Afternoon Delight by Anne Calhoun

every so often the sadness of losing Joan and the stress of moving across the continent and starting a new business caught up with her and she crashed. Apparently brilliant sex shut her down. “I should go.”
    â€œIt’s almost eleven,” he said again, as if she hadn’t heard him.
    â€œThe trains are still running, right?” The BART shut down in the middle of the night, but she knew the subway here ran all night.
    â€œOf course they’re still running, just less frequently. You can wait half an hour on a platform. I don’t want you standing on the East Broadway platform at midnight.”
    â€œIs it unsafe?”
    â€œNo, it’s fine,” he said, then shoved his hand through his hair. “Look, just stay. I’ve got an extra toothbrush.”
    â€œI don’t want to impose.”
    â€œYou don’t want to impose?” He squinted at her. In her peripheral vision, Keanu Reeves was suspended in midair, arms and knees cocked. “If you don’t want to stay, that’s fine, but I’m putting you in a cab.”
    She was too tired to argue with him. She found her phone on the floor and texted Trish. “I’ll leave when you go to work.”
    â€œThat’s the crack of dawn,” he warned.
    â€œWhatever,” she said, and curled up on her side.
    ***
    The alarm woke her from a dream that she was flying over the bay, swooping between the towering pillars suspending the Golden Gate Bridge. Tim swiped his phone. “You want to shower first?”
    â€œSure.”
    The water beat down on her head and shoulders. She felt rested for the first time in over a week, and used his basic drug store shampoo without a care for what it, or the lack of a blow dryer, would do to her hair. A folded towel waited on the sink when she slid back the curtain. Tim stepped past her, under the spray.
    She was dressed and searching through her bag for a hair elastic or a clip or something to confine what would rapidly become a truly shocking penumbra of hair if she didn’t get it under control. He dressed efficiently, styled his hair by smoothing it forward, and slid wallet, keys, phone, mini flashlight, protein bars, and a utility knife into his pants pockets. She watched, fascinated.
    Her stomach growled. Mortified, she clapped her hand to it, but Tim just looked amused. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll get breakfast EMS-style.”
    Giving up on the elastic, she looped her messenger bag across her body, scuffed into her clogs, and followed him down the stairs onto the street. At six thirty in the morning the city felt sleepy, the gray buildings gilded with the pink light filtering through low clouds on the eastern horizon. Tim strode down the street, toward Canal, and turned right. Halfway down he opened the door to a local coffee shop. She didn’t even have to duck, just walked under his arm with six inches to spare.
    â€œYes, miss?”
    She ordered an egg and cheese bagel and an orange juice. The sandwich came cut in half and wrapped in wax paper, the heat of the egg softening the bagel. The juice, to her surprise, was relatively fresh. The sitting area was nearly empty, the tabletops wiped clean, the floor grimy at best. A new experience, breakfast in Manhattan’s early spring dawn.
    Tim eased his long frame into a chair, set down a large cup of coffee, and unwrapped a sandwich like hers but with sausage. A second bagel with cream cheese went straight from the bag to one of his cargo pockets. A midmorning snack, she deduced.
    â€œYou must eat here often,” she said. The man behind the counter hadn’t asked Tim for his order.
    â€œEvery morning,” he said after swallowing an enormous bite from the breakfast sandwich. At that rate he’d have his breakfast down in less than two minutes. He swiped his mouth with a napkin. “First rule of working in EMS is that you won’t get a call until you’ve ordered