“No, sorry. I’m just a bike messenger. I don’t get paid enough to theorize.”

“Hailey…” he said, his tone a change of subject in itself.

“I know. You’re ready for work. I’ve got to get up and dressed and out. I’ll hurry.” I was already sliding his Bible back onto the bookshelf.

Jack was a newsman for the Associated Press, a Midwestern transplant to California by way of, apparently, everywhere. Photographs on the far wall of his studio, Jack’s own amateur work, attested to the width and breadth of his reporting career. Fellow reporters, editors, photographers, and other acquaintances looked out from pictures taken in the world’s capitals and war zones, places Jack had been a correspondent.

He and I had crossed paths several times at the courthouse, where he covered motions and trials and I, a bike courier, dropped off and picked up legal papers. But we didn’t get to know each other until the Friday night I’d literally backed into him in a tiny, crowded Asian grocery. When, after a few minutes of conversation, he asked me if I wanted company for dinner, I surprised myself by saying yes. Maybe it had been so long since I’d seen a guy who was neither a metrosexual nor a pierced and dreadlocked bike messenger that he had been exotic to me.

He was the first guy I ever slept with who wore boxer shorts. I didn’t tell him that, our first night together. Guys have lost erections over less.

Now, as I was pulling on my long-sleeved thermal shirt and cargo pants, Jack said, “Are you hungry? There’s bagels.”

I shook my head. “I’ll eat later.” It was my day off, and a small plan for the morning was forming.

I sat on the floor to put on my boots. When I looked up, Jack was watching me.

He said, “Every time I see you lacing up those boots, I think I’m sleeping with an undercover DEA agent.”

Bates Enforcers, heavy-soled black lace-ups with a side zip, draw a lot of attention.

“They’re comfortable, is all.”