The most bland-looking human being I had ever seen stood on the other side. He was maybe five nine, maybe one seventy-five. He had hair of medium brown, and eyes of the same ambiguous shade. He wore jeans, a medium-weight brown jacket, and worn tennis shoes. His face was unmemorable, neither appealing nor ugly. He didn't look particularly strong, or craven, or smart, or particularly anything else.

"What are you doing here?" he asked Susan without preamble. His voice was like the rest of him-about as exciting as a W-2.

Susan said, "I told you I was going to talk to him."

"You could have used the phone," the man pointed out. "There's no point to this."

"Hi," I said in a loud voice, and stepped up to my door. I towered over Blandman. And I had a great big gun in my hand, even if I did keep it pointed down at the floor. "I'm Harry Dresden."

He looked me up and down and then looked at Susan.

Susan sighed. "Harry, this is Martin."

"Hi, Martin," I said. I switched my sidearm to my other hand and thrust mine at him. "Nice to meet you."

Martin regarded my hand and then said, "I don't shake hands." That was evidently all the verbal interaction I merited, because he looked back at Susan and said, "We have to be up early."

We? We?

I looked at Susan, who flushed with embarrassment. She glared at Martin and then said to me, "I need to go, Harry. I wish I could have stayed longer."

"Wait," I said.

"I wish I could," she said. "I'll try to call you before we go."

There was that we again. "Go? Susan-"

"I'm sorry." She stood up on tiptoe and kissed my cheek, her too-warm lips soft. Then she left, brushing past Martin just hard enough to jostle him into taking a little step to keep his balance.

Martin nodded to me and walked out too. After a minute I followed them, long enough to see them getting into a cab on the street outside.

We.

"Hell's bells," I muttered, and stalked back inside my house. I slammed the door behind me, lit a candle, stomped into my little bathroom, and turned on the shower. The water was only a couple degrees short of becoming sleet, but I stripped and got in anyway, simmering with several varieties of frustration.

We.

We, we, we. Which implied she and someone else together. Someone who was not me. Was she? Susan, with the Pedantic Avenger there? That didn't track. I mean, hell's bells, the guy was just so dull. Boring. Blasé.

And maybe stable.

Face it, Harry. Interesting you might be. Exciting you might be. Stable you ain't.