Author's Notes: Written as a challenge to myself, to see if I could write an entire story in the imperative.

Come home from work exhausted. Throw your badge on the coffee table followed by your gun. Drink a beer and order a pizza. Drink another beer. Flip through the channels and curse that there's never anything good on TV anymore.

Drink another beer. Pay for your pizza. Eat a slice before it's cool enough and burn the roof of your mouth. Drink another beer. Eat three slices of pizza. Get heartburn. Search through your cabinets for Alka-Seltzer, Pepto, anything. Find two Tums half crushed in your junk drawer and grind them into chalk dust between your teeth. Eat another slice of pizza. Think about wrapping the leftover pizza in Saran Wrap and putting it in your fridge. Leave the leftover pizza in the box on your counter instead.

Switch from beer to scotch. Go through your old albums. Put on Nina Simone. Dim the lights. Push the coffee table out of the way and roll up the rug. Dance by yourself, an imaginary partner in your arms. Think about Stella. Make yourself think about Stella. Don't dare to think about anyone else.

Ignore the knock at the door. Don't care what your neighbors think. Don't care that you're music's too loud. Ignore the knock at the door and dance and think about -- no -- think about Stella. Tell yourself it's Stella that makes you ache.

Let the spell be broken. Answer the door. Be defiant and take a slow sip of scotch just for his benefit. Feed leftover pizza to the wolf. Insist that you're OK. Say you don't want to talk about the case. Decide you've made your point and pour the rest of the scotch out of your glass and down the drain.

Hum with delight when Do I Move You? starts to play. Ask him to dance. Admit that you're a little drunk. Ask him to dance again. Smile like you're teasing. Move forward just a bit. Give him a chance to pull away. Rub his shoulders gently. Try to make him relax. Give up and put your arms around his neck.

Entice him into swaying to the slow beat. Smile with encouragement. Forget to smile. See -- really see -- the way he looks at you. Lean forward. Breathe in his scent. Close your eyes. Kiss him, kiss him, cling to him, kiss him, hold him against you, sway to the music, admit, just to yourself, that you're in love.