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doesn’t it?”
    I decided to go with honestly. Adam can always tell when I’m lying, anyway.
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know why.”
    “Maybe, ‘why’ doesn’t really matter.”
    “I’m pretty pathetic.”
    “You’re not pathetic. Whatever the reason, you can get over it.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Think of this as aversion therapy.”
    “You mean like making someone who ’s afraid of snakes gradually work up to holding one?”
    “Funny you should mention snakes.” Adam looked suddenly amused. I have no idea why. “Just lay back against me . I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.” He pushed the play button on the remote, like that was it. Everything was settled. Then he ignored me.
    I lay back against him. Very gingerly. I was in danger of slipping off the front of the couch, so I scooted back a little. This was too much. His prologue was in direct contact with my postscript, but he didn’t seem to notice. My face was flushed. My heart was pounding. I hoped Adam wouldn’t notice that I was having to swallow every thirty seconds. I definitely needed therapy, but this definitely didn’t count. Adam kept his promise, though. He did keep his hands to himself, unless you count slipping a pillow under my head.

Five
 
    I didn’t see Adam again until the following Friday evening. He hadn’t dropped by my office all week, but I chalked that up to it being between terms, and he probably wasn’t even coming in to work every day. 
    I had decided that I needed to do something to kick-start the whole Shasta/Adam reunification scheme, so I’d invited Shasta and Brad over for dinner Friday night. I doubt if Brad was enthusiastic about coming, but when I called up Shasta, she said, of course. She’d love to.
    Adam said he was free for dinner, but when I told him that Shasta and Brad would be there , too, he didn’t seem quite as excited about it as I’d expected. Maybe, it bothered him to see Shasta and Brad together. That was probably a good thing. Jealousy is an excellent motivator.
    I decided to make pilaf and baked salmon, which are two of the few dishes I can manage reliably. Adam insisted on coming over early. He doesn’t trust me in the kitchen. I can’t entirely blame him, considering how often he’s witnessed the scale of the kitchen disasters I am capable of precipitating.
    He arrived with two bottles of wine and an unsolicited dessert.
    “I made dessert, already. Flan. I have it setting up in the freezer,” I said.
    “Frozen flan?”
    “I waited too long to start it, so I put it in there to make it set up faster.”
    Adam opened up my freezer and pulled out the tray of custard cups.
    “It’s frozen.”
    “ It’ll be alright when it thaws out.”
    “I doubt it.” Adam tapped the surface of the frozen flan.
    “What did you bring?”
    “Pavlova.”
    I love Pavlova. Adam makes it for me every year for my birthday.
    “I don’t need a mother-in-law, you know,” I said. “I have you.”
    “What do I have to do with mother-in-laws?”
    “I mean, where do you get off, bringing dessert just because you ‘kn ow,’ I’m going to ruin mine?”
    “You did ruin yours.”
    “Yes, I know. But I resent you being so sure that I would.”
    Shasta and Brad arrived in the middle of our Pavlova polemic, so we never got to finish it.
    My salmon turned out perfectly and the pilaf was pretty good by the time Adam got finished doctoring it up with the contents of my spice cabinet, which he restocks himself from time to time.  
    I was determined to get Brad to talk. He ha s yet to say three words to me, so I asked him how his job was going. He’s a mechanical engineer, according to Shasta.
    “Fine,” he said.
    I don’t know what Shasta sees in him. I’m the last person in the world who should be criticizing other people for being reticent to talk about their personal lives, but Brad takes reserve to extremes.
    I cleared the plates , and Adam brought out the Pavlova from the