“I, uh, I never thought of you working out.”
He grinned. Slapped his incredibly flat belly.
“Have to. Otherwise I’d weigh five hundred pounds.”
Rachel laughed. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
He moved past her, opened the fridge, took out a container of orange juice.
“Yeah. Well, the truth is, I spend a lot of time behind a desk lately. Not much chance to play sports. And I always did, you know? I still run a little, but when I was in college I played football—”
“Football? Or soccer?”
He looked at her.
“Football. American-style.” He smiled. “So, you know they call soccer football everywhere but here in the States, huh?”
She nodded. “When Ethan had colic I used to take him for long drives to soothe him. He loved the motion of the car. Then I’d head home, but I learned, fast that he might wake up if I put him straight into his crib so I’d plop down on the sofa, turn on the TV, and if it was the middle of the night—” she smiled “—which, of course, it almost always was—well, at two and three in the morning there’s nothing much on except soccer re-runs—”
“Goooal!” Karim said solemnly.
Rachel laughed. “Right. Oh, and infomercials.”
“Infomercials?”
“Yes. You know—men shouting as they try to sell you things you never heard of and never dreamed you needed.”
Karim took two glasses from a cabinet, filled them with juice and handed one to Rachel.
“Oh,” she said quickly, “no. No, thanks. I, ah, I should get out of your way—”
“You’re not in my way. Besides,” he said, his expression dead-pan, “if you order this glass of OJ right now, we’ll include a cup of coffee at no extra charge. You’ll just pay separate shipping and handling.”
She burst out laughing. It was as perfect an infomercial as any she’d ever seen.
Karim smiled. “Seriously, I make one heck of a cup of coffee. No shipping or handling charge at all. Okay?”
Not okay, her head told her …
“Okay,” she said, because, after all, what harm could there be in something so simple?
He made coffee.
She made toast.
He took his with strawberry jam. She took hers with cream cheese.
“Jam’s better,” he said.