Blue Dahlia

the thermos of iced coffee she’d begun to make every morning. And her heart gave a little jolt when Logan stepped in. “Hi. I thought you were on the Fields job today.”
    “Got rained out.”
    “Oh?” She swiveled around to her tiny window, saw the sheets of rain. “I didn’t realize.”
    “All those numbers and columns can be pretty absorbing.”
    “To some of us.”
    “It’s a good day to play hookey. Why don’t you come out and play in the rain, Red?”
    “Can’t.” She spread her arms to encompass her desk. “Work.”
    He sat on the corner of it. “Been a busy spring so far. I don’t figure Roz would blink if you took a couple hours off on a rainy afternoon.”
    “Probably not. But I would.”
    “Figured that, too.” He picked up an oddly shaped and obviously child-made pencil holder, examined it. “Gavin or Luke?”
    “Gavin, age seven.”
    “You avoiding me, Stella?”
    “No. A little,” she admitted. “But not entirely. We’ve been swamped, here and at home. Hayley’s only got three weeks to go, and I like to stick close.”
    “Do you think you could manage a couple of hours away, say, Friday night? Take in a movie?”
    “Well, Friday nights I usually try to take the kids out.”
    “Good. The new Disney flick’s playing. I can pick y’all up at six. We’ll go for pizza first.”
    “Oh, I ...” She sat back, frowned at him. “That was sneaky.”
    “Whatever works.”
    “Logan, have you ever been to the movies with a couple of kids on a Friday night?”
    “Nope.” He pushed off the desk and grinned. “Should be an experience.”
    He came around the desk and, cupping his hands under her elbows, lifted her straight out of the chair with a careless strength that had her mouth watering. “I’ve started to miss you.”
    He touched his mouth to hers, heating up the contact as he let her slide down his body until her feet hit the floor. Her arms lifted to link around his neck, banding there for a moment until her brain engaged again.
    “It looks like I’ve started to miss you, too,” she said as she stepped back. “I’ve been thinking.”
    “I just bet you have. You keep on doing that.” He tugged at a loose lock of her hair. “See you Friday.”
    She sat down again when he walked out. “But I have trouble remembering what I’m thinking.”
     
    HE WAS RIGHT. IT WAS AN EXPERIENCE. ONE HE HANDLED, in Stella’s opinion, better than she’d expected. He didn’t appear to have a problem with boy-speak. In fact, during the pizza interlude she got the feeling she was odd man out. Normally she could hold her own in intense discussions of comic books and baseball, but this one headed to another level.
    At one point she wasn’t entirely sure the X-Men’s Wolverine hadn’t signed on to play third base for the Atlanta Braves.
    “I can eat fifty pieces of pizza,” Luke announced as the pie was divvied up. “And after, five gallons of popcorn.”
    “Then you’ll puke!”
    She started to remind Gavin that puke wasn’t proper meal conversation, but Logan just plopped a slice on his own plate. “Be smarter to puke after the pizza to make room for the popcorn.”
    The wisdom and hilarity of this sent the boys off into delighted gagging noises.
    “Hey!” Luke’s face went mutinous. “Gavin has more pepperoni on his piece. I have two and he has three!”
    As Gavin snorted and set his face into the look, Logan nodded. “You know, you’re right. Doesn’t seem fair. Let’s just fix that.” He plucked a round of pepperoni off Gavin’s piece and popped it into his own mouth. “Now you’re even.”
    More hilarity ensued. The boys ate like stevedores, made an unholy mess, and were so overstimulated by the time they got to the theater, she expected them to start a riot.
    “You’ve got to remember to be quiet during the movie,” she warned. “Other people are here to see it.”
    “I’ll try,” Logan said solemnly. “But sometimes I just can’t help talking.”
    The boys giggled all the way to the concession counter.
    She knew some men who put on a show for a woman’s children—to get to the woman. And, she thought as they settled into seats with tubs of popcorn, she knew some who sincerely tried to charm the kids because they were an interesting novelty.
    Still, he seemed to be easy with them, and you had to give a man in his thirties points for at least appearing to enjoy a movie with talking monkeys.
    Halfway through, as she’d expected, Luke began to