"What?" she demands, frowning.
"When I put my hand on your jaw. When I put my hand on your throat. You didn't flinch. Every person I have ever touched like that in my life has flinched and cowered. You looked at me and you told me your name. You were the calmest thing in that wreckage, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I came here today because I needed to know whether I’d imagined it."
She looks at me for a long moment, and I watch her face as she tries to process what I’ve said.
I take another step closer.
There are two feet between us now. I can see the faint freckles on her nose. I can see the thin white scar at the bow of her top lip, the one that I noticed in the sedan. I can see that her lashes are damp at the corners even though she hasn't let a single tear fall.
"Have dinner with me," I say.
"No." The word comes out on a huff of disbelieving laughter.
"Sadie."
"No. Mr. Zhirinovsky, no. I don't know you. I don't know what you do or who you are. I don't know what kind of man haspeople, and I don't want to know. I came here to start over. I came here to have a quiet life and a job I am good at, and I won’t. I won’t." Her voice catches. "I won’t be available for whatever this is."
"Dinner," I say. "One hour. A place with other people in it. You pick it. I'll be where you say, when you say, and if at the end of that hour you want me to leave you alone, I'll leave you alone."
"You won't. You're standing in an alley behind my workplace. You fixed an elevator in my apartment building. You had a man watch me in a grocery store and then sent up the groceries I couldn’t afford. You are not going to leave me alone because I asked you to over a dinner roll."
I take the last step.
There’s only a foot between us now. I can feel the heat of her temper coming off her in the fresh, spring air.
I have to put my hands in my pockets to stop myself from touching her.
"Sadie," I say, low. "What are you afraid of?"
Her eyes move over my face.
"I’m afraid that I'm not afraid of you," she says.
The words are out before she can stop them. I can see her wince at her own voice, see the moment she wishes she could reach out and catch the sentence and pull it back into her mouth, but she can't.
My hand comes out of my pocket before I have given it permission, and I lift it, slowly, to brush my knuckles along her jaw.
The same jaw. The same place. I barely touch her. The edge of my index finger finds the soft skin below her ear, and her breath stops, her eyes go wide and dark and, once again, she doesn’t flinch.
"Sadie."
"Nick."
It's the first time she's called me it willingly.
Something in me that has been wound tight for too long goes very still.
"One dinner," I say. “You have my word that I will leave if you want me to, and my word is not a small thing."
Her throat moves under my knuckle as she swallows. I follow the motion with my eyes but keep my hand exactly where she let me put it.
"One dinner," she says, a little breathless now in a way that makes parts of me wake up after a long time of dormancy. "And when I ask you to leave me alone, you leave me alone."
"Okay."
She steps back.
My hand falls to my side. There’s a faint pink blush creeping over her neck, and I know I am going to think about that exact shade of pink until I see her again.
“The diner on Chandlers at eight,” she says, then turns and enters the clinic through the back door, taking her candy and juice box with her.
I walk back down the alley the way I came, and I don't look over my shoulder even though every part of me wants to.
