Vaguely, like a dream from childhood, Max remembered the crowded marketplaces of Egypt, rich with the smells of incense, fabric dye, and fresh-caught fish. He could still recall the grit of desert sand beneath his feet as he strode through the bustle of the Jewish Temple during Herod's reign. The heat radiating from the crush of bodies in the Roman coliseum would be with him forever.

All of those distant impressions of noise and the press of human flesh were brought to mind by being on the floor of a Vegas casino. Lights flashed. Bells rang. An announcer called out numbers through speakers mounted in the ceiling. Elderly women shouted at their half-deaf husbands. Men in expensive suites cheered around felt-covered tables. Hazy blue clouds of cigarette smoke and the stinging scent of alcohol assaulted his every sense.

Max skirted the edge of the room and found a buffet table piled with crab legs and shrimp. A woman as round as she was tall tottered on swollen ankles behind her toothpick-thin husband, both of them carrying plates stacked with food. Max thought of Jack Sprat, who could eat no fat, and his wife who could eat no lean.

He let a crowd of boisterous young men in college t-shirts push him through a door into a hallway that was marginally quieter and twenty degrees cooler. Following the corridor, he found a bar where the lights were low, the jazz was soft, and every table was polished to a sheen.

A pretty hostess with a mass of raven-black twisted hair that couldn't possibly be entirely her own smiled at him. "Table for one?"

He nodded and trailed along behind her to a tiny table in the far corner of the room. In the booth across the aisle, the driver of the pink and grey truck sat with her iPhone in one hand, and a fork in the other. She absently poked at a bite of steak and lifted it to her mouth without looking away from the screen.

"Destiny has spoken," he said.

She raised her eyes to his, but said nothing.

"They're going to seat me right next to you so, even if you don't mean to have dinner with me, you'll be having dinner with me."

"I really don't want to have dinner with you," she said. Her low, husky voice crawled into his belly and coiled there like a restless snake.

"Why not?"

"I'm reading."

"Stephanie Meyer?"

She lay her fork down. "Leo Tolstoy."

He pictured the first page of the volume from his library. "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." He rolled his eyes. "It's rubbish. You can't classify people as 'all.' Not ever. Not even 'all people.' There is an exception to every rule."

"I'm not reading Anna Karenina. It's A Confession."

He shoved his hands in his pockets, ignoring the impatient hostess's loud sigh. "Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it," He quoted. "Can't argue against that. Democracy ruins the values of those who come to hold majority rule as their religion."

It seemed her mouth knew no form other than the thin, straight line. "Why do you want to eat with me?" she asked.

"Because my friend coerced me into going to Vegas to meet an intriguing woman. If I can tell him about you it will make a good story and he'll leave me alone for a few decades."

"There are thousands of pretty girls in this city."

"But only one intriguing woman, so far as I've noticed." Remembering the hostess, he turned toward her. "No offense. You and I just don't have the same shared history as I have with Lily."

Her spine went rigid.

He'd made a fatal mistake.

"How do you know my name?"

His palms turned to ice. What could he say? Come on, Max. There has to be a logical answer to her question. He took his hand from his pocket and pushed his hair away from his face, buying himself a few seconds. "The note that you handed to the driver," he said, making a wild guess. "It had your name on it."

"I'm sorry," the hostess said. "There's a party that needs seating. Are you going to..."

Lily set her phone face-down on the table. "He can sit with me."

He couldn't suppress the grin that spread across his face, though it no doubt gave him the appearance of a desperate adolescent. Taking the offered menu, he slid into the seat. "Thanks for giving me a chance."

She sliced a piece of steak. "I was giving the hostess a break."

"If I owe her this seat I'll have to leave her an excellent tip on the way out."

A server dressed all in black with a bright red tie stepped up to the table and asked if he'd like to order a drink. He asked for a bottle of decent cabernet and two glasses, trying to sound like he knew what that meant and praying that they wouldn't make him do the whole cork-smelling ritual that he'd only ever seen on television.

When they were alone, he folded his hands on the table. "So, what brings the intriguing Lily to Vegas?"

"Maybe I just want to party like an animal and lose my life savings in the slot machines."

"You're doing a piss poor job of achieving those goals, sitting in a dark, quiet bar by yourself."

She turned his question around on him. "Why are you here?"

He shrugged. "I was telling the truth. My friend harassed me into it. He said too much work was making me wither on the vine or some such nonsense."

"Is it?" Her question seemed sincere. No hint of mockery showed in her expression as she picked up a dinner roll and broke off a piece to nibble on.

The arrival of the wine delayed his answer. Two glasses, already poured, and a half-full bottle. No cork ritual. Thank you, God, for small favors. He sipped at it and the slightly bitter fluid etched a trail all the way down to his stomach. "I'll have the same as her," he told the server.

"Well?" she prompted after a moment.

His smile refused to subside. It had been a long time since he'd met a human with such a powerful spirit. It delighted him more than it should. "Maybe," he admitted. "I have a strong sense of duty. It tends to cast a shadow over the rest of my life."

"Duty to what?"

"To my vocation."

She lifted her glass toward him. "To a powerful calling and those daring enough to follow it."

He tapped his glass against hers and drank, wondering if it made him a little pathetic that he could already feel the warmth of the alcohol in his fingertips. "Spoken like a woman with a calling of her own."

She looked down at her plate. Dark lashes cast long shadows on her fair, lightly freckled cheeks. "Yes."

"Well?" he echoed.

When she looked up again she did so with a slight, proud lift to her chin. "I'm a teacher."

"Of students who stay well in line, I'd venture."

"Of students who desire to learn the way of discipline and peace."

"Aikido."

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You know Tolstoy and Aikido?"

"I know of them. I don't know either of them, personally." He reached for his glass, realized it was empty, noticed hers was as well, refilled them both, and took a roll from the basket the server had left behind. "I saw how you dropped the driver when he came at you."

"The average person has never even heard of Aikido unless they're a fan of 1990's action movies. Let alone being able to recognize it in action."

"I've traveled a lot. You pick things up."

She wiped her mouth and dropped the napkin next to her empty plate, took a sip of her second glass of wine and sat back against the bench. It was something of a relief to notice that her limbs seemed to be slowing and growing a little heavier as well. At least he wasn't the only lightweight.

"What about you? What is your great calling?" she asked.

"I..." Tell the truth? Not likely. She would never believe him. Lie? He'd really rather not. "It's hard to explain. I help people find their True Selves."

"Like a therapist?"

He shook his head. The absurd grin still lingered. "Not exactly." He needed to change the topic. "So, you're probably not here for the debauchery, if you're all about being in harmony with the universe."

Max's food arrived and he told the server that, yes, he would like another bottle of wine.

"My parents, they're very successful. Like... very successful, right?" She took a long drink.

Max followed her example.

"They have always wanted me to do what they did, to go into business, but I'm good at Aikido. It... it calms my spirit." Her fingers traced the edge of the table. "Before I became a shidoin, an instructor, I never felt peaceful. My emotions were all over the place." She dropped her hands into her lap. Max noted it was the first time she'd been totally still since she invited him to join her. "I have peace now. I want to pass that on. My parents aren't thrilled, but they're ridiculously accommodating. They offered to set me up with my own studio, give me everything I needed near them in California."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"No. It was very generous of them. That's how they are. The most generous people in the history of the universe. But... I want to be me. Only me. The best version of myself."

The steak was a little overcooked. The potatoes were slimy. When the server asked, Max said they were fine and kept his attention on the woman in front of him. She had a little spray of freckles across her nose that gave her an air of girlishness. He said, "You can accept help from your parents and still be the best version of yourself."

"I don't think I can. I would always be trying to live up to what I thought they wanted for me. I would never really figure out who I am, apart from them." She refilled their glasses again.

He figured they should probably stop drinking now, but somehow another bottle appeared on the table and neither of them objected.

"So, you opened your school in Vegas?"

A delightful blush crept into her cheeks. "No. I don't actually have a school yet. I came here to compete. If I win, it's fifty thousand dollars. That would be enough to get started, without using any of my parent's money. Then, I thought maybe Colorado. Or maybe somewhere in the Midwest. It seems like it's a lot cheaper to live out there."

"I can vouch for that. I have a great house there--a three story Victorian on a fairy tale street for less than you'd pay for a parking space in someone else's driveway in some parts of California."

She sighed and lay her head against the seat back. "I'm a little drunk."

He reached for his glass and realized it had emptied again. "Me too," he admited. "And I never get drunk. Really, never."

"Same."

He watched as her sparkling eyes followed the movement of the ceiling fan for a while. Finally, she pulled her gaze away and leaned forward on her elbow, narrowing her eyes on him. "Why did you want to eat with me?"

"God's honest truth. I came here to find an intriguing woman and you are absolutely compelling. Everything about you, from the monster truck, to the cowboy boots, to the fierce spirit that stood up to that driver, to the independence that would let you sit in a restaurant alone looking like you were with your favorite company in the world..." He realized he was rambling. "You're a delight to the senses."

She giggled.

He suspected she never giggled when she was sober.

"Do you dance?" she asked.

"No," he said.

They sat there, looking at each other in silence. His body responded to her eyes as though she was actually touching him. For having just drank two bottles of wine, he was absolutely parched.

"Will you dance with me?" she asked. The blue of her eyes shone dark as sapphires. They sparkled with an intensity that spoke volumes of her sense of self.

"Yes." He poured another glass for himself and drained it without bothering to sip gracefully.