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having sex with anyone.” Okay, that was a little loud. Jenny lowered her voice. “I just met a guy last night.”
    Two pairs of eyes, one brown and one green, fixed on her, unblinking. Jenny was almost sorry she’d started this. There was so little to tell.
    “I was walking Rosie and I almost crashed into this guy on the path. It was snowing, so I had my head down and wasn’t looking where—”
    Christian gave Jenny the exact same “hurry up” gesture that Carrie had given her a few minutes before.
    “Anyway…” Jenny stretched out the word, glaring at Christian. “We talked and then…well, then I went home.”
    “And…” Carrie prompted.
    “Well,” Jenny admitted, squirming a little. “That was pretty much it.”
    Christian and Carrie both sat back with identical disappointed expressions.
    “I can’t believe I just missed ‘Celebrity Trash Talk’ on the radio for this lame tale,” Christian complained. “Was he at least hot?”
    Jenny nodded, blushing a little. She couldn’t stop a small smile from pulling the corners of her mouth up when she thought about William. “Very hot. Big.”
    That sparked a little more interest in her audience. “Uh-huh. And?” Christian prompted.
    “And blond, with these incredible cheekbones and these slanted light, light blue eyes.” Jenny flexed her arms in a mock bodybuilder stance. “Lots of muscles.”
    Carrie looked at Christian. “She’s talking about his cheekbones. I think the girl’s in love.” She turned back to Jenny. “Did he ask you out?”
    “No,” Jenny sighed. “But he lives in one of the houses on the path, so I’m sure I’ll see him again.” Although she hadn’t seen him before yesterday. “Well, pretty sure.”
    Carrie and Christian just looked at her.
    “Kind of sure?”
    “Girl, that was the most pathetic non-sex story I’ve heard in a long time,” Christian stated. Carrie nodded her head in agreement. They both started giggling.
    Jenny laughed and threw the first missile she could grab off her desk—a red felt pen. “Out, beasts!” She grabbed for something else to throw, came up with the stapler and threatened the two laughing fiends. “Get out and let me get some work done.”
    Carrie and Christian backed their chairs out of the entrance. “Like we’re scared of you,” Christian mocked. “You throw like a girl.”
    Jenny just turned around and gave him the finger over her shoulder. She shook her head at their silliness but her smile faded. It did sound like nothing when she said it out loud. She talked to a guy for a few minutes. Big deal. Was she going to start having fantasies about every guy who said two words to her now? The bank teller maybe? Or the gas station attendant?
    Jenny sighed, booting up her computer. She was letting her sex-starved hormones take over her brain and she needed to get some work done. She was thinking way too much about a stranger who probably hadn’t given her another thought.

    Late that afternoon, Jenny was torn. Should she take her usual path, hoping to bump into William, or should she go in another direction?
    She had been thinking all day about walking by the purple house, possibly even seeing the Nordic god again. Even while working frantically to make her deadline, Jenny had found herself drifting off, inventing conversations that she would have with him the next time she saw him.
    As she stood planted, still dithering about which direction to go, Rosie gave an impatient whine and started walking, jerking Jenny in the direction of the path.
    “We’re just going where the dog wants to go,” Jenny said under her breath, her stomach starting to flutter with nerves and excitement. “I’m not a desperate, sex-starved person—I’m just a kind dog owner. Right, Rosie?” Her dog just twitched an ear back for a second at her name, not even pausing in her energetic bounce, pulling Jenny toward the path and the possibility of William. An older couple walking in the opposite