(Yune)
The postscript had been hastily scribbled, and Roger had to squint it into legibility. Call me sometime. 291-29... Was that a four or another nine? Then a six or a zero? He shook his head and carried the note into the kitchen, where he helped himself to breakfast. She hadn't even bothered to stick around the next morning. Thank goodness--he had no further interest in her anyway. He couldn't even quite recall her name. Martha? Margaret?
The doorbell rang. He opened the door to find her--Maria, that's it--standing outside the door.
"I forgot my keys," she said, brushing past him. "And I need an umbrella."
He watched helplessly as she tracked mud onto the carpet. She seemed an entirely different person from last night, when she'd been so soft and warm in his arms. It was the red business suit, he decided. It gave her an air of authority and made it difficult to confront her. And it didn't help that he should have been wearing pants. He made a mental note to himself. Answering the door naked, not a good idea. Especially when it's not your own apartment.
"It's raining?" he asked to break up the awkward silence as they both searched the mess that was her living room.
"Yeah, hopefully an end to the heat wave. The rain was a welcome relief, until I got wet." She smiled wryly.
He found the umbrella, stashed in the space between the wall and the couch. "Hey, found it," he said, lifting it.
"You're wonderful!" She came to him and claimed the umbrella, then hesitated. She put it down and took his hands instead. "Actually, that's the third reason I came back. I wanted to say sorry for just leaving you like that."
"Don't worry about it," he said, startled.
"It's just that I haven't invited a guy into my apartment in years. So I kind of panicked. But I feel like I can really trust you. We'll be all right, yeah?"
"Yeah," he said weakly.
She kissed him, then left with the umbrella in her hand and a smile on her face. He thought he even heard her humming.
He waited several more minutes to make sure she wouldn't come back again, then shook his head. He of all men knew that some women fell easily, but Maria...
He sorted meticulously through the piles of stuff scattered throughout her apartment. There were quite a lot of loose bills. Her jewelry box was a real find. A few small antiques proved portable and likely to yield a decent profit.
Her keys were on the dresser; she'd forgotten them again in the haste to fetch her umbrella and make amends to him. They seemed to be her only set. Why not? he thought. It would delay her re-entrance to the apartment and give him more time before she could find out exactly whom she had really trusted.
He closed the door behind him, pocketed the key, and walked off whistling.