breakfast

She was done eating by the time he arrived. He sat, grabbed a cup for coffee, poured some, drank. She was busy reading the local paper. He wanted to look in her eyes and she flirted with that, too. Not with him, but with that. She teased him with that. It was her way of keeping things at some safe distance, for she did face this conundrum, and she knew it: if she allowed him too close, she might actually end up loving him. That was possible, she thought. If she kept him too far, he might leave, though she did know, too, that him being Catholic and being raised strictly so made that less of a gamble, less of a risk. So she leveraged that, too. She knew, quite coldly, that she could afford to be cooler than warmer.