Fred shuddered and slurped more miso. “No.”

“Fred’s allergic to seafood,” Jonas explained.

“You—you are?” Artur’s jaw was sagging, which annoyed her to no end. “But—but what do you eat?”

“Everything else.”

“So, your plan is… what?” Jonas was tapping his fingers on the table in an irritating rhythm. “You’re gonna be the Dr. Watson to his Sherlock?”

Fred shuddered; she couldn’t help it.

“You don’t want to?”

“I don’t care.”

“So give him the old heave-ho.”

“Apparently,” she said dryly, “I’m one of his subjects and have to do whatever he wants.”

“Since when has authority stopped you from being you?”

“Well. How weird is it that in forty-eight hours two guys show up both bitching about the same thing?”

“You’re gonna team him up with the water fellow?”

“That’s the plan.”

“What is a water fellow?”

“Eat your dead fish,” she told Artur. To Jonas: “Let them team up and solve the mystery. Let me get back to work. Everybody’s happy.”

Jonas was holding his head in his hands. Fred ignored it. Artur looked slightly alarmed. “Good sir, what ails you?”

“Artur, could you give us a minute, please?”

Without a word, Artur rose, crossed the room in four big strides, and started talking to their waitress, who was staring at him the way diabetics stared at sundaes.

“What?”

“Fred, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“What?”

“You’ve met two new guys and instead of, I dunno, trying to build a meaningful relationship or at least get laid by either or both of them, you’re gonna match them up together and head back to the aquarium?”

“Yeah.”

“Fred. You are dumber than an octopus.”

“Octopi,” she told him with raised eyebrows, “are among the smartest animals on earth.”

“Why don’t you guys work together? Huh? He came all the way from the Black Sea—where the hell is the Black Sea, anyway… well, it sounds far away—and you can’t just dump him!”

“I can.” She added, “Southeastern Europe. Oh, and Asia Minor.’”

“What?”

“The Black Sea. Connected to the Mediterranean by the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara, and to the Sea of Azov by the—”

“This is not the point—”

“—Strait of Kerch,” she finished.

She ignored his moan of despair and fished the last piece of tofu out of her soup bowl. The fact was, both Thomas and Artur made her anxious. She wasn’t used to attention from men. And she had no interest in being in a triangle. Not that that was likely to happen.

“When was the last time you went on a date?” Jonas was demanding. “And if you give me the patented Fred ‘I don’t give a shit’ shrug, I’ll beat you to death.”

She laughed at him. Then thought about it. And thought. And thought some more. “Dr. Barb’s ex-husband,” she said at last.

“Oh, God, that’s right. I totally forgot about him. You’re lucky you didn’t lose your job over that one.”

“She’s the one who set us up,” Fred reminded him. What neither of them needed reminding was, it was a complete disaster. Dr. Barb’s ex, whose name Fred had by now forgotten, spent half the date making gross passes at Fred, and the other half pining for his ex-wife. They had ended the meeting with a handshake, and he’d gone home with a black eye when he’d tried for more too persistently.