Hector handed off the bicycle to Evelyn, who stared at it as if she couldn’t understand its function. “Why did I agree to do this again?”

  “I have no idea, Evie.”

  “Like, I’m not big on bodily coordination. Riding a bike requires bance, if I recall correctly from my younger years.”

  “I believe we already established that you can’t be considered old at twenty-four.”

  “I’m pretty sure my biological age is way older than my actual age. A health nut like you is probably younger on the inside than me.”

  Hector scratched his head in mock confusion. “I thought I was destroying my body from all the meat I’m eating.”

  “Oh, don’t you go expecting consistency from me again. I told you that is the most vile form of cheating.” Evelyn swung a leg over the bike Jen had only used a couple times and gnced over at him. “Speaking of cheating, is your wife hoeing again?”

  “I don’t care enough to ask,” Hector said.

  “So, like, you’re single. Right?”

  Hector eyed the girl. One could argue that they were on a date at the moment. Why he had asked if she wanted to join him, he did not entirely understand. There were all sorts of rationales for what he was doing. When he was willing to be honest with himself, he did want revenge on Jen. He wasn’t proud of that fact, but it was true. She had hurt him and he wanted her to understand what that kind of betrayal felt like. But there was also the sense that the two of them had entered a sacred partnership. They were saving the world. Well, probably not. But they were at least making an attempt.

  Then there was the train wreck that his Volithur dreams had been tely. Hector had never had a high body count, but he had never cked the courage to make a move when he found someone he liked. Maybe he had extended an invitation to Evie because he wanted to prove he wasn’t a skittish romantic like his dream counterpart. He could make the move if he wanted to. He simply had not during his separation from Jen because… well, because on some level he had enjoyed being the wronged party. He had remained true even while she repeatedly cheated. Was that more or less pathetic than Volithur being afraid to look a girl in the eye and tell her that he liked her?

  The dreams disturbed him in more ways than one. At times, he had trouble distinguishing the emotional weight of the dreams from his own opinions. As Volithur’s obsession spiraled, Hector found himself thinking fondly of the animated expressions Khana would make as she spoke to him. He had enough perspective to realize that Khana was damaged goods and wouldn’t make a good partner. Yet the butterflies stirred in his stomach when he thought of their hands brushing together. Well, Volithur’s hand brushing hers.

  “Earth to Hector. Are you single? For real single? Like, not going to freak out if… stuff?”

  Hector nodded. “I’m single.”

  “Then this is a date?”

  “I guess it is. Good job at figuring out my dastardly pn.”

  “I don’t want to ride this bike.”

  Hector grunted. He had intended for the ride to be his workout for the day. He could always do something else for cardio, but it was an annoyance to not complete something he set out to do. “Well, what would you rather do? Have me pay for another meal?”

  “Come watch my band py tonight. Meet the girls.”

  “Sure. I can do that.” Hector gestured to the bike. “Are you sure you don’t want to get a few miles in? You might like it.”

  Evelyn winced. “The st time I rode a bike it had pink tassels coming out of the handlebars. Older guy helping me figure out how to ride… the dad vibes would be too strong.”

  “I see,” Hector said. “I was hoping to get some cardio in. What do you think about running?”

  “You want a cardio workout? Let’s take these bikes back to your house.”

  The implications of her suggestion were not lost on Hector. He loaded the bikes back on the rack strapped to the back of his car and they drove away from the trail head parking lot. “So I’m going to meet the girls,” Hector said, to bring down the tension for a bit. “Anything I should know about them?”

  “How about: they are awesome.”

  “You know, you never even told me the name of your band.”

  Evelyn ughed. “Yeah, because the name is stupid. Goth Girl Metal Extravaganza.”

  They pulled up in front of his house and Hector pced the bicycles back in the garage before gesturing towards the door. “Come in for a drink?”

  She hesitated. “Your wife’s not home?”

  “At work.” Jen had been working more hours at the vet’s office tely in anticipation of Maggie, her elderly miniature collie, needing medical services.

  Evelyn’s reluctance faded and she preceded him into the house. “I’ll have two Negronis, mister bartender.”

  “Your options are wine or beer.”

  She looked through the small collection of dust-covered wine bottles before deciding on a Riesling. “You do not drink often enough, my man.”

  “I’ve been drinking way too much tely as an excuse to sit in public for extended periods.”

  Evelyn took the gss she had been offered and sipped at it. “Not bad.”

  Hector schooled his face to stillness when the sweetness hit his pate. Anymore, everything tasted too sweet to him. He had come to the same conclusion as his foreign-born employees had frequently shared with him: Americans put too much sugar in everything.

  He studied Evelyn for a few moments. “It’s fine if you’re uncomfortable with this. We can grab lunch instead.”

  “No, Hector Thoreaux, I’m not backing out. I’m just awkward as hell when I’m not being outrageously inappropriate. One of my many fws….”

  Hector ughed. “You think you’re awkward? Oh, Evie, you have no idea what awkward is.” He began to expound upon the romantic travails of Volithur while they put back several gsses of wine each, eliciting comments from Evelyn such as ‘that boy is never losing his v-card’, ‘is he afraid of dy parts?’, and ‘I bme this on medieval society’s ck of quality porn’.

  Then she shared some stories with him. Sage Levinia had been a pyer who used her ability to glimpse into the future to sleep with some of the most attractive and famous men of her world. Evelyn ughed as she told some of the anecdotes. Apparently, the attractiveness scale for Arahant could be quite arbitrary, given their ability to cast illusions. Very often, ‘different’ superseded ‘cssically good-looking’ among their kind. And so you would up with people presenting unnatural skin coloration and unusual hair styles.

  “This guy had a blue bee hive like Marge Simpson,” she finished. “Big ole pot belly, Marge Simpson hair, and super girly eyeshes. On top of that, he was terrible in bed.”

  Hector split the st of the wine in the bottle between their two gsses. “Let me ask you a question. Do you ever find yourself getting too emotionally invested in the people from your dreams?”

  “I think that’s a universal problem,” Evelyn said. “I edit a blog that has contributing authors talking about their ‘fantasy lovers’. It’s like a cross between a support group for disenchanted moms and steamy sex stories. We’re all caught up in the stories we live out at night.”

  “That makes me feel less like an idiot, at least.”

  “Because you’re in love with Volithur’s Khana?”

  “Yeah. I’ve never met her, I know she is a train wreck waiting to happen, but….”

  “Don’t feel bad about it. I caught feelings for a guy I have nothing in common with.” The way she blushed and looked down into her wine gss made it clear who she was talking about.

  Hector touched her elbow. “For all the jokes about the ‘save the world’ campaign… this is the most meaningful thing I have ever been a part of. We don’t have a pn, we’re probably going to lose our lives, but we took on a mission that matters more than anything. We’re in this together.”

  Evelyn put her gss down. “I’ve been dying to know one thing since we first met.”

  Hector tilted his head. “What’s that?”

  “Do you have abs? Because it looks like you have abs.”

  “I do have abs,” Hector said.

  “Bust them out.”

  Laughing, Hector lifted his shirt. He did a bit of a stomach vacuum and flexed to make the muscuture pop. Evelyn reached out to caress the contours, then pulled his shirt off entirely so she could run her hands over his chest, shoulders, biceps, obliques, and come back to his abs. “Damn, Hector. You should stick with that exercising shit. I think it might be working for you.”

  He pulled her closer to him and seized her shirt. “Do you mind if I throw your shirt on the ground? I think it would look great next to mine.”

  “I never understood modern art, but you do you, big man.”

  Hector pulled the shirt up slowly, revealing pale flesh and the outline of ribs along her long, thin torso. He stopped removing the shirt when it was over her face, adjusting it to expose her lips, which he pressed his own to as he ran a hand down her ribs.

  Evelyn took her shirt off the rest of the way and pulled his face back to her own with both hands. As they stumbled towards the bedroom, they paused at frequent intervals to remove further items of clothing. They wore nothing by the time they hit the sheets.