Coda 02 -A to Z

She took a minute to get herself together. Then she reached into her purse and pulled out a pen. She grabbed an envelope off of the table. She carefully wrote out a phone number, an Albuquerque address, and then stood up, holding it out to Angelo.
    “Here,” she said quietly. “Just in case you ever want it.” “I won’t,” he said.
    “Please, Angelo,” she said, and she was really starting to cry now. “Take it. Just in case.”
    He just stood there, with his arms crossed and fury in his eyes. He didn’t reach for it. She pushed it toward him again, but he didn’t move. She made a little sobbing sound, holding the paper out for him. Still, he didn’t budge.
    Finally I stepped up and held my hand out. She looked at me warily, obviously distrustful, but she handed me the envelope. I followed her to the door. She stepped out of the apartment, onto the landing, stopped, and turned back to me.

    “I know what you must think,” she said quietly, “but I do love him.”

    “So do I,” I told her and closed the door.

    When I walked back in, he was sitting at the table with his head in his hands.

    “Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
    He looked up at me, and his eyes were blazing with anger. “It’s not wrong, Zach!” he said fiercely. “It’s not ! What you and me have, it’s not wrong!”
    I took his hand, held it between my own. “I know, Angelo. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ about us.”

    He nodded, looking down at his hand held in mine. He took a deep breath, and then he pulled away.

    “Go home, Zach,” he said. He wasn’t angry anymore. Now he just sounded defeated.

    I didn’t want to leave him. It felt wrong to walk away now. “Are you sure, Ang? I could—”

    “I’m sure,” he said, interrupting me. He looked up at me with sad, tired eyes. “I need to be alone now.”
    I went back to my empty apartment and started packing. I ordered pizza. I even got jalapenos on half. I hoped he would come by at dinnertime, but he didn’t. Finally I climbed into bed and fell asleep. I left the front door unlocked, just in case.
    It was three a.m. when I heard him come in. He crept quietly into my room. He didn’t say a word, and I didn’t either. I was afraid to speak, afraid that I would scare him away. I watched his shadow in the dark as he got undressed. Then he crawled into bed with me and pushed his warm, lithe body against mine.
    “Help me remember, Zach,” he whispered as he wrapped himself around me. “Remind me again how right it is.”
    It started out slow and tender. But then that fierce, passionate part of him took over, and I let him take the lead. He pushed me onto my back, straddled me, and drove himself down onto me like he had something to prove.
    I guess maybe he did.

    Afterward he moved to the other side of the bed, away from me, although he still hung on to my hand.
    “You have her number, Zach?”
“I do.”
“What you gonna do with it?”
    “Whatever you want me to do. If you tell me to throw it away, I will.”
    He was quiet for a minute. All I could hear was his breathing, and I wondered if he had fallen asleep. But then he said quietly, “Keep it, Zach. I don’t want it yet. Not right now. Maybe never.” He stopped, took a deep breath, and sighed. “But, it makes me feel better for some reason, knowin’ you have it.”
    “Anything you want, Ang.”

    He held my hand tight until he fell asleep.

    A FTER that it was like the whole thing had never happened. It was
    as if he had forgotten about it altogether. Of course I knew that wasn’t possible, but I was glad to see that he had recovered so quickly. He never mentioned it, and I didn’t either.
    Our last morning in Denver, I spent three hours trying to catch Geisha, but she wouldn’t come near me. I wasn’t going to wait around for my ex-boyfriend’s ungrateful cat.
    “I guess we’ll just leave her,” I said to Angelo.

    “ What ?” I was surprised at how outraged he was. “No way, Zach! We’re takin’ her!”
    Of course it only took him about ten minutes to coax her over. We finally got her shoved into the cat carrier and left Arvada behind us. I drove the rental van, and Angelo followed behind in my Mustang, with a yowling Geisha in the passenger seat.
    Less than four weeks after our first night in Coda, we were residents. Two weeks later, we opened the rental side of A to Z Video.
    “What about the back room?” Angelo asked me a few days after our grand opening. “You need to get