“Nah.” Mark waved his hand. “I like hearing what people are passionate about. You learn all kinds of things that way. Everybody’s got something they’re geeked about.”

“Geeked?” I laughed again. “I didn’t know geek was a verb.”

“Sure.” Mark actually held my chair for me as I sat down. What fascinating and bizarre behavior the courting male displayed. I wondered if he’d try ordering my dinner for me, too. “I’ve got this theory,” he said as he sat down. “Used to be that being a geek was a bad thing, like being a dork or a nerd, right?”

I put my elbows on the table and folded my fingers under my chin. “Sure.”

“Right.” He nodded. “But then computers got to be everyday appliances, people needed geeks, and now it’s pretty cool to be a geek. And I think the word has adapted. Now you can be a computer geek, a car geek, a cooking geek—”

“Those are called foodies,” I interrupted, smiling. Mark made a face at me and I laughed out loud again. “Sorry. I think I got that word from the Food Network.”

“You’re not sorry.” He didn’t look in the slightest bit upset, though, turning his face-making into a laugh of his own. “My point is if you’ve got a hobby or a job or a passion that you know a lot about, that other people don’t, you’re that kind of geek, and you get geeked about your topic.”

“So geeked is a new word for excited,” I said. “Were you an English major, Mark?”

His eyebrows quirked. “It shows?”

I made a loose fist and put it out, palm down. Mark, who knew a cue when he saw one, did the same and bonked his knuckles against mine. “Fellow English majors of the world, unite.”

“Bad spellers of the world,” Mark said, half under his breath, and together we said, “Untie!” Mark’s grin went so wide it looked fit to split his face. He put his menu aside—I hadn’t even noticed the waiter handing them to us—and said, “Know what really drives me insane? Misused quote marks on signs. ’Big “sale”’,” he said, complete with air quotes around “sale.” “’Price “reduction”’. ’Lasagna “special”’.”

“Oh, my God. Me, too.” I actually leaned forward and grabbed his hand in sympathy. He was too good to be true. Not only was he cute and willing to listen to me babble about Petite, but he had the same language issues I did. I wanted one of my very own.

The thought that I could possibly have one of my very own heated my cheeks. Taking him home for a not-repeat of last night’s performance suddenly sounded pretty entertaining. For the first time I could remember, the idea made me smile, and I wasn’t embarrassed at all to let my English geek get out of hand. “Doesn’t it make you just want to stop and fix the signs, or go in and yell at people until they understand that using quotes like that implies sarcasm? That they’re saying exactly the opposite of what they mean? ’“Rock-bottom prices”’!” Now I did air quotes, too, which was probably good, as it released Mark’s hand from my enthusiastic prison. “Or apostrophes. Don’t get me started on apostrophes. How hard is it to remember that i-t-apostrophe-s means ’it is,’ or ’it has’?”

“True confession time.” Mark leaned forward, too, dropping his voice to admit, “I can never remember that one. I always have to think about it.”

“But I bet you get it right when you think about it!”

“Well.” He sat back with a disparaging wave of his hand that made us both laugh. “Yes.” He lifted his menu with a challenging arch of an eyebrow. “First one who finds a typo in the menu wins dessert.”

“Oh, you’re on.” I picked up my menu and started flipping through it, grinning broadly. The waiter appeared at my elbow to ask politely if we wanted wine or appetizers, and Mark and I caught each other giving the other guarded looks. I pursed my lips and glanced sideways at the waiter. “No, thanks,” I said.

Mark nodded. “A few more minutes, please.”

The waiter slipped discreetly out of view again. “I’m not much of a wine drinker, anyway,” I mumbled. Mark gave me a disarming smile.

“More of the sort to go right for the hard stuff, huh?”

I made a laugh that was mostly in my nose and the top of my mouth, and therefore came out an unattractive wet snort. How delightful. Mark’s smile broadened, though, so maybe it wasn’t as gross as I thought it’d been. “I’m good with beer. I don’t usually drink liquor.”

“Does it mess up your—” Mark broke off, caught between winsome curiosity and apology. “Tell me to screw off if it’s none of my business, but I’m really curious about what Gary mentioned this morning. Shamanism? You’re really into that? Does drinking mess it up?”

For one brief moment I seriously considered killing Gary for opening his big mouth. My inexplicable powers did not strike me as good first-date discussion material. Bitching about the slaughtering of the language, yes; magic powers, no. I sat there looking at Mark for what felt like a very long time indeed, considering whether or not I wanted to answer his questions, and how far I wanted to get into the answers if I did. “No,” I said finally. “Drinking just impairs my judgment like it does anybody else’s. Um.”

“You don’t want to talk about it.” Mark’s smile went all apologetic. “Sorry. It’s just…talk about things to get geeked about. Magic. Shamanism. It sounds interesting.”

“Does it?” I scratched the back of my neck, looking at my menu. “There’s just no real way to talk about it without sounding insane.” I glanced up with a shrug. “I mean, honestly, if I went into it, explained what it was all about and said I had magic powers and could affect the weather,” which I managed to say without wincing, although it was a trial, “or could heal people, and you said, yeah, cool, I’m down with that, frankly, I’d think you were nuts.” I did think he was nuts. He’d been far too easy about the whole thing this morning. On the other hand, he asked smart questions about Petite. Maybe a willingness to consider the esoteric was a flaw I could learn to live with. I’d sort of have to, if I ever wanted to have a boyfriend again. Either that or I was going to have to develop a secret identity, and I didn’t think I had the body for running around in leather catsuits.

The apology left his expression, curiosity and interest replacing it in a lip-parted half smile. Mark had a very expressive mouth. I thought I could get used to watching it. “Can you?”

“Can I wh—oh.” I breathed a laugh and shifted my shoulders, discomfort creeping up and down my spine. “See, I can’t answer that. Anything I say, one of us has to be crazy to believe it.”

“So.” Mark picked up his water glass, swirling ice around, and put it down without sipping. “So you’re telling me you’re into this thing that you don’t expect other people to believe in, and you’d reject them based on their belief?”

I rolled my eyes up, considering that, then shrugged my eyebrows. “Yeah, pretty much. The only reason I believe it is I can’t get away from it. I don’t expect rational people to buy into the concept of magic going on around them. It’s the kind of topic you smile and humor people on, and later go ’Woo, she was a kook, huh?’ about.”

He tilted his head. “Is that what you do to yourself?”

Maybe I didn’t want to get used to watching him after all. I was not accustomed to feeling this much conflict over a guy. I told myself that, and very firmly did not let myself start thinking about my boss. Instead I stared at Mark, then exhaled heavily. “Yeah, basically.”

“Huh.” Mark quirked an eyebrow. “It must be a difficult dichotomy to be you.”

“Sometimes.” I shrugged one shoulder. “On the other hand, once in a great while it lands me dates with guys who use dichotomy in casual conversation, so it can’t be all bad.”

“Careful,” he said with a quick grin. “I’ve been known to throw even bigger words around without warning. They misspelled brulée, by the way. They’ve only got one “e” and no accent. You’re buying dessert.”