A good while, in that Amory Felix has not returned to the hospital where Cameron works. To be frank, he's never had any interest in her as an individual before. Rigid, boring, were the words he had drawn from his surface glances at her post. And jaundiced, is his view, by the key fact that Cameron is a doctor.

Irrational, maybe. But Amory's reservations are formed by the hard clay of personal experience.

"Better than last month," Amory replies, still awkwardly. Rearranging his fingers around cup sleeve, he finds himself paying for her coffee even before he realizes it, setting the orange down on the counter with a clink.

Augmented sense of generosity and gratefulness? It doesn't stop there.