Chapter 1

When I retired, 15 years ago, I never realized just how boring my life was.

I was happy though. I'd managed to stay single all my life, never even tempted to get married and have a family. Yes, I'd had plenty of girlfriends, but for one reason or another none of them lasted much longer than a couple of weeks. I think one relationship lasted almost 6 month, but I didn't end that one. She was killed by in a freak accident one evening. She lost control of her car and it went into a lake, drowning her. It really tore me up, too, and that surprised me. I hadn't realized how much I'd cared for her. I didn't date anymore after that.

I loved to stay at home, read and watch movies. With no one around I could do as I pleased, and I did.

Boy, did I figure that out wrong!

When I reached 70 I decided to go to my favorite bar and enjoy the atmosphere. I took a seat at the back of the room, where I could do my people watching without being noticed, or at least I thought I had. To my surprise my old buddy, James, found me sitting there about an hour later and decided to join me and we sat there and chatted for a long time.

"I've been meaning to call you," he said to me, "but you're a hard person to find these days."

"Yeah. I've been busy. I got my place all fixed up and settling in just fine."

"When did you move?"

"I guess it's been about six months now," I told him.

We sat there in silence for a while, both of us nursing our drinks. He had a scotch and water and I had my usual Cherry Dr. Pepper, with no ice.

"How in the world do you drink those things?" he asked.

"Just like you drink those things. At least these won't end up killing me," I joked.

"Yeah, but how do you manage to do it with no ice?"

"Hey, it's cold when it comes out of the machine and all ice does is water it down once it melts. This way I enjoy all the taste and besides that, it's what I like."

We both laughed a bit and then he got to his point of being there.

"Listen, I wanted to let you know that I'd found a place where I thought you'd be comfortable in your retirement."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Really!"

"And what made you think I'd consider moving again? It's only been six months and I'm finally getting comfortable there."

"Well, this is a different 'Retirement' place. I found it through a mutual aquaintance."

"And that would be..."

"You remember Robert Towns?"

"Yeah, I remember him. He made enough passes at me at work. How could I forget him?

"I remember that. Ever do anything with him?" he laughed and took another sip from his drink.

"No, and I never intended to, either."

That was a lie, but I didn't want him to know that. There had been many times the thought crossed my mind about 'doing something' with Rob, but I always chickened out at the last minute. I'd even called him one evening and invited him over for the following Saturday night, but then called and told him something had come up and I wouldn't be home that night. Actually I'd stayed at home and turned out all the lights, hoping that if he drove by he'd think I wasn't really home and would keep on going.

"Why do you ask?" I asked him.

"Well, Rob and I have gotten together several times lately and your name's always come up and I guess we were hoping we could get you to join us some time."

"And what would we do?" I asked, even though I knew what the answer would be.

"You know. Things."