Or... We'd been chatting the workday away over e-mail and our conversation quickly escalated through wit and innuendo. When the afternoon was over, signaling a merciful end to the week, we weren't quite ready to put our flirting away and met for tea. Before we did, though, she confessed that she was seeing someone and that our flirting had been in the name of harmless fun. As if flirting had ever truly been harmless.

At the bottom of our cups we found the rest of the evening. I offered her a ride home since the weather was starting to turn for the year, and we took our time driving through the city and dark countryside. The flirting was ongoing, although the difference between innocent and scandalous had long since blurred.

This was the only time I ever stole a woman's heart from another man. But it didn't happen that night; that night was just foreplay, just as the next few weeks would be, just as how our whole relationship would be. Two people flirting with romance, in love only with intrigue, holding each other with a passionate embrace that was, at the same time, pushing us apart.

Or maybe that was just me.  ¶ 7:41 AM