*Kenneth

Kenneth eyeballed the teka maki at the end of his chopsticks, food poisoning statistics for uncooked seafood running through his head.

He could do this. Regular people ate sushi every day.

Dip funky round food in soy sauce, smear with wasabi, and boom—in his mouth.

Boom—in his mouth.

And boom...he couldn't do it.

Reese was halfway through her bento box already, thoroughly enjoying her lunch, free of food poisoning, at least so far. She motioned at his sushi with her chop-sticks. "Take time to savor the meal so you can talk to your date. Ask questions. Answer questions, but don't talk about yourself too long. If the opportunity presents itself and seems right, you can offer to share a particularly tasty bite of your food, but a part you haven't touched yet. Eating together is one of the most important rituals you will ever engage in with a woman, besides making love, of course."

He choked. He couldn't do this in public.

"It feels odd because we're not attracted to each other, but this is great practice for the real thing." She touched his arm. "Would you like one of my salmon roe rolls?"

Reese was touching his arm. He vaguely registered that she offered one of her squishy fish egg rolls, but there was skin to skin contact. That tiny touch sparked mad desires in him. He wanted to pick her up and carry her off, caveman style to his den, light fires with sticks, and roast meat—meat—for her, then have wild sex for six hours.

Six. Hours.

He dropped his chopsticks. If a little thing like arm touching ignited his lizard brain—limbic lobe, amygdala, and hippocampus firing torpedo neurons at full speed—how was he going to get through his date with Amanda like a civilized human being?

Focusing on the situation at hand, he reached for his coat pocket. "Before I forget, this is for you." He removed a thick envelope imprinted with his bank's name and logo and set in on the table next to her water. "Three thousand, as agreed."

"Wow. Thank you for your confidence, but I think half now and half later would be—"

"I know you are going to get me through this, Reese. Take it now."

She pressed her lips together, not protesting any further, and tucked the thick envelope in her purse. "For this to work, I need to know more about you. Your dating and relationship experiences in the past. Everything. Where are the problems, what do we need to concentrate on, etcetera. I'll send some worksheets for you to fill out as soon as possible. Today, keep in mind that seduction is most natural and satisfactory when two people are attracted to each other. You say the date you have lined up is promising—is she your ideal sort of woman?"

"Without a doubt. It's no accident, though. I selected her specifically. All the reading I've done shows that opposites do not attract or form lasting relationships, statistically speaking. With that in mind, I reviewed the available women on the dating sites. Then I listed desirable qualities in order of importance such as proximity, common interests, career goals, favorite book, favorite games, and attractiveness. And then I filtered the list based on that, entered in the numbers for the likely candidates, and found the most likely matches."

Reese blinked. She frowned, eyebrows pinching together. "I love how physical attractiveness is last in your list. Shows a lot of emotional maturity. Women will sense that like sharks smell blood and come for you."

It was his turn to blink several times. "Does this have anything to do with"—he lowered his voice and glanced around nervously—"shark week?"

Coughing, she managed to answer no while catching onto his meaning. She slurped her tea, then whispered, "What do you know about shark week?"

"Is the first rule of shark week not to talk about shark week?"

"Very clever. Plus, show up with chocolates and you'll be safe."

He heaved a sigh of relief. "I've been told I'm clever before. But about showing emotional maturity, that's a good thing?"

"Definitely."

"Because the shark analogy doesn't do it for me. And to be honest, attractiveness is number two on my priorities."

"Ah. What's number one?"

"Cosplay."

"That's like the Ren Faire but for sci-fi?"

He took her hands in his. "Not exactly, but don't worry about it. Also, I've noticed when you get stressed, there is this double line that appears between your eyebrows and your shoulders tense. That can't be healthy."

She freed her hands. That was a bad sign, right? "If there were an official list of rules for men to follow concerning women, up at the top somewhere would be 'Never point out a woman's wrinkles.' Full stop."

"But they're cute. It's personality. Character."

"And the rule right after it would be 'Don't use cute to describe any random body part.' Capisce?"

"Did you know the correct form would actually be capisci?"

"I have another rule for you," she said, hands fisted. "Are you writing these down?"

"You probably wouldn't believe how excellent my memory is."

She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly through her nose. As she released, a humming sound came from her throat.

A yoga technique. Nice. He had watched a YouTube video on breathing techniques once. "Does breathing like that help with stress?"

"You wouldn't believe how much. All right. Are you going to eat that? Should we give up on the eating ritual for now? Because there is shopping we need to do."

Kenneth rubbed the back of his neck. Of all the evil things upon this planet... "How much shopping?"

"Glasses, clothes, shoes, for starters," she said.

"Sure. If you're with me, I can take the pain." Ignoring the growing tension in his shoulders, he picked up his tray. "I'll be back at my desk in an hour, right?"

"I'd say it will take a bit longer than forty-five minutes, but who knows? We might glide through the stores like penguins on ice and get really lucky."

"Penguins? So, the coaching for the rest of today is shopping?"

"Lunch-time coaching is shopping. Tonight, I think we need to work in depth on wooing and conversation. Romantic dinner setting this time. I mean, you're twenty-eight, and you obviously have some success at getting a first date, so it's not like you need work on lower-level confidence. I mean, it's not like you still have your V card." She shoved her trash in the can with a chuckle. "All right, let's go conquer your new look!"

Reese clapped his shoulder to guide him onward.

He remained rooted to the spot.

"Reese, what do you mean I don't have a V card? Of course I still have my V card."

*** And his secret is out! The big question is, what is Reese going to do about it? ***