Page 10 of Not in Love

Rosie, maybe. Rosamund would fit her, too.

“Where did you say you live?”

She lifted her eyes but didn’t reply. “I’m surprised.” She looked around, and he could smell her so intensely, he had to get a grip. Skin and flowers and fabric softener. It was well past good, straight into dangerous territory. “I didn’t peg you for a hybrid kind of guy.”

He snorted and started the engine. “Don’t say what you did peg me for.”

“A Mustang, maybe.”

“Jesus.” He wiped a hand over his face.

“Or a Tesla.”

“Get the fuck out. You’re walking home.”

She laughed once, low in her throat, and the sound made him feel dizzy and powerful and accomplished. She was safe in his car, making jokes. Not on high alert as she’d been earlier. She was letting him take care of her.

He just needed to stop noticing how close she was.

“Here.” He handed her his phone. “Put your address in.”

“It’s locked. I’ll need your password.”

He turned to tell her and forgot to speak. Her haircut, he realized, was more elaborate than he’d originally thought. It was cropped close to the skull for a couple of inches around her left ear. Pretty. He’d have to ask Minami what the style was called.

“Are you embarrassed because it’s a string of sixty-nines?”

His mind took a brusque, inappropriate, sexual turn. Unavoidable, too. He’d been on the edge of it for a while, and it was getting harder to leash it back. “Two seven one eight two eight.”

“Your password is Euler’s number?”

They exchanged a surprised, plane-tilting look. Like they were only just now meeting.

“Are you a scientist?” she asked, suddenly curious, and it was the first time he could perceive this kind of interest in him on her part. She’d asked to use his body and volunteered hers in exchange, she’d gone through his documents with the efficiency of a DMV clerk, but she had not considered him beyond the here and now.

Until this moment.

“If I say yes, will you take it as proof that I’m the Unabomber?”

She smiled. A little wider than before.

“I’m not a scientist,” he admitted, loath to disappoint her. But it was the honest, if painful, answer. “I just studied science for a bit.”

“A minor in college?”

“Something like that.” No point in bringing up the rest.

“What do you do, then?”

“Boring money stuff.”

“I see.” She didn’t seem disappointed. She was still looking at him, searching. It was intoxicating, having her eyes on him. Her attention felt more precious than gold, stocks, market crash predictions.

“Are you a scientist?”

She nodded.

“What kind?”

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