"Would you like to..." Richie began, then stopped. He shook his head. "No."

"Would I like to what?" I asked.

"Have another drink sometime? Without the boys?"

I smiled. He was awfully cute, with his slicked-back blond hair, perfect teeth and wide, hazel eyes. He was about an inch or so shorter than I was, just under six feet, with what they call a "swimmer's build" in the gay personals. I was a bit stockier than he was, and hairier. Not that I'm one of those huge guys with a belly spilling over my waist. An ex had told me "you've got some meat on your bones" and I took it as a compliment. I wasn't going to buy into anybody's body image issues.

I could tell from Richie's body language that he was into me, and I was certainly into him. Maybe we could have a date after all. One date didn't mean I was going to join their happy family. "That would be fun. When did you have in mind?"

"There's a teenaged girl down the hall from us. She's looking for money, so she offered to babysit the boys Saturday night."

I held my hand out as if I was looking at an imaginary datebook and pretended to page through it. "Saturday looks good. But if you've already got the sitter, why not go the whole hog and do dinner?"

In the back of my mind I was already planning to do Richie after dinner-but he didn't have to know that yet.