He did not elaborate, so in her quest to keep the conversation going, she asked him some more questions, which he answered cordially but briefly. Eventually she gave up. She had done more than her share, and if the Carnivore wanted silence, she was okay with that.

“So what do you like to do?” Logan said through a mouthful of bacon.

At last, a question about her. Too bad she didn’t have a good answer for it. I like to read books by nineteenth-century women writers and analyze them. But maybe not as much as I should. Okay, no. This was not the venue for a chat about her slow-moving career crisis. She thought about telling him about her secret project, but she hadn’t even told Max yet. She tried to think of something this dude would not find a total turnoff. “I’m a big fan of the beach.” That was true. “My parents live on Long Island, and—”

“No. I mean, what do you like to do?” He waved his hand between them and raised his eyebrows.

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure why the question was so shocking. She’d been up front about the fact that she was not looking for a relationship. In a way, she appreciated the direct approach. “Uh, well . . . I guess I like to go with the flow?”

He shrugged like that was an acceptable if not optimal answer and turned to his final side dish, which was some kind of pulled pork concoction. “Yeah, okay, I was just wondering what turned you on.”

Not you.

Ugh. That was terrible. Asking her that question was more than most guys would do. In her experience before Vince, which was admittedly quite a few years ago now, men usually had to be directed fairly explicitly if she wanted to have any fun herself. So she gave Logan’s question serious consideration. She’d been turned on a lot lately. In fact, the sudden return of desire to her life was what had prompted this exercise to begin with. That accidental hug with Max in Central Park had started it, but then it had . . . not gone away, like a faucet left on.

Except now. It had gone away now. Someone had turned off the tap. She just kept thinking of all that meat being shoveled into the mouth that would, if all went according to plan, soon be on her. She wasn’t a vegetarian, but—yuck. She tried to focus on Logan’s unnaturally good looks, but she kept thinking about the meat mouth. So she transferred her attention to his biceps. Still nothing. She was back to being dead inside.

She huffed a frustrated sigh. “Logan, I am really sorry about this, but I think I’m going to have to bail.”

“Really?” He looked a little disappointed, which she supposed was flattering.