“Of some sort,” he mumbled.

“God, it reeks in here. You’ve got some explaining to do, chum. How could you disappear for three whole days like that? Artur and Thomas have been driving me up a goddamned tree.”

“Leave me alone,” he moaned, plopping facedown onto his couch. “Can’t you see I’m dying?”

“You’re not dying. You’re sulking. What’s wrong, did Sergei pack up his salon and leave town? Did Ralph Lauren stop making shirts?”

“Worse,” he said hollowly.

Fred was stymied. Jonas didn’t have problems. Ever. She was the one who was often plunged into despair.

She played the guilt card. “You haven’t called, you haven’t come around—I was half afraid you had left town without saying anything to me.”

“Sorry.”

Time for the sympathy card, “Uh—cheer up?”

“I appreciate the effort, Fred. Go away now.”

She prowled around the living room, racking her brain. “Uh—want some breakfast?”

“No.”

“Come en. Pull yourself together. Whatever it is, it’s not any worse than my problems. It can’t be.”

He sighed and rolled over to face her. “Fred, just because they’re not your problems doesn’t mean they’re not problems.”

“Oh yeah? Try this on for size. If Thomas isn’t trying to steal kisses, Artur is. And Artur is going to blow pretty soon; we’ve been spending a lot of time in the lab because I have zero interest in jumping into the shithole that is Boston Harbor.”

“What?”

“See? If you’d been hanging around you’d know. The mysterious toxins? It’s shit.”

“You mean—literally?”

“Oh yeah. Gah, I can still smell it. So we’ve been going through permit paperwork and toxin reports and all that happy crappy—literal happy crappy, I guess—and we finally narrowed it down to a couple of suspects, one of which I was able to eliminate, but not until I’d hear way too much singing, and now, I’m sorry to say, we’re taking the Lollipop out today.”

He looked alarmed. “Fred, you can’t get on a boat.”

“I know.”

“You’re terrible on boats!”

“I tried to tell them. But the alternative is letting them go alone, and they’ll probably beat each other to death.”

“Your love life is twice as exciting as mine.”

“This kind of excitement I can do without. And they’re not in love with me. It’s just an infatuation.”

“Sure it is.”

“Don’t start that whole ‘Fred dismisses love because she has a fear of abandonment’ bull again.”

“But you do. And you do.” Jonas stared at the ceiling. “I’m in love. I finally told her.”

“And?” Fred assumed it was going to be awkward.

“She ran out. Ran.”

“Oh, ouch. Who is this bim? Just point her out. See how well she can run when I break both her legs.”

He sighed. “Tempting, for all sorts of reasons, but never mind.”

“Well, forget the loser. Whoever she is, you can do better.”

“She’s not a loser,” he snapped, showing signs of life. “Don’t call her that again.”

“Jonas, if she couldn’t see how wonderful you are, she’s a big fat stupid giant loser and I never plan to call her anything else.”