Page 36 of Alone With You in the Ether

If it wasn’t a conversation then it was something else entirely, which Regan didn’t want to think about yet.

“Yes,” she said. “Only one more, then.”

He nodded. “One more.”

Someone nudged past them. Aldo glanced unhappily over his shoulder, then turned back to her.

“Should we have the last one now?” he asked.

Regan was briefly overcome with a siege of panic.

“No,” she said. “No, and… I have to go, actually. I should go.”

He seemed to understand, sparing a nod, and she turned to leave, then stopped.

“Aldo,” she said.

“Regan,” he replied.

“I—” Don’t hold hands with anyone ever again.

“I’ll see you,” she said, and he nodded.

“Sure,” he said, and she walked briskly away, relieved he hadn’t tried to stop her.

“Oh, sorry—”

“It’s fine,” Aldo muttered, prepared to ignore the collision until he caught a flicker of blood-red from his periphery. “Regan,” he said before he could stop himself, registering the familiar sight of her earrings, and the woman beside the man he’d just bumped into froze in place.

“Aldo,” she said, her voice high and shiny and false as she drew the three of them away from the crowded sidewalk. “What are you doing here?”

“Aldo?” echoed the man, who progressed from an amorphous obstacle to a face paired with shoulders, hair and limbs. He was taller than Aldo, a little older, deeply Caucasian. “Don’t tell me this is the math guy!”

“Yes, this is my friend Aldo,” Regan confirmed. “This is my boyfriend Marc,” she added with an apologetic glance, and Marc thrust out a hand for Aldo’s, which he returned with some degree of reticence and shook.

“Nice to meet you,” Aldo said.

“I thought you lived down in Hyde Park,” Marc said, glancing at Regan for confirmation.

“No, no, Aldoworksin Hyde Park,” she corrected quickly. “He’s a professor at U Chicago.”

“Doctoral student,” Aldo said.

“Right, that,” Regan confirmed, and Marc nodded.

“I’m just getting something,” Aldo said, gesturing vaguely around. “For my dad’s birthday.”

“Oh,” Regan said, softening slightly, but Marc merely nodded again.

“Cool,” he said. “You know, I’ve been curious who Regan was talking to from the bathtub at five a.m.,” he remarked with a laugh, shaking his head. “Nice to finally meet you, man. When Regan first mentioned you I was like, ‘Aldo, really?’—but I get it now, it works.”

“It’s short for Rinaldo,” Regan leapt to explain.

“Oh, interesting,” Marc said, and briefly, Aldo thought about bees.

Specifically, drone bees.

“Well, we should go,” Regan said. “Let you get back to it.”

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