“You must be Jessica’s father,” She said, her tone warm and friendly to match her smile, “I’m sorry to say that Jamie has taken ill… I’m...Naomi, I’m Jamie’s teaching aide.” She motioned in a broad arc to all the vacant seats, “Have a seat and we can get started, but not before I get a cup of coffee. Would you like something and how do you take it?”Smiling, overjoyed with the surprising turn of events, I said the first thing that came to mind. “I like it black with just a little sugar to sweeten. "Can I start you off with any of our specials today?" The poor boy, probably no more than twenty, oozed in trained customer service with his wide smile.I handed the menus to him. "Bring us a half carafe of your house red wine, we'll start with a tossed salad, mustard vinaigrette on the side, and for the main dish an order of your gnocchi in your marinara sauce, no garlic."The boy frantically scribbled down my order, slid away to go locate our wine and give our order to the chef. Grace seemed to. ’ He rubbed her hand across his muscled stomach grimacing at the comparison. He was much better looking then Jimmy Benitti and smarter. She laughed when he told her so. They spent another half an hour at the park, sitting in the swings, Michelle laughing at the way Nick’s long legs seemed to come up to his chin in the low seat. They didn’t talk about the case, this was their time to get away, to regroup. It ended too soon. Nick looked at his watch, his face clouding up. ‘We should get back. I. .. the human connection between two souls... is infinitely more precious than mere sexual satisfaction. That, perhaps, is why the couples spent more time talking softly, making and remaking plans, making promises, and trying to order the future, before it got there. They wanted to keep the dream alive, and all those preparations, even though everyone should have known things rarely work out as originally planned, made them feel like they were nailing down the future, and the dream with it.There.