What if? What if I said yes to dinner? What if we were together? What if he was mine?

He turns as if he feels me watching.

I grin, and before I can stop myself, I’m going to him. “Whatcha got there?”

“It’s a paperweight,” he says.

“A signed Gerhard Schechinger clear glass ‘torus’ paperweight,” the man clarifies. Hugo introduces him as Felix.

“But you hardly ever use paper,” I point out.

“I collect these.” Hugo hands it to me.

It’s a clear glass orb, and inside there’s a bubble in the shape of a stretched-out donut. I hold it up the way he did.

“It’s all about the bubble in there,” he says.

I turn it around. “Is there something special about it?”

“Imagine if you drew a dot on one part of the donut, and then a dot on another part, and then you twist and stretch the donut so that the dots meet. It’s sort of a thought experiment that unlocks the connections across shapes and spaces.”

I hand it back. “So you have these at home, and you take them out and look at the bubbles?”

“Yes.” Hugo gazes into it like a man on fire. Dots on a twisted donut. I love how into it he is.

“So is that your favorite shape?”

“Favorite three-dimensional shape, yes.”

The rush of pleasure I feel right then makes every atom in my body happy, and I so want to kiss him. “Favoritethree-dimensionalshape,” I tease. “But not your favorite two-dimensional shape.”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, it’s beautiful,” I say, but really, I mean him—he’s beautiful.

He’s telling me more things about the donut bubble. Something about “tori” and shapes with holes and the light they shed on math whichimabobs.

Out of nowhere I get this memory of Hugo’s doodles turning up around the house. Interconnected triangles. “Your fave two-dimensional shape. Could it be the triangle?”

He looks at me, stunned. “How’d you know?”

“A little thing called visual recollection.”

His eyes sparkle. “Touché.” He goes back to his inspection.

So, so Hugo-ish. And here we are. And he has a gift for me. I’m so happy in this moment, my heart might just pound right out of my chest. And I’m thinking maybe this thing with the two of us is worth taking a chance on. Maybe things can be different this time.

“So are you buying it?” I ask him.

“No. It’s nice, but there’s a surface imperfection.”

“What surface imperfection?” Felix demands.

Hugo scowls. “Come on.” The way he says it, you’d think Felix tried to pass off an orb with a blob of poop on it.

“There’s no surface imperfection,” Felix says.

“Not only is there a surface imperfection, but it’s glaringly obvious.” Hugo shows him the alleged imperfection.