Page 8 of Nitro

“Oh, I do know this. And an algorithm.”

“Predictability, oui.”

“But Mon Frier,” Bishop said, holding back his laugh. “Women…”

“I amnotunder the superstition that they somehow magically escape the constructs of the universe. They’re different, that’s all.”

“Is that it?”

“It is. I don’t believe in the unpredictable. All glitches are merely complex predictions waiting to be analyzed, understood, and placed in their proper algorithms.”

“Mon Frier, you have no idea how happy it makes me that you have it all figured out. But tell me about this perfect woman of yours.”

“She’s exactly what I want and need which isn’t much. She’s independent, isn’t girly, already has a life she doesn’t intend to quit living—and that doesn’t include me—”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Bishop cut in. “This doesn’t sound like a marriage, it sounds like a distant relationship between friends. Ma Belle Eveque will surely not approve.”

“I can have a simple wife with minimal needs and still be a husband. I’m selecting the one with the least cause for unnecessary drama. She’s mature, she’s simple, she’s smart in all the right things.”

“Like?” he asked, laughter promising again.

“She's been taking care of herself for years, alone.”

“She doesn’t need a husband is what you’re saying.”

“She doesn’t but she did sign up and she made no secrets about why.”

Bishop raised his brows. “Do tell.”

“She has a…differently abled brother as she calls it, and his ten-year-old son she takes care of. She signed up to merely to appease her nephew who has a super-hero level obsession for The Twelve.”

“Mon Dieu, she doesn’t want to win?”

“Nope.”

Bishop couldn’t keep his laugh back any longer.

“Her not wanting to win means exactly what I want in a woman. One who doesn’t need a man or even want one, but if she had one with compatible assets, one who also doesn’t have needs or wants for a partner, then we have a level field to negotiate the marital particulars from.”

Bishop was howling now.

“What is so fucking funny?” he begged in his bored tone making it funnier. “We’re at war, and we have no clue how long.”

“Oh,youare funny, Mon Frier.”

“You think I’m wrong.”

“No, no, no, I know you are.”

“How?” he charged, pissed now.

“When you put your dick in it, you’ll figure it out.”

“Not sure why simple biology has to wreck a perfect arrangement. You forget I’m not a virgin.”

“Oh, oui, this is true,” he conceded, still stifling chuckles. “I surely understand, as I too was no virgin.”

“And you’re that one anomaly that I haven’t had the privilege of dissecting.”

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