Saint Vidicon to the Rescue

Chapter 7

“The court reminds counsel that this is only a preliminary hearing to discover if there is enough evidence to warrant sending this case to the grand jury,” the judge said. The fact that we were in his chambers instead of a courtroom should have been enough reminder of that, but it never hurt to make sure.

“Your Honor,” Charlotte said, “we move to dismiss.”

The judge raised an eyebrow. “Really, Ms. Russe? On what grounds?”

“The law as it is written is unconstitutional, Your Honor. It operates in restraint of trade and restricts the development of a system that may well prove vital to national welfare.”

“An interesting notion,” the judge said drily, “and one we’ll let the appellate court deal with once this case is resolved. Council for the prosecution?”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” The bright young assistant district attorney stood up; surely the half dozen gray-haired, hard-faced lawyers behind her were only there as observers. I imagined them all wearing name tags that said, PROPERTY OF AMALGAMATED OIL. “May it please the court,” the young lawyer said, “it’s clear the defendants have willfully broken the law by planning to manufacture automobiles that will burn pure alcohol.” She went on to cite the brand-new law, introduced a recording of the press demonstration with Gadget explaining that the car with her prototype carburetor would run on ethanol, then watching the car roar away from the curb. The lawyer stopped the videotape with a triumphant flourish of her remote, and said, “These statements to the press must surely be as good as a confession, Your Honor.”

The judge managed to keep a straight face. There wasn’t any jury, it being only a hearing.

Mather’s lead attorney stepped out. “But the law specifies pure ethanol, and the fuel Mr. Smith developed for Ms. Farnum’s carburetor isn’t pure. He has added chemicals that retard combustion.”

“Nonsense!” the prosecutor said with just the right amount of indignity. “The additives constitute less than one percent of the fuel. It’s still virtually pure.”

“Virtual isn’t pure,” Mather’s lawyer retorted. “The law stipulates ethanol that is a hundred percent pure. The language doesn’t admit of the slightest adulteration.”

The judge nodded at the prosecutor, beginning to look as though he was enjoying the session.

“Less than one percent of additive surely still qualifies as pure under the intention of the law,” the prosecutor maintained, “and the additive retarding the combustion rate to avoid dieseling certainly makes it significant.”

“The additives were necessary to comply with the law,” Mather’s lawyer answered.

“Ah, but the second additive wasn’t necessary until Mr. Smith had put in his first additive, which was there solely to make the ethanol undrinkable,” the prosecutor maintained, “a clear attempt to circumvent the law.”

“But it was that additive that made the fuel prone to dieseling,” the defense countered, “which made it clearly an improvement in the fuel.” She started to say something more, but hesitated at an urge that pressed suddenly into awareness at the back of her mind—almost as though a little voice was saying, That’s enough. Let her bring up intention.

Sure enough, the prosecutor said, “But the purpose of that first additive wasn’t to improve the fuel, Your Honor. It was there to make the fuel undrinkable, which clearly showed awareness of the intent of the law.”

Charlotte opened her mouth with an indignant retort, but it seemed as though her tongue wouldn’t move—and the little voice was urging caution again.

When Charlotte didn’t jump in with a protest, the judge turned to her with a lifted eyebrow. “Counselor?”

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“No response on the matter of intention?”

Charlotte shrugged. ”None needed, Your Honor. If the intent of the law was to prevent the sale of cheap, pure ethanol in order to make sure it wouldn’t encourage alcoholism, then surely my client’s adding a chemical that would make the fuel disgusting in taste, and cause regurgitation, shows a willingness”—and, at a sudden inspiration—“even a zeal to comply with the law.”

“Ridiculous!” the prosecution exploded. “Your Honor, if the first additive made the fuel burn so hot that it induced dieseling, clearly the intent was to make it an even more effective fuel!”

The judge nodded at Charlotte, very obviously enjoying things now.

“The dieseling was only a side effect of making the ethanol impure and undrinkable,” Charlotte maintained. It was nice to be able to state the simple truth for a change.

“Nonsense!” the prosecutor cried. “If the fuel was more effective, why add the second chemical to make it less effective?”

“To restore the original purpose of the carburetor,” Charlotte said reasonably, “which was to make the fuel of benefit to existing engines in passenger cars with the changing of only that one part.”

“Well, if they really wanted ordinary consumers to be running their cars on ethanol, why did they come up with an additive that made it work for commercial diesel engines?” the prosecutor demanded.

This time it wasn’t a little voice so much as a temptation, and Charlotte gave in with glee. “To make it undrinkable and unpure, so it would comply with the law!”

The prosecutor started an angry retort, but the judge banged his gavel. “Enough! When the argument starts going in circles, we’ve heard everything that’s going to make any difference. The court finds in favor of the defendant and rules that no law has been broken, nor was intended to be broken. The statute in question says nothing about any carburetor, modified or otherwise. It only prohibits the sale of pure ethanol as a fuel, and the defense has established to the court’s satisfaction that the fuel in question is no longer pure. Besides, the law is in restraint of trade anyway and restricts the development of a system that may well prove vital to national welfare. Case dismissed!”

He banged the gavel. Gadget leaped up and hugged Charlotte, and I rose, grinning, to watch them. I still wasn’t ready for it when Gadget whirled and hugged me, but I adapted.

And in the moist mauve corridor, Saint Genesius reached out through his hyperspatial window to shake Father Vidicon’s hand.

“Masterful prompting!” the priest exulted.

“Who should know that skill better than an actor?” the saint returned, then waved as his window closed.

Father Vidicon turned to stride on down the throat of Hell, swelling with the delight of the latest victory, even if it hadn’t really been his.

Two days before Christmas, Gadget and Charlotte sat at the bar clinking glasses with me. “To the wisdom of the court!” I toasted.

“And the good sense of a level-headed judge!” Charlotte sipped, then asked, “So how many millions are you going to insist on banking before you quit your night job, Nick?”

All that slowed the growth of the alcohol car was the speed with which the HOOCH stations could be built. Private enterprise took up the slack in its usual way—by thousands of filling stations converting at least one of their gasoline pumps to alcohol. After all, they’d already added high-voltage wiring for the recharging stations for the electric cars of forgetful owners, and methane cylinders for the other new kind of car on the market. Three years later, the filling stations had one gas pump at most, and the only people who used it were antique car collectors. Gadget and I were both rich from a flood of royalty money, and from our sugar company stocks soaring as the commodity market did booming business in futures of sugarcane, sugar beets, and every kind of grain that could be turned into ethanol. Detroit retooled very quickly, and in five years had cut out production of gasoline automobiles completely. When the electricity companies switched to ethanol too, petroleum sales dropped to only plastics manufacturers. Not that the big oil companies were hurting, of course—the minute the judge banged his gavel, they had started investing in farmland and building stills the size of office buildings. Rumor had it that the plastics companies were developing materials that could be made from plant fiber, and that Middle East terrorists were targeting their research laboratories.

All of which was pretty heady stuff for the two brand-new billionaires who clinked glasses at the Coq d’Or one night. Gadget was stunning in a hundred-dollar coiffure and a Paris gown. I only looked half as good in my tuxedo.

“To United Auto Parts and Biochemicals,” she said.

“And to many contracts from Detroit,” I seconded, and we sipped. I let the wine roll back against my palate and wondered if I would ever be able to tell the difference between this French vintage and the box of wine in my refrigerator.

“May our companies’ merger expand all our markets,” Gadget said with a smile.

“To conglomeration,” I said, “as long as it’s ours.” Then I quieted, gazing into her eyes as I let my fingers stroke the bowl of my glass and wondered if I dared.

Gadget must have caught some hint of my intentions, because she only managed a half laugh before she swallowed nervously, never taking her eyes from mine. “What, Nick?” Her voice was short on breath.

Do or die. “I was thinking about another merger,” I said.

“Really?” Gadget didn’t sound as though it was any surprize. “What kind?”

“Between people,” I said, “you and me. Would you run screaming if I proposed?”

Gadget reached out to catch my hand with warm fingers, and her smile was warmer still. “I’ll scream if you don’t.”

But I didn’t, not for a few minutes, anyway. I was too busy gazing into her eyes. Made sense—they were all I could see.

Tony envied Nick, of course, envied him like fury—but as long as he was hovering around them as a disembodied presence, he could share Nick’s romance vicariously. After all, they were a lot alike—engineers, just in different fields—except that Nick had lucked into meeting Gadget. It was enough to make Tony think he should take up bartending, too.

Then the two young lovers seemed to grow smaller, the people at the tables around them began to become visible, and Tony realized that they were moving away. No, he was moving away—or his viewpoint was. The scene he was watching began to redden, then faded into the maroon that was becoming all too familiar. He looked up to see St. Vidicon watching him with a broad smile. “Success?”

“Double,” Tony said. “Their ethanol car is legal, the world’s dwindling oil supplies are safe, and they’re about to become engaged.”

“Wonderful.” The smile turned into a grin. “I love happy endings.”

“Then how about giving me one?” Tony asked.

“Ah! That, I fear, is up to you and Sandy,” the saint said. “I cannot guarantee the conclusion we both wish—but I can promise that, long though the day may be, you’ll have more than enough energy to take Sandy dancing.”

“But I don’t know how.”

“Oh, we can take care of that, too,” St. Vidicon said, amused.

“Oh, good! An e-mail from Marge.” Liza clicked on the link. “Wonder why she didn’t have a subject, though?”

“No subject?” From the next desk, April looked up with foreboding.

“Yeah, she’s kinda scatterbrained.” Liza frowned at the screen. “That’s funny, there’s no message . . . oh, an attachment!” She clicked on the icon just as April lunged around the partition and yanked the network connector out of Liza’s computer. “Hey, what did you do that for?” Liza protested. “You made my screen turn blue!”

“It wasn’t being unplugged that gave you the Blue Screen of Death,” April said grimly, “it was the virus in that attachment! Hope you didn’t have anything important on your hard drive, Liza.”

Liza stared, appalled. Then she asked, “Unplugging me caused it to wipe my hard drive?”

“No, unplugging it kept the virus from infecting our whole network.” April picked up the phone. “Now we have to kill that virus before we dare plug you back in—and who knows? It may be cheaper to buy you a new terminal.”

Liza blanched and prayed silently, St. Vidicon, save me from Finagle!

April punched buttons. “Hello, Business Systems Solutions? We have a virus . . .”

Only two more days till his date with Sandy. On the other hand, there were a whole two days left before he could see Sandy again! Tony went to work, hoping for distraction. Maybe the whole Internet would crash? That could distract him for a few hours.

He was idling through his e-mail thinking of Sandy when Harve stuck his head around the partition. “Pack up your old kit bag, kiddo!”

“Why?” Tony looked up, interested. “And isn’t that supposed to be, ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag’?”

“No, the trouble’s waiting for you: infected computer, but a savvy office worker managed to unplug it from the network before it spread—we hope.”

“On my way!” Tony grabbed his briefcase and ran, pulse pounding with the delight of distraction. This ought to make the time pass a little quicker.

Harve handed him a slip of paper as he passed. “Monahan Securities. Here’s the address.”

Tony sat down at Liza’s computer, called up the operating system’s code, and ran his bug-detector. The screen sat immobile, but Tony knew the routine and waited.

Suddenly the code jumped, and Tony found himself staring at a highlighted section—one that seemed to be growing, digit by digit, even as he watched. He contemplated the whole screen, trying line by line to understand the context and figure out the gist of the anomaly. As his concentration grew, the code seemed to expand from the screen until it surrounded him completely.

It was terrifying at first, but Tony was getting used to it—the sensation of falling, this time into the screen. The digits seemed to grow until they were taller than he, and he found himself wandering through a forest of ones and zeros. He picked his way through a huge loop, trying to find the section of code that had still been growing the last he had seen of it.

There it was, only the ones and zeros had been compressed into a tubular shape—tubular and writhing. With horror, Tony found himself staring at a worm.

An orifice opened at one end, and the worm swallowed healthy digits by the dozens—but its farther end excreted clumps of distorted code. Tony’s gaze snapped to the garbage output; he was tempted to try to puzzle it out, but he already knew what it did—and the worm was coursing toward him. It reared, and the mouth at its front was rimmed with inward-pointing fangs: ones with points.

“St. Vidicon defend me!” Tony cried, and a clanging and clashing of metal answered him. Looking down, he was amazed to see he was encased in steel—armor, and as he lifted his head, a visor fell down to protect his eyes.

The worm struck; he lifted an arm to ward it off—and saw his own face reflected in the back of a shield. It rang like a gong, and the shock almost knocked Tony off his feet; he realized the worm had struck the shield. He raised his right hand to try to separate the ones and zeros that made up its body—and found he was holding a sword.

The worm struck again, but Tony pivoted, amazed at the lightness of his armor. The worm roared wrath and turned about to strike once more. Tony lifted his blade, crying, “Aroint thee, worm!” Then he stared, amazed at the medieval words that had leaped from his lips.

The worm pounced, gobbling them up, then froze. Tony frowned, not understanding—but he did realize his words had stalled the creature. He started talking, babbling, saying whatever came to mind. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this vicious worm from equation to equation, to the last byte of recorded code!”

The worm gobbled up the syllables as they fell.

Tony pressed on. “And all our technology serves but to enable fools to greater folly.”

The worm froze, and Tony knew his words, and their lack of logic, were roiling within its innards. “Out, out, coded creature!”

The worm convulsed, then began to thrash about in aimless pain, toppling digits all about it.

“Thou art but a crawling shadow,” Tony called, “a poor program that frets and hangs blue curtains upon the screen and then—is seen no more!” So saying, he fell upon the worm, chopping it into writhing blocks of digits, then prying apart the bytes to bits. In a few minutes, the worm had ceased to exist and was only a litter of ones and zeros lying in heaps about Tony.

“As goes the bit, so goes the byte.” Tony sighed, sheathing his sword. Good or bad, it had been an amazing construct. Taking off his helmet and pulling off his gauntlets, Tony knelt to begin trying to reorder the digits into something harmless but useful—and found the armor evaporating, the shield and sword subliming into mist. He looked upward with a grateful smile. “Thanks, St. Vidicon.” Then he got back to work.

“Time for coffee.”

Tony’s head snapped back; he looked up into Harve’s concerned face. “Uh—what?”

“Time for a coffee break,” Harve explained, then put a fatherly hand on Tony’s shoulder. “They called me over when you wouldn’t respond to anything they said. You okay?”

“Okay? Forsooth! Uh, I mean—yeah.” Tony stood up, feeling as though he’d run a mile after a full-hour workout. “Got the system fixed, too.”

“Really!” Somehow, Harvey didn’t sound all that surprized. “How’d you get rid of it?”

“With a little help from a friend.” Tony tried a step, found he could keep his balance. “And I could really use that coffee.”

Of course, Tony didn’t have the nerve to ask Sandy for a date every night. He felt presumptuous enough asking for Fridays and Saturdays. So after work every day, he stopped into his favorite coffeehouse for a cappuccino and a browse through the evening paper. He most pointedly did not go to an Internet cafe; he was content to leave his work in the office. So it was a bit of a surprize when the well-groomed stranger sat down at his table and asked, “Tony Ricci?”

Tony looked up from the paper, startled, then sat up straight. “I am, yes. And you are . . . ?”

“Jane Harr.” The woman held out her hand. “I’m with Morgan, Baldwin, and Dallas.”

Tony froze in the act of shaking hands, recognizing the name of the second most prestigious computer consulting firm in town. Then he finished the handshake, mustering his composure—which wasn’t hard, since he could feel his defenses going up—and said, “Pleased to meet you.”

“And I to meet you.” Harr smiled. “We’ve been hearing quite a lot about you across town.”

“I didn’t do it,” Tony said automatically.

Harr laughed. “On the contrary, we hear you did. The computer interrupted by some hacker’s short story, the virus trashing the system, the worm at the securities company—oh yes, you’re developing quite a reputation.”

“Oh. Well.” Tony dismissed the accomplishments with a wave of his hand. “Just good fortune, you know. Lucky hunches.” He could almost feel St. Vidicon bridling at being called a “lucky hunch.”

“But that’s what we need,” Harr said, “someone who happens to have lucky hunches about computer problems. You’re not going to go very far in this industry staying with a small start-up company.”

Stubborn loyalty rose in Tony—why, he didn’t know. “They treat me pretty well at Bald and Chane.”

“I’m sure,” Harr said, “but does that include paying you what you’re worth?”

Tony shrugged. “No complaints about salary.”

“Other than that they have to pay you by the month because they’d go broke if they paid you by the hour,” Harr said with a smile of amusement.

That rubbed Tony the wrong way, especially because it was probably true. He shrugged. “That’s a pretty standard reason for putting people on salary—and there’s no way to tell how long these lucky hunches will last.”

“And no way to tell how long it will be before Bald and Chane is bought out by a bigger consulting firm,” Harr said.

Tony stared, then shook his head, smiling. “They’d never sell.”

“For two million dollars?”

Tony did some quick mental calculations that the firm was probably billing about half a million a year—and that was gross. “They still wouldn’t sell.” He raised his glass to sip as he asked, “Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?”

“To get a golden goose, of course,” Harr said, “one that lays nice little nuggets of regular payments. All right, so the buyout price might be higher, but they’ll sell when they realize they can live very comfortably for the rest of their lives if they invest wisely.”

Tony almost choked at the thought of Al Bald and Harvey Chane investing wisely. He set the glass down carefully, reminding himself that they would probably have the good sense to choose a sound mutual fund. “If I liked the new management, I’d stay on.”

“If you could,” Harr said. “New management usually wants to pick its own players. You’d be wiser to come to a bigger company now, for half again as much as you’re earning.”

That gave Tony pause; another thirty thousand a year was nothing to laugh at. But he remembered how Harvey had gone to bat for him when he walked out on the client manager who’d thought that hiring a consultant gave him the right to rant and rave at Tony. You couldn’t put a price on that kind of support. “I’ll jump that ship when it starts sinking.”

“I hope you have a life raft when it does.” Harr handed him a card. “Think it over; there’s no rush. If you change your mind within the week, let me know.” She smiled, rose, and left.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief. He would never have guessed that being offered a better job could be so nerve-wracking.

“One-two-three, one-two-three—that’s right, a sort of swinging diagonal. Turn as you step . . . yes, that’s it. One-two-three, one-two-three . . .”

Side by side, the systems analyst and the saint stepped off the classic pattern of the waltz. The ruby hall within which they danced certainly didn’t provide the best footing for the project, but it had room enough.

“You don’t really have to do this,” Tony gasped. “I am taking lessons, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Father Vidicon said grimly, “and I’ve seen how much progress you’re making. Face it, Tony—we have to reprogram the motor skills in your brain, and the best way to do that is to practice while you’re asleep. From the beginning, now—one-two-three, one-two-three . . .”

The saint drilled him mercilessly for half an hour. The bright side of it was that, being only his dream-self, Tony’s legs wouldn’t ache in the morning.

Finally satisfied with Tony’s progress, Father Vidicon called a halt. “You’ll do for the evening. Are you sure the band will be playing a waltz in a nightclub?”

Tony nodded. “It’s the music for a really great dance sequence in the hit movie of the summer, Father. It probably won’t last out the year, but it’s back and very big at the moment, so every band has come up with its own rock waltz.”

Father Vidicon shuddered. “If you say so, Tony. You can be sure you’ll be competent. Remember, though, hold her no closer than six inches!”

At least Father Vidicon’s errands kept Tony busy in the evenings and helped pass the time until he could see Sandy again. The days dragged, and it became harder and harder to keep his mind on his various minor fix-it tasks when visions of green eyes and a mischievous smile kept appearing on the computer screen.

Then, suddenly, it was Friday night.

Tony had to swallow hard as he rang Sandy’s doorbell. He wasn’t ready for this.

You’re as ready as you’ll ever be, a little voice said inside his head, and he was pretty sure he knew whose. He was very much afraid Father Vidicon might be right.

The tiny loudspeaker above the mailboxes asked in a tinny version of Sandy’s voice, “Who is it?”

“Tony,” he called in answer. “Ready for the Marinara?”

“Famished!” she answered. “Be right down.”

Tony stood waiting, wondering where his question had come from. How had he known how to ask the right one?

He thought he knew the answer, but he tried to ignore it. Surely he could do his own talking! Not that he wouldn’t appreciate whatever help he could get . . .

Then she was there, resplendent in an ivory dress with a subtle flower pattern, a strand of pearls, and a dark wrap draped over her arm, opening the door with a smile of anticipation.

“Wow,” Tony breathed, and could feel his eyes bulging. Then, a bit louder, “You’re lovelier than ever tonight.”

“Why, thank you, sir.” The roguish smile said she was pleased. “Ready to whisk me away on your magic carpet?”

“Why, yes, fair lady.” Tony took the wrap, held it for her as she turned away, and slipped it on. As she turned back, he offered his arm. “I hope you don’t mind yellow carpets with wheels.”

“My favorite.” She stepped down the stairs beside him and into the cab.

It was a good beginning for a wonderful evening. After dinner, Tony remembered that he had a couple of tickets to a jazz concert and, better yet, had them with him. After the jazz came a couple of drinks—one apiece, just enough to lower Tony’s inhibitions so that, when Sandy glanced longingly at the hardwood, he actually heard himself asking, “Care to dance?”

“Yes, if you can dance with care,” Sandy returned, and held out her hand. They stepped out onto the floor and, wonder of wonders, Tony remembered the steps Father Vidicon had taught him. Even more surprising, he actually had some coordination. He knew he was out of fashion, but Sandy joined in enthusiastically. Tony had no trouble remembering the six-inch rule on the fast dance, but on the slow one, Sandy stepped right up against him, and the exaggerated shuffle everybody else was doing didn’t leave much room for the box step Tony had learned. Nonetheless, he tried it, and managed to open up at least an inch between them on the turns. Sandy seemed surprized, but not really disappointed.

By the time she said, “No, thanks,” to his offer of another dance, and by way of explanation, “I’m kinda tired,” Tony was surprized to realize almost an hour had passed.

They chatted pleasantly on the way out the door and home in the cab; Tony discovered a knack for delivering straight lines with a straighter face, and Sandy was delighted to come in with the punch lines. He was in a happy daze as he opened the cab door for her—it was the first date he’d ever had that had gone really well. So, all in all, he shouldn’t have been surprized when she opened her door, then turned back, and asked him, “Want to come in for a nightcap?”

“Uh . . .” Tony swallowed. “Uh, yeah! Thanks. Let me go tell the cab.” He kept himself from running down the steps, handed the driver a ten and a five, and said, “Come back for me in half an hour, okay?”

“Sure, buddy.” The driver winked. “How long do you want me to wait when I come back?”

“Oh . . . ten minutes,” Tony said. “I’m sure I won’t be late.”

“Tough luck,” the driver sympathized. “Step in the right direction, though.”

As he drove off, Tony turned and went back up the stairs, reflecting that it was only the first of many probable steps.

“Thoughtful of you,” Sandy said, still smiling, and opened the door.

“Cab drivers are people, too,” Tony said, as they started up the inside stairs, “and you want them to remember you fondly.”

“Boy, is that ever true!” Sandy said with a grimace. “The number of times I’ve stood on a street corner in the rain, wishing a driver I knew would see me and pull over ...”

“I’m surprized even a strange cab driver wouldn’t pull over after one look at you,” Tony said gallantly.

“Why, thank you, sir,” Sandy said with a mock curtsy.

They only had to climb one flight, and the lingering smell of cabbage told Tony that this wasn’t a singles-only building. “Do you get to know your neighbors here?”

“Not really.” Sandy unlocked her door. “I leave too early. But I do get to hear raised voices as they try to get the kids ready for school.” There was something wistful about her tone, but before Tony could register it, she had opened the door and turned on the lights.

The table lamps were set low, illuminating a room that was decorated not to display good taste but to seem warm and cozy. Sandy stepped over to a stereo, hit a button, and the sound of strings murmured over the room. She hung her wrap on a hat rack, then went over to a console across the room. “Just hang up your coat and sit anywhere.”

Hopefully, Tony sat on the couch.

Sandy opened the top of the console and took out a bottle. “Crème de menthe okay?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

She brought the two miniature glasses and sat beside him on the sofa, not too close, as she handed him his. He sipped and nodded appreciatively. “This would be good first thing in the morning.”

Sandy stared. “You’re not an alcoholic!”

“No, but it sure beats my mouthwash.”

The stare held a second, then dissolved in laughter. “Serves me right for taking you seriously.”

“Well, I’m serious some of the time.”

“Most of the time, from what I’ve seen of you.” Sandy gave him a merry look over the rim of her glass. “But you did it with such a straight face! How am I supposed to know when you are and when you aren’t?”

“Content,” Tony said. “If it’s important, I’m serious. For example, if I tell you you’re beautiful, that’s serious.”

Sandy blushed and turned away to set her glass on the coffee table. “Don’t, Tony.”

Tony heaved a sigh. “You see my problem? People don’t want to know what I really think unless I make a joke out of it.”

“You’d better not be joking if you say something like that!” Sandy glared at him, her face scarcely a foot away.

“I’m not,” Tony said.

They sat staring at one another for a few heartbeats. Then, slowly, Tony leaned forward and kissed her.

Her lips were soft beneath his, but nothing more—until he began nibbling. Then she gasped and began to return the kiss.

Tony was about to deepen the kiss and bring up a hand to touch when a voice inside his head said, very clearly, No closer than six inches, Tony!