Jacob, by contrast, had been on his absolute best behavior during all meetings. After all, Marissa was the one giving him this opportunity based on nothing but the essay he’d emailed her months ago outlining point by point why he would be an excellent bet for one of the stalls on offer. He certainly owed her the bare respect of paying attention to whatever she said.

Turning to look at Craig, Jacob said stiffly, “I have fractured my wrist.” He’d have thought that much was obvious, what with the cast and all.

Craig released a snicker that signaled incoming bullshit. “How’d you manage that, Spock? Sudoku-ing too hard?”

Jacob set his jaw. He didn’t appreciate Spock comments. He’d received a lot of them over his lifetime, and he knew exactly what they were supposed to imply, and they made him want to throttle people before sitting them down for a long and detailed chat on why the world would be a much better place if they stopped congratulating themselves on being normal and started to accept that there were countless different normals, and Jacob’s kind was just as fine as everyone else’s.

In his head, that detailed chat usually involved a lot of curse words and multiple threats of violence.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t in much of a position to carry out threats of violence, since a woman whose professional respect and continued grace he very much relied on was watching this entire interaction with an unreadable expression. He resigned himself to squashing down his anger for the greater good—well, for his own greater good—when Eve leaned forward to glare flintily at Craig.

Jacob blinked, momentarily taken aback. He hadn’t realized she could glare like that. But it turned out that big, expressive eyes, while very good at sparkling adorably, were just as good at delivering death stares.

“Spock,” Eve repeated after swallowing her mouthful of gingerbread. “What does that mean?”

Craig faltered for a moment. “He’s, er, a character from one of them—”

“No, I know who Spock is,” she said dismissively, as if Craig were being excessively stupid. “I meant, what did you mean by it?”

Craig paused. “Well,” he said after a moment. “Would’ve thought that was obvious.”

Eve produced a lovely, vacant smile. “No,” she said. “Explain it to me.”

Once, as a child, Jacob had seen a mongoose eat a snake. He was now experiencing a similar fascinated, secondhand alarm.

“Welll,” Craig repeated, drawing out the word uncomfortably this time. “Obviously, Spock is . . .”

Eve waited, blinking slowly.

“Spock is . . .”

“What?” she nudged.

“Well, you know that Jacob is . . .”

Eve waited. Then she repeated, “What? Jacob is what?”

“Yes, Mr. Jackson,” Marissa interjected. “Jacob is what?” Much like Eve, she waited for his answer with a deceptively patient smile.

“Erm,” Craig mumbled. “Er. Ah. Never mind.”

“Are you sure?” Eve asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“But—”

“I said it doesn’t bloody matter!” Craig barked, his face flushing red.

Jacob’s amusement drained away at that, replaced by a cold fury. “Do not,” he said quietly, “raise your voice at my employees.”