Caroselli's Baby Chase. Michelle Celmer

miss the days when we used to write things on paper,” Nick said.

      “Have you got a piece of paper?” Rob asked, and grinning, Nick held up his napkin. “Pen?”

      Nick felt his pockets, then frowned and said, “I used to carry one all the time.”

      “I would be lost without my phone,” Carrie said. “My whole life is in this thing. Of course I keep it all backed up on my laptop, which I also could not live without.”

      “So what kind of place are you looking for?” Nick asked.

      “A two-bedroom apartment or condo, preferably furnished, in a building with a fitness room and a pool, or close to a pool. I like to swim every morning.”

      “I think I may know just the place,” Nick said. “My wife, Terri, has a condo that she’s been thinking of putting on the market, but it would probably mean taking a loss. She had entertained the idea of renting it out, but she’s heard so many horror stories about bad tenants that she’s been hesitant. It has pretty much everything you would need, and there’s a fitness center with a pool a couple of blocks away. And it’s not too far from work.”

      It also wasn’t too far from Rob’s loft, which didn’t exactly thrill him.

      “It sounds perfect,” Carrie said. “I can pay her the full three months up front.”

      “I’ll talk to her today and give you a call.”

      “Sounds great,” she said, exchanging numbers with him, which irritated Rob even more. It was bad enough that she would be around for three months. Did she have to pretend to be so nice to everyone? Which she was clearly only doing to make Rob look like the bad guy.

      “So, on the rare occasions that I might have a free day,” Carrie said, “what attractions would you gentlemen recommend? There are so many things to do in the city, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

      His cousins tossed around suggestions like the planetarium and the aquarium and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

      “How about you?” she asked Rob. “What would you suggest?”

      “The Museum of Science and Industry.”

      “Really,” she said, looking thoughtful. “For some reason I imagined your preferring someplace a little less…academic. Like a sports museum.”

      “And you assumed that because, why? You know me so well?”

      She looked amused, as if this was some big joke to her.

      The waitress dropped their food off at the table and when Rob looked at Carrie’s plate, he could feel his arteries tighten. The special consisted of three eggs, four sausage links, hash browns, white toast and a stack of pancakes six inches high. A heart attack on a plate, his fitness instructor would call it. Which was why Rob had ordered his usual egg white vegetarian omelet, lean ham, tomato slices and dry whole wheat toast, of which he would allow himself half a slice. Unlike some people at the table, his goal was to live past his fortieth birthday.

      “Do the three of you live in the city?” she asked them, and when her leg bumped his, he wrote it off as accidental, until he felt the brush of one shoeless foot slide against his ankle.

      Was she coming onto him?

      He shot her a sideways glance, but she was looking at Nick, chewing and nodding thoughtfully as she listened to him describe where each of them lived in relation to Caroselli Chocolate.

      Okay, maybe it had been an accident. But what about the way she just happened to get syrup on her fingers, and instead of wiping them with a napkin, sucked it slowly from each digit, one at a time. Which of course reminded him of her sucking on something else.