“The problem with reporting is it’s kind of hard for me to split my attention,” said Kaveh, his eyes on the dark road ahead of them. It was so dark out here on this winding mountain road that went through so many miles of wilderness. “I was supposed to have a draft of this book done in the fall, but research on these other pieces kept taking my attention away from it . . .”

She looked down at their entwined hands. He was good at this, and it scared her a little. Before Craig or Joel or Chad, the last time she’d had sex with a man (well, boy), she’d been a senior in high school. She thought of that Cal king bed. She was going to be in that giant bed with this man in a couple of hours, and he was going to be in it with her, inside of her, and the thought made her mouth go dry again. She assumed he’d be good at it. He certainly carried himself like he thought he was, as if she were a puzzle he was looking forward to cracking, because he had cracked more than a few puzzles in his day.

“— and that’s how I got into the erotic fur-suit convention scene.”

“Huh?”

His smile had changed in the last few hours, too. No longer professional and courteous, but devious, like the two of them were sharing a secret. “Just checking to see if you’re listening.”

“I’m listening. Just don’t have much to add— your life is way more interesting than mine.”

“Ha! Only if you ignore some key components.”

“Eee-hee-vil woman!”

Cora nearly jumped at Electric Light Orchestra’s “Evil Woman” piping from her cell phone and quickly sent it to voice mail.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s my mother. I haven’t talked to her since the interview.”

He laughed. “So ‘Asshole’ for Kaplan, ‘Evil Woman’ for your mom. What’s my custom ringtone going to be?”

Her neck grew hot as a few contenders flitted through her mind. “Ummm . . . ‘Rehab’?”

She regretted it the second she’d said it, but Kaveh laughed uproariously. “Oh, man, that is funny,” he said, wiping an eye. “Now you have to use that.”

“No,” she said. “No, I don’t like it for you; it’s kind of mean. It doesn’t suit you.”

“What do you like for me?”

She bit her lip and looked at their hands, and the first, more honest lyric that came into her head was “Won’t you please, please help me?” “Maybe, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’?”

“God, you’re cute,” he said in a low, hungry voice, and her heart did a backflip.