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“I suspected as much.”

“Yes, you did.”

He snapped his fingers. “Tabs, right? The name of your cat?”

“You remember that?”

The gap in her doorway opened a touch wider. Bradley noticed a patch of freckles on her right cheek where a mime might paint a teardrop.

“I’m a good listener,” he said. “Which might not seem obvious given, you know, all the talking. But I promise you, when someone else is speaking, I’m doing my best to listen.”

“Okay…”

“Anyway, so Tabs. I think I get it. Short for tabby cat, but also like the Tab key on a computer. Is that right?”

“Um, yeah, actually.”

“Great name. I’ve always admired people who are good with computers. I’m trying to learn Excel, but it’s a lot trickier than I thought. Eunji, my manager, is convinced I’m supervisor material. Not sure if I agree, but I also don’t want to let her down, so I keep trying. Do you work with Excel?”

She blinked, but he could see it, the curve of her lips straining under her careful control, wanting to break free. “I work with Python, R, Java, C#, C++. I even learned a bit of Lua, but more for fun than practical purposes.”

“I have no idea what you just said.” His own smile stretched wide. “But damn did it sound cool.”

She laughed. A gasping, breathless sound.

“So you’re, like, a genius, then?”

Tiny dots of pink appeared at the edges of her sharp cheekbones. “Not really.”

“Nah, you are, aren’t you?”

She shrugged. “I guess it depends on who you ask.”

“You’re a genius. I knew it. Impressive. Except it’s too bad you don’t know Excel.”

She laughed again, lighter this time—dare he call it a giggle? The sound swelled inside his chest. “Um, I think I could probably teach you how to use Excel.”

“You could? That would be amazing.”

She straightened. “I didn’t mean that literally. I’m not going to teach you Excel. I only meant I could. In the theoretical sense. Like I have the basic skills required.”

“But if you could, why wouldn’t you?”

“Because…I don’t have the time. I’m really, really busy. I can’t let myself get distracted.”

“Oh, okay,” he said. “That’s cool. I get it.”

A flurry of snowflakes swirled around him, drifting silently to the ground. But he still didn’t feel the chill. Even before his internal thermostat had gone all wonky, he’d been the type of weather- hardened Canadian who would put on shorts for the day if the forecasted high was above ten degrees Celsius, even if the morning started out well below freezing.

“Well, if you’re that busy, I should probably let you get back to it, then.”

“Probably.”

“But take the cookies. Please. There’s nothing like a sweet indulgence to get you through the daily grind. I would know. Ha! A little addict humour for you. Oh, and I wanted to let you know I’d be happy to shovel your walkway. It looks like you use a professional service, and I’m sure you’re being overcharged. It would be my neighbourly pleasure.” He gave a silly little bow that he immediately regretted.

Devra stared at him. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth to stop himself from filling the silence with more inane chatter.

“I know this might sound strange,” she said at last, “but if you really wanted to help me, maybe you could stop being so nice to me?”