so hard to understand."

She turned to him, her eyes gleaming. "But... it doesn't stop," she said. "I mean, I don't go home at the end of the day and take my shoes off and not think about it anymore. It's all I think about. And Frank's the same way."

"No wonder you two couldn't make it work."

"He's dedicated," she said. "And that's part of what I loved about him."

"Loved?"

She sighed and tilted back until she was facing him across the quilt. "Yeah."

He traced the curve of a vine over the fabric with the tip of his finger. "It sounds like you... what you love, it just filled up your life, and maybe the only reason it worked with Frank was because he wasn't... around. I know you were frustrated when you couldn't see him."

"I was," she said. "But... he asked me to marry him. Invited me to come to Bayport and have a life there."

"When you were on that camping trip?" He propped his head up on his hand.

"No... it was a couple years ago."

Ned made an incredulous noise. "And he stayed with you after you turned him down? I mean, were you two engaged?"

"I thought it would have been ridiculous to be engaged to a man who lived four states away."

He laughed. "True," he said. "I'm already convinced that long-distance relationships don't really work, but I can't imagine an engagement would be any easier."

"It really wasn't."

"So... all those things you were saying earlier, about true love and being meant to stay with only one person... that was just, what, an intellectual exercise?"

"What do you mean?"

He tried to read the expression in her eyes, but sighed and gave up. "If you thought you were meant to be with Frank, why didn't you agree to marry him?"

"Because... because he lives so far away, and I have a live in Chicago, and--"

"And even if you loved him, it wasn't enough to make you change," he said softly.

"It's not." She flipped onto her back and stared up at the stars, her hands clasped loosely over her chest. "I don't know," she whispered.

"You say you're complicated, but from where I'm sitting, it's really simple," he said. "If you wanted to be with Frank, you would have. You would be. If you wanted to be with Frank, then you wouldn't--" He cut himself off.

She turned to him. "What?" she asked, when he didn't continue.

He shook his head. "Nothing," he muttered.

"No, what?" She propped her head up and poked his shoulder with the tip of a polished nail. "What is it?"

"If you wanted to be with Frank then you wouldn't be laying on a blanket in the middle of a field in the dead of night with me."

Her lip trembled before she forced a smile. "You make it sound almost scandalous."

"I wouldn't," he said, tracing his finger down her cheek, "presume to make you feel any worse tonight than you already do."

She looked down, but didn't shy away from his touch, and his hand fell away after a minute. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "I'm a total buzzkill right now."

He smiled. "Like I'm any better."

"You are. You're great. I'm..."

He shook his head. "I think... that it boils down to the same thing. You won't move... do you know that I've never given any of my girlfriends a key to my apartment?"

Nancy smiled. "I don't think that's such a bad thing."

"Yeah, but it's... I've never felt that level of... trust, when any of them. And you couldn't take that leap either."

"So what are you trying to say?" She put her hand over his, her fingers brushing the back of his hand. "That you just haven't found the love of your life either, despite all evidence to the contrary?"

"How can you, a logical, rational human being, believe that there is just one person out there for you?"

She smiled a little then. "It was easy because I thought I'd found him," she said. "Maybe it would've been easier if you'd found one too."

If there was ever, in my entire life, anyone that I ever felt like I could spend the rest of my time here with, I think that person could be you. "Maybe," he agreed. "Too bad I didn't meet her."

"You still have time," she said softly. "Maybe we both do."

They lingered there in the field, until the night grew chilly, and she was quiet. He could just feel her fingers on his, he could just make out the way her dress slipped down her inner thigh as she bent her leg and raised her knee, the sole of her foot sliding in on the quilt, the pale length of her inner forearm. Once he thought she gasped in a quiet faint sob, and he propped himself up on his elbow so that he could look down at her. Her eyes glistened in the dark as she held and returned his gaze, searching his eyes, and he caught the faint movement as her lower lip dropped softly.

She would taste sweet and warm. She would be hesitant at first, she would drop her chin and break away with her eyelashes fluttering between them, and then she would hook her arm around his neck and draw him in again, close to her, on her toes. He knew it. He wanted to feel it.

He studied her lips for a moment, and he could almost hear the faint hum of it, the soft breath of the electricity he could feel between them every time they were together, every time he spoke to her, every time he thought about her. He traced his gaze over the sharp angle of her collarbone, the shadowed hollow at the base of her throat, the slow rise of her stomach as she took another breath.

I don't know if I'll ever believe in true love, but this is as close as I have ever come...

"We should go," he said softly, and she let her breath out in a quick sigh, and he almost thought he saw regret in her eyes.

By the time they came back to her place, it was late but it wasn't late enough. He had watched her sweep her hair up again when they were almost there, even though he preferred it loose and free around her face, as it had been. He parked on the street, and the sound of laughter echoed out of the bar down the street as she stepped out onto the curb.

He spoke first, at the street door. "Thank you for coming. I know there were a thousand other things you would rather have done tonight..."

She shook her head. "It's fine," she protested. "I had... an interesting time."

He smiled. "Not a good one."

She tilted her head. "Next time it'll be good. I'll be good."

"What if my definition of 'good' doesn't quite agree with yours?"

She smiled. "It will," she said. Then she looked down. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For listening," she said softly. "For letting me breathe, for a little while."

He smiled. "It is important," he said, reaching out and tracing the line of her cheek. "I'm going to wish you good night before..."

"Before what?" She slipped her fingers over his.

"Before another one of your admirers comes up and takes you away from me again."

"Not much risk of that happening."

He swallowed hard before he stepped toward her, his fingers barely resting over the curve of her neck, under the warmth of her hair. "Are you just trying to convince me..."

"Convince you of what," she said, her voice just louder than a breath, her eyes fluttering closed.

He hovered there, just there, her face in shadow under his. She wasn't moving.

Then he saw the faint glisten of a tear at the edge of her eyelashes, just above the apple of her cheek, and he sighed. He closed his eyes and brushed his cheek just over hers, their skin just touching, before he moved away.

"Good night, Nancy."

Her eyelashes fluttered up again, her eyes gleaming as her gaze found his. "Good night, Ned."

Only once she had vanished into the apartment building did he let his chin drop to his chest, to study his shoes, the pale tails of his shirt from under his suit jacket. He felt like he could run around the block a hundred times and never feel it, but he didn't want to go back to his empty apartment just yet.

Then he looked up, at the faint sudden square of light in her window, at her silhouette. She pushed up the sill and he grinned.

"You still haven't changed my life, Ned," she called down, just loud enough for him to hear.

"I will," he called back, his heart beating hard in his chest. "I will, Nancy."