The following evening, after dinner, dishes, and Rob's bed time, I heard the knock, opened my front door, and Jake stood there, in a dark blue business suit, paired with a sober, red and blue, diagonal striped tie, holding a bottle of wine. Since it was past his newly usual seven or eight o'clock visit time, I had dressed for bed in a white tank top, with no bra, and cute, pink, plaid pajama short shorts. I hadn't wanted to admit that I was waiting around for him, so I had gone about my night as usual.

Though I still had my makeup on.

The night before, after swimming and making out in the pool, we somehow tore apart from each other, and ended up back in our separate homes, in our separate beds. I don't know what he did in his bed, but I sure know what I did in mine.

Tonight, he was outside my door yet again, rumpled and tired, but he was smiling, leaning against the door jamb, his coat swinging. And I felt a thrill pulse through me, yet again, that he was taking the time to see me, even when he was so busy. As much as this excited me, however, I felt the need to be cautious. I still didn't know him that well and I was wary to invest too much in pleasing a guy. Looking up at him, his eyes raked up and down my scantily dressed body and he shook his head a little bit and blinked.

"I have a lot of clients who bring me samples as gifts," he said in his low voice, "but this one I thought you would like." And he handed me a bottle of Santa Barbara chardonnay.

"Thank you," I said, happily cradling the wine.

"I was thinking that you could chill it and we could drink it tomorrow night," he continued. "I should be able to get out of the office a little earlier tomorrow. By earlier, I mean earlier than," he looked at his watch, "nine forty-five."

"That sounds great—" I started and his fucking phone sounded.

He let out a breath, pulled his phone out of his pocket, looked at it, and muttered, "fuck." He gave me a half-grin. "I have to take this, but I'll see you tomorrow. I'm sorry." Leaning in, he brushed his lips against mine and they felt soft and warm, and then he kissed the tip of my nose and closed the door behind himself. I heard him answer the phone as he crossed the way over to his unit and unlock the door.

What was I doing?

Did I want to be second place to a phone call? No. I didn't want to be some sort of available booty call of convenience for a guy with no time for me.

But even though he was such a workaholic businessman, I still felt strongly attracted to him, and I think he felt the same way. Otherwise, why would he even make the attempt?

Alarm bells rang in my head, because I did not want my self-esteem hinging on whether a man thought I was worthwhile. I knew I was worthwhile. I wasn't going to sit around all day and wait for him to come when he thought that it was the time to see me.

That said, he was just so goddamned handsome and so sweet and playful when he wasn't working, it was hard not to. I felt really, really, really, pulled to him.

And apparently I was just sitting around waiting for him to come to me, under the circumstances.

I guess the thing to do was to proceed with caution. I had my eyes wide open. I know that if a man is into you, he makes time for you no matter what he does and no matter how busy he is.

The thing was, Jake seemed to be trying to make time for me, despite the fact that he was phenomenally busy.

So I didn't know how to take this. I decided to sleep on it.

The following morning, no brilliant conclusion had come to me overnight. I decided to proceed with caution, not get overly attached to responses or attention from Jake, and have fun and see what happened.

That evening, Rob sat on the porch with me, drinking milk, while I sipped a sparkling water in a glass.

"How you doing in school, mijo?" I asked him.

"Good," he answered.

"Not good enough of an answer for your mama," I returned. "What's that mean?"

"I got a 93 on my spelling test, a 95 in math, and an 89 in social studies."

I nodded. "Those are good grades, mijo. But numbers and data aren't everything. How are your friends?"

"Good," he answered.

When I looked at him, he kept going. "Cody is fine and he likes to play Minecraft too. Ramon likes it too."

"And your teacher?"

"She's nice."

I nodded. "What do you have coming up in school?"

"Winter pageant and then we have to get started on our science fair project."

With kids, sometimes you had to press them, otherwise you would just get one word answers. But when they started talking, that was where the gold was. I tried to remember to do that.

It was time for him to go to bed, and I went inside and tucked him in. I decided to open up the wine and took it out of the refrigerator and opened it up. I also took out two wine glasses, being an optimist. If Jake didn't come by, I'd still have a drink by myself.

I sat out in the dark night, looking out and listening to the quiet noises of the complex and the occasional car driving down our street.

Then Jake's patio door opened and he stepped out, wearing dark blue jeans and a tight, white t-shirt, looking immediately for me, and walking right over. In that getup he looked like he should be leaning against a muscle car, with a pack of cigarettes rolled up his sleeve, his jet hair spiky and his eyes so blue they were almost black in the low patio light.

"Hey, there you are," he said, with a warm smile on his face.

I hopped up from my perch and walked over to the low partition between our patios, where he was standing, bracing his arms on the wall. I reached up on my tip toes and gave him a slow kiss, our noses mashing, our tongues meeting.

"Want a drink?" I asked after I pulled back from our kiss and rocked back on my heels.

"Yes, please," he said and I went over to the table and poured him a glass of the cold white wine, handing it to him. He dragged his patio chair over by the wall, and put his feet up on the front railing, talking with me. "This is a much better way of ending a day than at the office," and he took a drink of the wine. "The wine's good too." He looked out at the pool. "So how long have you been a single mom?" he asked.

"In other words, how old am I?"

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess. I'm thirty-five."

"I'm twenty-nine. I had Rob when I was seventeen. His dad was my boyfriend in high school for a short period of time. And then we did it and he left me." Jake's face twitched a little bit. "It's okay, he showed his colors and I deserve better. I deserve a guy who will watch out for me, not one who will leave me."

"You're right about that," he said.

"So why do you work so much?" I asked.

He let out a breath. "That's a long answer. I guess part of it is ingrained in me from my dad. He worked really hard and he wanted me to do so. He pushed me in school, he pushed me in my career. I always wanted him to think that I was, you know, up to snuff. Sometimes he was a real taskmaster. I guess that's a longer story. It's complicated. I love him and I resent him at the same time. Well, that's one part at least."

"And the other part?"

Jake looked at me. "I don't know the reason," he said quietly. "I'm not balanced. I work a lot. Probably too much. I don't have time for relationships. I'm shitty at them. I've always drowned myself in work."

I nodded.

"I mean, I get in some exercise. I do a couple other things. But other than that, I just am at the office as much as I can be. I've always picked work as my escape from, I don't know, life."

"That kind of sucks, Jake. You need to live a little."

"I know it. I think that's part of the reason why I'm so attracted to you. I keep thinking of reasons to come see you. I want to know every single thing about you. I want you to talk to me for hours. I want you to get me to get out of the office. So that's part of the reason why I can't stay away from you."

"Part of the reason?" I asked.

"The other part is that you are so fucking sexy, I can barely stand to be near you. You're some sort of JLo lookalike. You are absolutely gorgeous. I have to keep this wall between us otherwise I would be all over you. And you have a kid asleep in there and I can't do that."

Holy shit. It appeared that the attraction was way mutual.

And this would be part of the "have fun and see what happens" part of my earlier decision.

"You can come over," I said quietly.

Jake stared at me, then slowly set his glass down on the ground. Before I could process, he moved. Like a gymnast, he vaulted over the low wall and pulled me out of my seat by my armpits. In a quick move, he sat down, then set me into his lap so that I was straddling him, and pulled me down to him, crashing his lips into mine, kissing me breathless.

I responded by exploding as well. My hands rubbed up and down his torso, then made my way to his back. I ran my fingers through his thick, dark hair, under his jaw, behind his neck. My tongue explored his mouth as much as his tongue explored my mouth.

And his hands went roaming, over my clothes, along the curve of my waist, down my ass, pressing me into him, feeling my breasts over my bra.

Then we broke apart for a second, breathing hard, staring at each other. I leaned in to kiss him.

"We can't take it farther than this right now," he said against my mouth, "but I really want to."

"Me too," I agreed. "But you know Rob's dad has him on Saturday night."

"Yes.  I'm so taking you out," he said, kissing me again, and I thought that he was being too much of a gentleman to complete the sentence: that he looked forward to what came after our date even more.