wanting to ask in case he didn’t like the answer.
“Think about it?” she finished for him.
He wanted to know if she liked it, if she was impressed. If by chance his profile had magically separated him from all the other men who sought her attention. “I think that’s what I’m trying to ask, yes.”
“I thought that there is no way in a million years I could understand what you do, and hats off to you for being so smart.”
“I’m not so smart. I just know the science lingo. We brain scientists are a small group, relatively speaking. We have to have our own language so we can stick together.”
“Oh, it’s a secret club thing?”
“Something like that.”
She grinned. She traced her finger around the edge of her cup. “What made you decide on neuroscience? Were you that kid in sixth grade who took the science experiments a step too far? I’m kind of fascinated, because when I was in the sixth grade, Johnny Grakowski threw a dead cricket at me and that effectively ended any interest I might have had in anything remotely scientific.”
“A cricket?”
“They’re so gross, Max. What about you?”
He couldn’t quite make the connection between crickets and science, but that was okay. “My interest in science didn’t happen until I was in high school. In sixth grade, I was noticing girls and all senses were pointed in that direction. In high school, my senses had expanded into additional interests. I was good at math and science, but I never really thought about it as a career. It had more to do with my brother, Jamie, really. His disorder fascinated me. Like, how things were so different for the two of us, how our brains could work so differently.”
“How so?” she asked.
Max thought about that for a minute. “Aside from his inability to really speak, he’s a bright guy. And he’s extremely artistic. Remember the drawing of the dog I showed you?”
She nodded.
“I remember in first grade his special ed teacher was sending home the drawings Jamie had made with notes about how advanced he was. So advanced in some ways, but so delayed in other ways. When I figured out I liked science well enough, I wanted to study more about autism and neurological disorders in general. I wanted to figure out ways to make things easier for him and people like him.” He smiled a little. “And there you have it.”
She smiled, too. “What a lucky guy Jamie is to have you for a brother.”
He thought maybe he was the lucky one. “What about you? Are you really a publicist?” he asked.
“Ish,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Publicity adjacent.” She giggled. “I mean, I am a publicist, but right now, I’m a little insecure about my skills. I lost a client this week.”
“Oh, wow, sorry to hear that. Not the fashion guy, I hope. I was getting used to your, ah . . .” He searched for a word.
Carly smiled, one brow rising above the other. She didn’t offer the appropriate word for him—she was going to make him say it.
“The designs,” he said at last.
“The designs!” she said gleefully.
“Fine,” he said with a lopsided grin. “The costume things.”
“The costume things?” She laughed. “Fortunately, I didn’t lose him. I lost another guy who—brace yourself—created something even more baffling than giant shoulders and long sleeves.”
Max shifted around to face her. “Well, now I’m dying of curiosity. What could possibly be more baffling than that?”
“The other guy made wooden circles.”
“He made what?”
She sketched a circle in the air with her hands.
He shook his head. “Not getting it.”
“Exactly! Who can get that? I have yet to find anyone who understands the circle thing.” She pulled out her phone, swiped up and down and all around the screen, then leaned lightly against him to show him a picture. It was a circle, all right. A highly polished round of wood.
“That’s . . . definitely a wooden circle.” He looked at Carly just in case she was teasing him, then at the screen again. She leaned a little harder against him, holding up her phone. Max liked the feel of her touching him. He did not like the circles. “I’m sorry, I don’t get it.”
“Thank you!” she exclaimed, and swayed away from him. “All this time I thought I was missing some art appreciation gene, but it turns out this dude is just making stupid circles. Some fat, some skinny, some really big, and some really small. But they are all circles.”
“Let’s see it again,” Max