As it turns out, I can’t miss her. Holy crap, she actually did do the hair. It stands about a foot above the crowd, a perfect yellow isosceles. And based on Jude’s gawking expression as he shakes her hand, I think I forgot to tell him about it, probably because I thought she was joking.

The truth is, she looks . . . hot. Obviously, she’s an attractive girl but this adds a ballsy, nerdy element that takes it to a different level. The two of them together look like something out of a catalog (currently, maybe something out of a cosplay catalog, but still). And if Jude doesn’t quite appreciate that now, I’m just going to have to huddle with him later and get him up to speed on what a rare find she seems to be.

I slide myself onto a barstool that’s catty-corner from their table. I can see them out of the corner of my eye but, more importantly, I can hear them perfectly.

“You look . . .” Jude starts, then hesitates. “Interesting?” Then he catches himself. “Nice?” But he can’t seem to stop the question mark from appearing at the end of his adjectives. Maybe I should take my notebook out so that he and I can have a proper postmortem after this.

“Thanks,” Bree replies, touching the side of her hair. “Usually, it’s a little bit more accurate than this. I didn’t have a lot of time.”

“Oh,” Jude says. And then, nothing. He clears his throat. Then he picks up the menu. “Well, thanks for meeting me. I’ve heard good things about this place. They have over forty beers on tap and I think at least six of them are low-carb.” That might be the most animated anyone has ever uttered the phrase “low-carb” and it was way more enthusiastic than anything he said to or about her. Yeah, the notebook’s coming out.

“Right,” Bree says, picking up the menu herself. They both seem to be reading it for a while.

“What are you thinking?” Jude asks. “This Monterey Jack IPA looks good. And I think I might give the Wil Belgian Wheaton a go.”

“Um . . . .” Bree says, flipping the menu over and then back again. “I’m sorry, but does this place have any food?”

“Oh,” Jude says. “Are you hungry? We can ask the waiter for the food menu.”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

It takes a while for Jude to flag a waiter down and during that whole time, they don’t utter a single word to each other.