“Is that so?”

I nod. “I’d be happy to cook for you,” I say, looking over at his immaculate kitchen. “I haven’t cooked in a kitchen this nice since we sold my parents’ house.” Then I laugh, as my eyes wander over his double-sized refrigerator, his stainless steel six-burner gas stove, his high-end quartz countertops. “Who am I kidding? I’ve never cooked in a kitchen this nice.”

“You’d cook for me?” he asks.

“Sure. Why not? And from the looks of things in your cabinets, you haven’t had a home-cooked meal in a very long time.”

“You noticed that, did you?”

I laugh. “I think it was the over-sized refrigerator containing only beer and condiments that gave you away.”

He looks down at our three half-eaten entrees. “As much as I like the food from Mitchells, it will be damn nice to have a home-cooked meal from time to time.”

“It’s settled then. Why don’t you leave me a list of your favorite things and I’ll go shopping in the morning.”

He shakes his head. “No list necessary. I’ll eat whatever you make.” He pulls out his wallet and throws several hundred-dollar bills on the table.

“What’s this for?” I ask.

“Groceries.”

I push it back to him. “Sawyer, you are paying me half-a-million dollars. I think I can afford to buy provisions.”

“Take it,” he says. “I would have spent a lot more than that on take-out.”

“I’m not taking it.”

“Well, I’m not taking it back.”

“Fine. It’ll just sit there on the table then.”

“Fine,” he says, standing up and gathering the remains of our dinner. He puts them in his trashcan.

“What are you doing?” I shout.

He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Cleaning up. What does it look like?”

“But there was so much food left. We could have had a whole other meal with what we didn’t eat.”

He looks at the trashcan and back at me, laughing. “You want to fish it out and keep it?”

“Well, not now,” I say. “But next time, save the leftovers.”

“You want to feed the starving kids of Africa?”

“I want to feed me,” I say.

“You don’t have to do that as long as you’re living here,” he says. “I’m happy to provide whatever you need.”

I get up and put my empty beer bottle in the trash on top of what must be forty dollars of un-eaten food. “I don’t want to get too used to things being this way, Sawyer. You may be set for life, but come October, I go back to being a struggling college student.”

“A struggling master’s student,” he says.

I could swear I see a hint of pride behind his eyes.

“Same difference,” I say.

Then I walk over to the pantry and pull out a cake I bought earlier today when I was exploring the neighborhood. I place it in front of him. “How big a piece do you want?”

He looks at the mouth-watering red velvet cake with disgust. “I don’t like cake.” Then he points his thumb to the basement stairs. “I’m going to go work out and then hit the shower before bed.”

“It’s not even eight o’clock. How long does it take to work out?” I take in his athletic shorts and shirt and look over at the duffle bag he dropped by the back door on his way in. “And it looks like you already had a workout today. What were you doing all day, anyway?”

“A lot of things. I played some football. Tossed around a baseball. Went fishing. Stuff that helps me relax on my days off.”

I eye him suspiciously. “But you took your car. You once told me you never drive unless you leave the city.”

“Yeah? Well, I did all that stuff out of the city.”

“Where? With who?”

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

Then I realize I’m not his wife. I’m not his girlfriend. He doesn’t need to answer to me. “Forget it,” I say. “It’s just … please don’t violate the contract and make me look like a fool.”

“I’m not,” he says. “I won’t.”

As he makes his way to the basement stairs, something dawns on me. “Sawyer?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not good to work out right after a meal, is it?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I have other things I can do down there for a while until I’m ready. I may not be back up before you go to bed. Goodnight, Aspen.”

“Goodnight.”

I gravitate back to the piano. My hands still hurt too much to play, but I sit on the bench and look at the door to the basement. It’s the one place I didn’t explore. I’m not a fan of basements ever since Denver played a prank on me when I was five and I got locked in ours for a few hours.

I spent quite a lot of time checking out the rest of the place. I even peeked in the master bedroom. It’s a nice bedroom for a guy. Masculine yes, but not dirty, smelly and riddled with heaps of clothing on the floor as I’d pictured. In fact, the whole house is clean. He must have a service. Of course he does. He’s paying me half-a-million dollars. Paying for a cleaning service must be like buying a cup of coffee for someone like him.

In addition to the master and my bedroom, there is a third room on the second floor. It’s a study. But it’s much more than that. While there is a laptop on the desk, most of the room is dedicated to baseball memorabilia. There are jerseys on the walls, signed baseballs on the bookshelves, trophies and rings in a display case. Many of these items are from his own career, but he has a good collection of other memorabilia as well. I wonder why the Rickey Henderson thing is the only one he keeps downstairs.

One thing I noticed is that each room has a wooden butterfly hanging on the wall. They are all different shapes and sizes and each is uniquely painted. I stare at the one hanging to my left. It makes me think of his tattoo. Not that the ones on the wall and his tattoo are similar. His tattoo is rough. Dangerous. Sad even.

A few minutes later, I hear a strange humming noise coming from the basement. I want to go down there and see what it is. But I don’t. This isn’t my place and I may not have the right to. Well, that and it’s a basement.

I go up to my room and watch a movie. Then I turn off the lights and stare at the wall that separates me from the man I don’t want to love. I drift asleep thinking of how the wall is the perfect metaphor for our relationship.

~ ~ ~

I’m startled awake by a noise. I check the clock and it’s 2:15 AM. I turn over, fluff my pillow and try to go back to sleep. But then I hear it again. It’s the same sound I heard last week at my apartment. It sounds like Sawyer is crying. An agonizing sob is more like it.

I sit up in bed and listen for a while longer. When it doesn’t happen again, I lie back down. But the effort is futile. I’m awake now.

I get out of bed and quietly open my door and feel my way down the dark hallway to the stairs. I see a faint glow coming from the kitchen and wonder if he keeps a night light on. But when I get to the bottom of the stairs, I see Sawyer sitting at the kitchen counter.

I turn around to go back up.

“It’s okay,” he says, hearing my footsteps. “You can come in.”

I look down at my skimpy sleeper set, contemplating my move. But it’s pretty dark in here. Only the dim light over the stove is turned on. So I walk over to the fridge and get a bottle of water.

“Do you normally drink beer in the middle of the night?” I ask.

“Only sometimes. When I can’t sleep.”

I want to ask him about the noises I heard. But I remember how he denied ever crying when the same thing happened at my place. I surmise he’s either embarrassed about it, or he simply doesn’t realize he does it.

I take my water over to the couch and sit down.

“You’re not going back to bed?” he asks.

“In a little while. I want to finish my water first.”

“Mind if I join you?”

I motion to the empty spot on the couch, but then I regret my decision to do so when he stands up and I realize he’s wearing nothing but boxer briefs.

He doesn’t seem nearly as bothered by my sleeping attire as I am by his. Or should I say hot and bothered.

I glance around the dimly-lit room so I’m not left gawking at him. “Why is the Rickey Henderson jersey the only one you have down here? I saw the room upstairs with all your baseball stuff. I figured you’d want that stuff down here to impress the ladies with your accomplishments.”

“Because he’s the reason I play. He’s the greatest base-stealer of all time. And one day, I’m going to break his record. I hung the jersey here to remind me of that. I keep it here so I see it every morning at breakfast and every night on my way up to bed. It’s my motivation.” He looks from the jersey over to me. He reaches out and touches my hand. “And I don’t ever bring women here.”

“Never?” I say with a slack jaw.

“No. I never go out with a woman more than once, so it would have been pointless.”

“Why, Sawyer? Why don’t you ever take a woman out more than once?”

He takes a long swig of his beer and I know he doesn’t want to talk about it. He never does. Makes me think it’s not because he’s an asshole, but because there is a deep-seated reason.

“Okay, tell me more about Mr. Henderson,” I say, nodding to the jersey on the wall.

“Well, he had over fourteen hundred career stolen bases. They called him ‘The Man of Steal.’ As in S.T.E.A.L.”

“Called? He doesn’t play anymore?”

“He retired in 2003. I met him about ten years ago when he was doing some coaching for the Mets. That’s when he signed the jersey. When I got drafted by the Hawks, I wanted his number, number twenty-four, but someone else on the team already had it. Then a few months later, that player was released.” He laughs. “Boy was I pissed.”