Once back in his street clothes, Tyler look slight and timid again. He shyly looked at me among the other students as we all left class together. I could see his bag bulging with his gee, rumpled after he’d worn it, but he carried what must have been his conference binder separately. In the street, the group of students broke up into pairs and small groups as we went our separate directions.

“Tyler.” I nudged his elbow to get his attention and pointed down a side street. “There’s a great bar down here. Come on.”

The Old Town Bar was fairly small, but it was dimly lit and had elevated, high-backed booths along the walls. And I knew this was a place Mouse would never come. His image had snuck into my head again, and I realized he would react with rage if he saw me with another man, even though I knew he was most likely with another woman.

I led Tyler to a booth near the back. He stepped up and slid in one side, setting his binder on the edge of the table. I rushed to slide in the other side, but caught my foot on the step, so I flung my hand out to stabilize myself with the edge of the table. Instead, I caught hold of Tyler’s binder, sending it flying halfway across the room while I ungracefully fell forward into the booth. The padded seat let out a poof with the weight of my body landing hard on it. Tyler’s business papers fluttered to the floor five feet away, but he didn’t say anything. Oh, please, I thought, even calling me a klutz would be better than silence.

“I’m so sorry.” I tried to pull myself back out of the booth to help him pick up the mess, but he started laughing.

“Oh, sit down,” he said. “It’s not a big deal. It’s fine.” He knelt down but kept talking. “I shouldn’t have kept all these conference papers anyway. It’s not as though my job’s going anywhere.” He laughed harder now. “Imagine fifty accountants in a conference room chattering about numbers. There honestly can’t be any good paperwork that would come of that!”

I had loosened up enough to laugh with him by then. Finally, he stood up with his binder back in tact when the server came to the table.