Anders honestly could not have asked for a better answer. He closed his eyes, savoring the sun on his skin for the first time on the trip.

"Exactly," he said, once he was looking at Kathy again. "If we were going to go out, we'd owe it to each other to be there all the way. Not you with one foot out the door and me not quite over somebody else. Maybe someday things will be different and we'll work it out, but until then I'm happy with a tawdry affair."

He had a crush, too, but -- as Kathy's narration said -- that didn't mean they should go for a relationship. That just seemed complicated.