guilty pleasures

Over our now traditional lunch of a shared Sezz Medi pizza and a salad,  I asked Richard yesterday what he's reading these days. (This, too, is tradition, and we often trade notes on good books.)

This time, though, he looked embarrassed.  He hemmed and hawed and eventually I told him to just fess up already.

"Tom Clancy," he mumbled, and only half-jokingly cringed away from me, hiding his face with his hands.

I burst out laughing.

He glared at me, disconcerted and blushing, and grumped, "Well? What's so funny?"

"Me, right now? Robert Ludlum."

"Nooooooooooooo!" he said. And that was the end of that.