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Dean leaned closer until his shoulder touched mine. “I just thought if you got to choose, you’d choose something completely different.”

Paul thought I wanted the life already planned out for me. Dean thought I wanted the total opposite.

Neither man had asked enough questions, and to be fair, I hadn’t offered many honest answers.

Dean took my hand. “I can learn to drink country-club hot chocolate.”

He squeezed my fingers, and because I wanted the easy day back, and because I wanted the future I’d been imagining, I leaned against his shoulder and left the conversation there.

We walked back to Side A, Otis stopping every ten feet to investigate trees, hydrants, a bicycle tire, and a little girl’s teddy stuffed animal.

The store was dim after the bright afternoon. Brian was behind the counter with a stack of albums and the expression of a man who had been left unsupervised just long enough to cause trouble.

“You’re back,” he said.

“Disappointed?” I asked.

“I reorganized everything by color while you were gone.”

Dean stopped, his mouth dropping open.

Brian grinned. “Kidding.”

“Don’t do that,” Dean said.

“I like knowing I still have power.”

The rest of my shift passed easily, or at least easily enough. Dean put on Talking Heads, I repriced used records, Brian argued with a customer about whether Van Halen had peaked, and every so often Dean touched me in passing, a hand at my waist behind the counter, his shoulder brushing mine near the bins, his fingers finding mine for the briefest second when no one was looking.

As I grabbed my purse and the brand new cassette release of Mirror Moves by The Psychedelic Furs from the back room, Dean walked in. “I’ll call Peter tomorrow.”

“Good.”

“You’re really okay with me going?”

“For a few days? Yes.”

He looked at me. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant.”

I knew what he meant then. Minneapolis wasn’t only a meeting anymore. It was a possibility.

I didn’t want Dean to choose Madison because of what he thought my answer might be.

He stepped closer. “You coming in tomorrow?”

“Try stopping me.”

His smile came back, and then he closed the distance and kissed me.

It wasn’t like last night’s kiss. This one was easier, softer, it felt like something people did at the end of an ordinary day.

When he pulled away, I rested my forehead briefly against his chest.

“This is getting complicated.”

“I thought it already was.”

I laughed as I walked out of the record store, and then drove home through the late afternoon with the radio low and the wind in my hair.