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Chuckie wasn’t so bad. One of the older guys who comes in every week—I think his name is Gilbert, though some people call him Coco—offered me a trust fund if I’d run off to Vegas and get married. Though, it was very loud by then so he might have said, “I think it would be such fun if we went to Vegas and got married.” Not that I would do it. Cash or no cash. But it is always nice to be asked.
    The Birdmen were gone by seven. Drifting off to other bars, or in a few cases patient husbands holding dinner. Because Carlos had been nice enough to run interference with Chuckie, I let him go home first. One cocktail waiter went home at eight and the other at ten. It was my turn to get off early, but Carlos always wanted to get home early and walk his dogs. One of them was old and there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d pee on the floor if left alone for more than an hour or two. Leaving her alone for a six-hour shift was hopeless.
    “I think I saw Chuckie on his cell phone. He might have been talking to Bob.”
    “Carlotta, half the guys in the bar were on their cell phones at one point or another. Some of them were texting each other rather than getting up to walk across the room.”
    “Chuckie Cooper is not a nice man. You need to be careful.”
    When my shift ended, I could have wandered down the stroll for a drink at the Pub or some other place, but the last thing in the world I wanted to do was run into any of the Birdmen. So I walked home, planning to watch a DVD.
    My building is an L-shaped, two-story stucco painted the color of cinnamon icing, surrounding a courtyard filled with old-growth birds of paradise and elephant ear ferns. There’s a security gate that doesn’t work, which is unfortunate since anyone could walk in. And anyone had. Dog sat on the narrow stoop in front of my first-floor apartment. He looked sad and his face was blotchy, like he’d been crying. He hadn’t been crying had he? I worried. That would be hideous.
    “I thought you had no memory of how you got to my apartment when you were here last week?”
    “I was sober when I left. Remember?”
    “And you left a trail of breadcrumbs.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Wait, don’t answer that. I know why you’re here. I told you. That ship has sailed. You’re cute and I probably would have fucked you again, but now the whole thing is kind of ruined. Once I’m off the scent, I’m off. Got it?”
    Suddenly, he sneezed. Hard. He pulled a rumpled, over-used tissue out of the pocket of his shorts and tried to clean up his nose.
    “I gave you my cold, didn’t I? Shit.”
    “I think the medicine I took is wearing off.”
    “So this isn’t a bootie call, is it?” Or at least I hoped it wasn’t. He couldn’t be so arrogant he’d think I’d have sex with him while he was oozing mucus. Though, to be honest, he had had sex with me while I was—
    “I want to ask you to dinner.”
    “Dinner?” Gawd, I sounded like I’d never heard the word. “You mean like a date?”
    “Yeah. Why not?”
    “Because it’s a bad idea, that’s why not.” And it was a bad idea. I doubted we had anything in common. And even though I had a very pleasant moment imagining myself as Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham sitting in the bleachers at an imaginary ballpark wearing sexy off-the-shoulder sweaters while cheering on my baseball-playing man, he really wasn’t my type at all. My type was more nerdy computer guys who could bore me for hours talking about the usefulness of algorithms or hipster-ish bisexuals who’d bring their girlfriends to The Bird to meet me. Okay, so maybe I’ve never had much in common with the guys I went out with, but still, Dog was just so—
    “Wait, how long have you been sitting here?”
    “Couple hours.”
    “You have a cold and you’ve been sitting at my door for a couple hours?”
    “Yeah.”
    What kind of guy does that?
    “Okay, fine, I can at least make you some tea and