“Deal.”

“Why do you make so much bread?”

She shrugged. “I love bread. Always have. There is nothing like the feeling of creating something so complex with my own hands. Sourdough bread is pretty much three ingredients—flour, water, and salt. But when you play with the other variables: hydration, fermentation, wild yeasts, temperature, or flour types, you can create something that tastes nothing like—and is nutritiously nothing like—the original ingredients. Bread is truly magic.”

“I fully support and enable your habits, so long as you share.”

She smiled.

His hand waved in the direction of her head. “Another question: How long does it take you to do that with your hair?”

“Do what?”

“Make it so perfectly curly.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t do anything. Just a bit of hair product. It grows out of my head this way.”

“Bullshit. My ex used to curl her hair with this weird hot cone-shaped thing.”

Reena laughed. “I assure you, my curls are natural. I don’t need a curling iron.”

“But yours are like, perfect. They’re like little springs. Like bungee cords.”

Well, that was a new one. “Bungee cords?”

“Yeah. Look.” He picked up the bottom of a ringlet near her face and held it on the top of her head. “You could bungee jump with your hair.” Still holding the end of the curl, he mimicked bungee-jumping by launching the hair up and then down, pulling it taut before letting go and watching the curl spring back in place.

Reena frowned. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re very strange?”

“It’s been mentioned, yes.” He sipped his drink.

“You asked two questions. My turn. Why are you so buff?”

He laughed, head falling down to his arm on the table. Clearly, he was as drunk as she was. Also, he had thick hair. It looked soft. As did the skin on the back of his neck. She was resisting the urge to touch when he finally raised his head and leered openly before answering, flexing his biceps to give her a show. “Glad you approve. I try to lift every day at lunch and on most mornings. I love the rush of weight lifting.”

“Oh, god, you’re one of those ‘do you even lift, bruh?’ guys, aren’t you?”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

She waved her hand in the direction of his body. “I mean, like, what’s even the point? You work out just to look good? You do anything else physical with that body?”

She squeezed her lips shut. Must stop drinking gin. Must stop saying things he can construe as an intentional innuendo. “That’s not what I meant,” she said before he could even consider a side-eyed smirk or eyebrow waggle.

He laughed again. “You are fantastic at cheering me up. And, as a matter of fact, yes. I bike, I run, and I played football in London. Need to find a team here.”

“Ah, so a jock, then. I assume you mean soccer.”

He waved a finger at her. “Just because I live in North America now doesn’t mean I have to bastardize the name of the world’s most popular sport like you people do.”