What made him act like a kid with a crush around this woman? She wore shoes more suited to a hobbit than a human; her coat was as puffy as a marshmallow; and her hat, made of thick knitted wool and adorned with two red pompoms, was so primitive it looked like maybe her kid made it. Maybe the treeless Jillian. He guessed Allison woke up looking pretty similar to how she looked right now: curls this way and that, eyes a little sleepy, lips just a shade up from the color of her face. Kaye was maybe her exact opposite: she woke up plain, as if her eyes and lips were something she kept in the bathroom, which she kind of did. She emerged after about an hour looking like a model, her eyes big and her lips full, her ponytail replaced by liquid gold. He might not have believed it was the same person if he hadn’t witnessed it so many times over the years. Sometimes he envied women the way they could create themselves anew each day; but Allison Miller chose not to do all that, which he kind of admired. He was drawn to something else about her, too, a power she herself probably had no idea she had: if she accepted him, the rest of the town would follow suit.

“Do you know my friend Adam here?”

Adam reached out to shake hands. His grip was surprisingly strong for a little kid. “Can I buy you two a drink?” Nick said, pulling Rex off Candy.

“Yes,” Adam said. “Ginger tea can help constrict the blood vessels when you have a headache, so I’d like that.”

Nick looked at Allison. She offered a faint shrug and lift of the eyebrows, indicating that this was likely true.

“All right. A ginger tea it is. Young lady?” Young lady. Was there no end to it?

“Nothing for me, thanks.”

“A coffee? A coffee from your coauthor. Your colleague.”

She laughed. “Okay, an espresso. If you can expense it.”

“I can expense anything,” he said, again not happy with his words. She already thought of him as a braggart. He started to tie Rex up to the railing.

“Don’t worry—we can take him,” Allison said. “Right, Adam?”

Adam, now seated in a chair, head resting on his arm, didn’t lift his head to speak.

“You sure? He can be a bully.”

“Candy would be thrilled.”

Nick untied Rex and Rex ran under his arm toward Candy; he wound around Allison, then Candy wound around Nick. Then the dogs wound again, to get closer to each other, which meant Nick and Allison were knotted together along with the dogs. He didn’t find many occasions to laugh these days, but this made him laugh. “It’s like Twister,” he said.