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“Well … no. Not in the way I can imagine you might be picturing it.”
He gave her a wicked grin. “Are you sure? Because It’s a lovely picture, I have going.”
“Stop.” She used her mother voice.
“Okay. So, How did you give being a lesbian a go?”
“I played thirty questions and stared into her eyes for fifteen minutes.”
“You’ll have to fill me in. I’m at a loss,” Halo said as they bobbled along the path, keeping to the higher, drier areas where they could. Pointing, he said, “That’s the pool I swam in if you want to try.”
“You’ll guard me?”
He put his hand on his heart. “With my life.”
And Mary giggled. This whole thing. All of it was outlandish. And she was feeling drunk on it. “Filling you in. There’s a list of thirty questions that they’ve studied scientifically. And they’ve proven that if you sit across from someone and answer each question, you will come to love them.”
“And the staring part?”
“Is part of the falling in love.”
“I see. And the science was wrong?”
“No, it was right,” Mary said. “I love her dearly - but like a sister. She’s fostering my foster cat while I’m away. It’s a mean cat, by the way. He hates human contact and hides all day long, only coming out to eat and use the litter box. Fostering cats was a first attempt on a twenty-try-it thing that I think—for me—will also be a hard no going forward. So I guess that’s two things that didn’t work out.”
Halo laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He laughed again. “Sorry.”
“Stop snort-laughing and tell me what.”
Halo rested his hand on Max’s head.
Max was staring at Mary with a singular intensity, and Halo followed the look from Max to her and back to Max as if he was trying to read some hidden communication. “It would be ungentlemanly,” he said—something just a bit off in his tone.
Mary sniffed her bouquet, enjoying their banter. “I give you permission to be a momentary creep. Thirty seconds. Go.”
“You thought maybe your thirty questions friend could take care of your pussy, and now she’s taking care of your pussy.”
“Okay, nice, you got that in with ten seconds to spare.”
“Did you want me to finish the ten seconds?”
“Nope. Now you’re out of creep-time.”
“Good thing.”
“Yes, it is.”
They had reached a little tree next to the pool that Halo had pointed out to her. It was on a slight rise that was a little less wet and mushy. She sat down and pulled off the bog shoes, then her pants.
“So not just twenty things but twenty things for twenty hours?” Halo whispered, taking a full step back, both hands on Max’s lead as her shirt and then her bra found their way to the little pile.
“Except for being a lesbian, that was a single hour of questions.”
“And then the staring.”