“It wasn’t a ticket. I made a donation in your name. And you’re going to let me buy you dinner too,” I say, turning my back on him and starting toward the pizza place in the next storefront over.

“Let me cook for you,” he says from behind me.

I turn and find him right where I left him, near the door of the museum.

“You cook?”

“I do. Let me show you.”

This, I’ve got to see. I catch myself wondering if his cooking is like Brett’s: mac and cheese out of a box, or spaghetti with sauce from a jar. He said his dad was a chef, but he was young then. I doubt that’s where he learned.

“Fine,” I say, marching back past him and the museum, toward the subway.

I DROP HIS cockroach down the front of his button-down as we’re sitting on the train back to Manhattan, and catch a glimpse of his abs when he opens his jacket and shakes his shirt to let it drop out.

And . . . wow.

Brett has a great body, which he works at constantly. When he’s not at rehearsal or a performance, he’s at the gym. I wonder if Alessandro is a gym rat too.

We ride the L to Eighth Avenue and climb the stairs to the street. But we’re not halfway up the stairs when I feel something fall into my cleavage from my shoulder. I press my hand between my boobs to keep it from falling farther down my shirt and fish his cockroach out of my bra.

He stops and watches with a grin plastered to his face. “Well, that worked out better than I could have hoped.”

“Very mature.” I pinch the bug between my thumb and finger and shake it in his face. “When you least expect it . . .” I shove it in my pocket and run up the last few stairs. But then I don’t know where I’m going, so I have to wait.

Alessandro knows this, of course, and emerges from the pit a few seconds later with a smirk. “By all means, after you,” he says, sweeping his hand toward Eighth.

I glare and turn back for the subway. “You know what? I changed my mind.”

He has a handful of my jacket sleeve before I reach the stairs and spins me to face him, grasping both my upper arms.

My heart thumps hard as he catches me in his smoldering gaze. I can feel the heat of his body, even through all our layers of winter wear, and I shudder with the sudden mind-flash of how it would feel to be this close without all those layers. His lips part, as if he’s feeling the same rush I am, and I decide right in this heartbeat that if he kisses me, I’m going to kiss him back. I picture our lips meeting—imagine how his would feel as they moved on mine, how they would taste. His eyes flare as he dips his head, his lips pausing just inches from mine. I stop breathing again, caught between wanting to close those last few inches, and wanting to bolt.

But I can’t bolt.

I TIP MY face up and gaze into his eyes, bright in the dark night. But just as a tiny moan escapes my throat, he steps back, breaking the spell.

“Tell me about your boyfriend,” he says. “How long have you been together?”

It takes me longer than it should to get my head together. “Boyfriend,” I say a little breathlessly. “Um . . . a year.”

Alessandro’s expression clears and he lets go of my arms. “Do you love him?”

A laugh explodes out of my chest.

His eyebrows arch. “I didn’t know I was making a joke.”

I shake my head. “I don’t do love.”

He tips his head in a way I’m starting to recognize as him questioning me.

“You think I’m lying?”

He stares down at me for a long moment, his eyes storming as he wages some internal war. “I didn’t say that,” he finally says.

“Then what are you saying?”

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and starts up the sidewalk. “Nothing.”

We walk along Eighth until it ends on Hudson, then make the turn onto Perry, the whole time never coming within three feet of each other. Alessandro fishes in his pocket as we take the corner and comes out with a key, which he sticks in the first door past the restaurant on the corner. “Home sweet home,” he says, moving aside for me to pass.

I slide by him, careful not to brush against him, and move to the elevator. He presses the call button and just as the door opens, an old woman with curly white hair steps through the front door.

We load in and Alessandro holds the elevator for her. “Mrs. Burke. How are you this evening?”

She punches three. “Wonderful, Alessandro. And who is this lovely young lady?” she asks turning to me.

Alessandro smiles at her as he hits five. “This is Hilary McIntyre. Hilary, Mrs. Burke.”

Mrs. Burke leans toward me and whispers, “He’s a good boy.” The door opens on three and she winks at me and steps out.

I stare at her with wide eyes as the elevator door closes. There’s no way Alessandro didn’t hear that. Does she think we’re on a date? Does he? Do I?

A minute later, the door opens on five. We spill out into a four-by-four landing with three doors. I’m too mortified to look at Alessandro as he sticks his key into the door toward the front of the building, marked 51, but the second I walk in, I’m totally coveting his apartment.

It’s small, but they didn’t wreck its character with a big remodel like so many other old apartments. It’s still got old-school radiators and the pipes are exposed in places. There are gouges in the hardwood floor and nicks in the white wooden door and window frames. There are even a few places where the crown moldings on the high ceilings are missing.

I love it.

In the middle of the room, next to a big blue chair, is a black leather sofa, and off to the right is the kitchen, with a black granite countertop separating it from the living room. On the left is the only door in the place, probably to the bathroom, since his double bed and a clunky antique dresser are in an alcove just past it, next to the window.

“This place is—”

“—so cool,” he finishes for me with a smile. “I do rather like it.”

“Just for that, I take it back.” But really I don’t. I start around the room, inspecting his prints. Most of them look an awful lot like some of the stuff we saw at the Met last week, so I guess he really likes that stuff.

“Can I offer you something to drink? Water? Wine?”

“What are you opening?” I turn back and look at him, where he’s moved behind the kitchen counter. He presses his iPhone into a small round speaker, and the music that starts isn’t what I expected. I was thinking some classical piano piece, or maybe something operatic, but it’s rock: Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open.”

There’s a flash of a memory—Alessandro tuning the radio in the rec room from the hip-hop station Trish left it on to something rockish.

“I was thinking about a chardonnay because I need something white to cook with,” he answers, lifting a bottle off the counter, “but I’m open to suggestions.”

I stroll toward the kitchen. “That sounds good.”

He uncorks the bottle, then waves the neck under his nose and sniffs at the end, nodding appreciatively.

“I forgot you like Creed,” I say with a nod at the speakers.

He glances that way as he pulls down two glasses. “Always have.”

“Thought you might have outgrown grunge,” I say with a smirk.

“Post-grunge,” he corrects, arching an eyebrow at me as he pours the wine. “My tastes are eclectic.”

I laugh. I can’t help it.

“I’m glad I amuse you,” he says with a secret smile, and something kicks in my chest.

“You do.” I move to the window because I suddenly feel in need of more distance between us. On the street below, I spy Mrs. Burke, picking up her pug’s poop with a baggy over her hand. A young couple with a baby in a stroller stops to talk to her. They all seem so friendly.

I haven’t known my neighbors since I was thirteen.

I feel something touch the back of my arm and I jump, swatting at the rubber bug I imagine there.