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“I have legs to make,” I say frostily.
“Make them short and bowed,” Aislin says.
“You know I’m not going to do that.”
“Oh, I know that,” she says, triumphant. “You’re going to make them long and muscular. You’re going to slide the lifestyle bar all the way over to track star.”
“Am not.”
But of course in the end that’s exactly what I do. Adam gets long legs. And muscular thighs. And well-developed calves.
He is now three disconnected bits. Leg. Leg. Torso and head.
There is, shall we say, a certain empty space in between those three pieces.
“The undiscovered country,” Aislin intones in a video voice-over.
“Muffins, anyone?”
Solo enters, rolling the coffee cart.
“My point exactly,” Aislin says, motioning him over.
I have several long, long seconds to wonder which is more embarrassing: a giant image of an Adam with a number of missing parts? Or an Adam with those parts?
“How’re you feeling, Aislin?” Solo asks. He doesn’t glance at me.
“I’m better now,” she says, giving him an up-and-down. She grabs a cruller.
“Heard you moved out of the clinic,” Solo says, looking at me for the first time.
“No point in staying,” I reply flatly. “I’m a freak of nature, as you know.”
“Yeah, well. I’m on food-cart duty for one more day,” Solo says, as if I’d just told him I had a hangnail. “I thought I’d come by and see whether you need anything. Chips? Snickers bar?” He pauses, surveying our incomplete Adam. “Hot dog?”
Aislin leans forward, very serious. “Do you have anything heartier than a hot dog? Say, a kielbasa? Italian sausage? A whole salami?”
She is making hand gestures as she goes along.
Solo’s face goes red. He’s only good for about one round of flirtation with Aislin. After that he loses his way.
“He’s shy,” Aislin reports to me as if Solo isn’t there. “I don’t know: Should we make Adam shy? It’s kind of cute.”
“I’ll take a sandwich. Not salami,” I say. “Turkey.”
Solo pulls a turkey sandwich off his cart. He hands it to me and snags a napkin. The napkin drops to the floor. I automatically reach for it, but Solo’s already down on one knee. He grabs the napkin and hands it to me.
Except that when I reach for it, he’s got my hand in his and the napkin is only part of what he’s giving me.
Something small, maybe an inch long, hard and rectangular.
Our eyes meet.
He stands up.
“The other night, I noticed you had your laptop in your room,” he says quietly. “MacBook Pro. A little old school, huh? Still has a USB drive.”
And I know right then what he’s slipped me. A thumb drive.
