CHAPTER 163

The two nights between Wednesday and Friday passed in a blur. Work had been busy, but it was always busy. I had been working on a couple deals in Europe, which made Kat's 3:30 a.m. schedule easier to accommodate, since there were a lot of early morning calls. I thought a lot about what seemed like it should be a great stroke of luck. Here was the cute local traffic girl, with her pristine image, implying there was a deep, very dark side to her. And she lived a short walk away. The boyfriend aspect didn't bother me. Maybe I was blinded by desire, thinking with my little head. It never worked out that a vague social media infatuation turned into something tangible. The situation with Kat felt different, though.

I contemplated this as I crossed Allen Parkway to Buffalo Bayou Park, wearing jogging clothes. I walked over the pedestrian bridge above Memorial Drive and through the broken gate I had used two nights earlier. This was an unusual tryst--if that's what it would become--to say the