Everything did not go back to normal.

First thing that morning, Keeley saw a friend request from Aaron on Facebook. She deleted it instantly—no way was she letting him see her posts.

Because she avoided the café where they'd bumped into each other, he started hanging around the medical school after work. After about a week of trying desperately to avoid being seen, he finally caught her.

"Keeley!"

She flinched so hard she nearly dislocated her shoulder. "Yes?" she asked, wincing.

"You're a difficult person to track down." (She certainly didn't want to be found!)

"What do you want, Aaron? I only have a thirty-minute dinner break before I have to go back to the research lab, and I've already used up nine minutes."

"I need your help with something," he said nonchalantly, as if it didn't matter. Clearly, it did, or he wouldn't have staked out her school for a week.

"Spit it out already. I need to eat, and the clock is ticking," she said impatiently.

He was clearly displeased. "You could at least pretend you're happy to see me."

"Tick-tock," Keeley said crossly. He had to be kidding. Why on earth would she do that? "You have thirty seconds before I go to Paco's Tacos and leave you here."

"…you actually eat that stuff?"

Unbelievable. She'd given him a time limit, and he was still picking a fight, offended by her "rich kid sensibilities."

"Goodbye."

"Wait! You have a cat, right?"

She was totally creeped out; she'd never mentioned having a cat. "How do you know that?"

"Your Facebook cover photo shows a fluffy white cat sprawled on a pile of genetics textbooks. Not hard to deduce."

That was a reasonable explanation. She relaxed slightly. "What about it?"

"I've been thinking about getting a cat, but nobody I know has one, so I don't know how to go about it. Where do you buy cats? What do you need to get for them? What about veterinarians? I know nothing."

First of all, Aaron Hale admitting to knowing nothing? Unheard of. Secondly…what parallel universe was this? Aaron didn't like animals! What on earth possessed him to want a cat?

So startled, she stammered, "Can't you just look this stuff up online?"

"Do you really trust everything you read on the internet? I prefer reliable sources," he scoffed.

Always so high and mighty. Who in this day and age was too good for Google?

Keeley glanced at his watch. Her precious dinner break was dwindling. To get him to leave, she blurted, "Okay! I'll help you! Just let me get dinner, will you?!"

A pleased smirk appeared on his handsome face. "That's all I needed to hear. Thank you. Give me your number; we can talk about this over dinner tomorrow."

"I'm busy tomorrow, but whatever, just text me."

She rattled off her number and sprinted to Paco's Tacos without saying goodbye. Half her break wasted. Curse him!

She wolfed down her bean burritos on her way back to the lab, resulting in horrible indigestion.

"What's wrong with you?" her fellow lab assistant, Erica Simon, asked, after witnessing Keeley groan in agony for the tenth time.

"I think I have food poisoning."

"Paco's Tacos?" Erica asked sympathetically. "We've all been there. It's the closest place to eat, but at what cost? It's greasier than anything I've ever eaten, including meat lover's pizza."

"I'm actually dying," Keeley moaned, pressing her cheek against the cold metal table.

"You look like you're about to hurl. Go home!"

"But Doctor Kim—"

"I'll deal with her. Get out of here before you puke on something and contaminate the lab," Erica insisted. "Go!"

"Okay," Keeley said miserably, gathering her things and clocking out, hunched over in pain.

This was entirely Aaron's fault! If he hadn't kept her, she could have gone to the smoothie shack and wouldn't be dying from a burrito.

He'd already texted her his number, and so angry, she sent a message: 'I have food poisoning because of you. You suck!'

His response was immediate: 'How is your food poisoning related to me?'

'If you hadn't wasted my time, I wouldn't have gone to the Taco Shop of Death.'

There was no response for a few minutes, and woozily, she made her way to the subway stop. If she puked on the crowded train…someone might actually murder her.

Then a text: 'Stay where you are, I'm on my way.'

Keeley didn't want to see him again, but being in a less crowded car would lessen her chances of projectile vomiting. And she'd get home faster.

Besides, if she puked in his Mercedes-Benz, he'd probably never speak to her again. A plus. So, she sat on a bench and waited for Aaron, against her better judgment.

She tried to remember if he'd ever personally cared for her when she was sick during their marriage. Usually, he'd just send the driver to take her to the hospital.

So why was he rushing to the rescue now? Did he actually feel guilty?

Maybe he felt obligated because he still wanted a favor and thought she might be too mad to comply if he didn't help. That was still weak reasoning.

Aaron never did anything without believing it would benefit him somehow; he was a capitalist to his core. How would helping her benefit him?

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