“Secure in my masculinity.”

Now she was red faced and stammering. “But I—I never s-see you w-with any girls—women, I mean—”

“You’ve never seen me with anybody.”

She closed her mouth so quickly, he heard the click of her teeth coming together. When she spoke, her voice was very small and she sort of breathed the whole thing out, really fast.

“Youmeanrmtheoneyou’vehadacrushonallthistime?”

“Sure. I liked you the first time I saw you, even though you were wearing that awful green pantsuit under your lab coat.”

“But Jonas—I’m so much older than—”

He snorted. “Fifteen years—”

“Sixteen, I believe.”

“—Big deal, that hardly makes you Methuselah. And I love older women. Love. Them. Especially really smart ones. Especially authority figures. Especially—never mind, I think you’ve had enough shocks for one day.”

“It’s just that I never—I mean, Fred never—and I never had—I mean you never said—I mean—” She was looking around wildly, possibly for the fire exit.

“Believe it or not, I know what you’re thinking. You thought you were having a totally platonic sexual tension free morning with a gay guy who would never ever have sex with you, and now that you’re replaying the morning, you’ve realized we were actually on a date and I saw your bra in the dressing room.”

She was spry, that Dr. Barb. She was on her feet and he hadn’t seen her move. “No, I’m—it’s impossible. It’s just not possible.” She threw her napkin down on the table.

“Which part? The part where I’ve been crushing on you for six years, or the fact that you’ve been the object of my fantasies? Or the part where I think you’re hot and gorgeous? Or the part where I’m not crushing on Colin Farrell instead of you?”

But he was talking to nobody. She had turned and run out of the restaurant.

“Waitress! Three more, please.”

He laid his head on the table, pulled out his cell, and stabbed Fred’s number.

“What?”

“Dr. Barb’s on her way back.”

“Okay. We’ve done about all we can here, anyway. Everybody wants to break for something to eat. Wanna come?”

“Frankly, no.”

“Oh. Are you all right? You sound kind of… hollow.”

“My heart has been stomped on.”

“So no lunch then?”

“No.”

“Okay, well, bye.”

Fred hung up. He didn’t hold it against her. It just wasn’t in her nature, when she was working on a thorny problem, to notice anything else. Or anyone else.

Besides, for once in his life, he had no urge to tell Fred anything. At all.

Chapter Twenty-four

Fred hung up. “He sounded weird.”

“I’ve just met him, but are you surprised?”

“No, really, even for Jonas.” She shrugged. She had enough problems right now. “I’ll talk to him later. He’ll magically show up and find me, probably when I least expect it. That’s his super power.”

“Ah, I wondered if bipeds had any abilities beyond destruction.”

“Well,” Thomas said cheerfully, opening the door for Fred, “some of us can toss princes ass over teakettle into fish tanks.”