“Of course.”

Tom considered how to phrase his question about Medusa, before blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “Girls like you. A lot.”

If Yuri was surprised, he didn’t show it. He gave a humble shrug. “I believe it is my muscular physique.” He sat up and flexed his biceps thoughtfully. “But that is only the surface. The only girl whose regard I care for—”

“Is Wyatt, I know, I know. Okay. I have a question: let’s say a girl kind of feels bad about the way she looks and I accidentally insulted her about that. How can I fix it?”

Yuri tugged at his thin white T-shirt, plastered to his skin with sweat. “What did you say to this girl?”

“I kind of pointed out that we only meet online and we’re never gonna meet in person, so we can use avatars and I won’t even see how she looks. That’s why it’ll never matter to me if she’s ugly.”

Yuri twisted around to frown at him. “I hope you did not say such a thing, Thomas. This is no good.”

“Not in those exact words, but, uh . . . Come on, you’ve gotta have some advice. I thought you might know what to say to make her feel better, or how I can apologize. You know, since Wyatt’s horseface thing is—”

Yuri half rose from the bench. “Horseface?”

Tom noticed, not for the first time, how much larger Yuri was than him. He raised his hands. “The thing where she thinks she has a horseface. I’m not insulting your girlfriend, man.”

“Ah. Of course.” Yuri settled back down. He rubbed his chin, thoughtful. “Wyatt has indeed expressed to me that she feels troubled over her appearance. It is always an awkward conversation, because if I say, ‘You do not have a horseface,’ she is believing I am lying. But if I ever were to say, ‘Very well, I concede. You have a horseface,’ then I am certain she would also find it upsetting.”

“Yeah,” Tom said, imagining it. “Just a bit.”

“So this is what I do,” Yuri went on, leaning closer. “I take her hand and stare into her eyes. Then I say this: ‘If you were indeed resembling a horse, then I would see the horse and be thinking it is a very beautiful horse, and I would be feeling alarmed and think there is something very wrong with me that I am finding a horse so very lovely and attractive.’” He concluded with a satisfied nod.

“And that works?” Tom blurted.

“She always is responding the same way: ‘That’s really weird, Yuri.’” Yuri gave another satisfied nod.

“So it doesn’t work.”