Americano turned from the condiment bar to leave. In a flash, Jess’s curiosity bubbled over, and she impulsively caught him with a hand around his forearm as he passed. They both froze. His eyes were a rare, surprising color, lighter than she would have expected up close. Amber, she could see now, not brown. The weight of his full attention felt like a physical pressure on her chest, pushing the air out of her lungs.

“Hey.” Jess charged forward through vibrating nerves and lifted her chin. “Hang on a second. Can we ask you something?”

When she released him, he pulled his arm away slowly, glancing to Fizzy, then back to her. He nodded once.

“Rumor has it you’re a matchmaker,” Jess said.

Americano narrowed his eyes. “‘Rumor’?”

“Yeah.”

“In what context did this rumor come up?”

With an incredulous laugh, Jess gestured around them. “Ground zero of University Heights gossip. The rumor mill of Park Avenue.” She waited, but he continued to gaze down at her, perplexed. “Is it true?” she asked. “Are you a matchmaker?”

“Technically, I’m a geneticist.”

“So …” Her brows climbed her forehead. Americano was apparently very comfortable with pointed silence. “Is that a ‘no’ to matchmaking?”

He relented with an amused flick of one eyebrow. “My company has developed a service that connects people based on proprietary genetic profiling technology.”

Fizzy Oooohed. “Big words. Sounds scandalous.” She bent, scribbling in her notebook.

“‘Genetic profiling technology’?” Jess winced at him. “Gives me vague eugenics vibes, sorry.”

Fizzy was quick to redirect Americano’s attention away from Jess’s dumpster-fire mouth. “I write romance. This sounds like my kryptonite.” She held up her pen, shaking it flirtatiously. “My readers would flip for this stuff.”

“What’s your pen name?” he asked.

“I write under my real name,” she said. “Felicity Chen.”

Felicity offered a dainty hand as if for him to kiss and, after a beat of confused hesitation, Americano gripped her fingertips for a brief handshake.

“She’s translated in over a dozen languages,” Jess bragged, hoping to wipe the odd expression off his face.

It did the trick; Americano looked impressed. “Really.”

“Will there be an app?” Fizzy was relentless. “Is it like Tinder?”

“Yes.” He frowned. “But no. It’s not for hookups.”

“Can anyone do it?”

“Eventually,” he said. “It’s a—” His phone buzzed from his pocket, and he pulled it out, frown deepening. “Sorry,” he said, pocketing it again. “I need to go, but I appreciate your interest. I’m sure you’ll hear more about it soon.”

Fizzy leaned in, smiling her confident smile. “I have over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram. I’d love to share the information if it’s something my predominantly eighteen-to-fifty-five-year-old female readers might want to hear.”

Americano’s forehead smoothed, permafrown vanishing.

Bingo.

“We’re going public in May,” he said, “but if you’d like, you’re welcome to come to the office, hear the spiel, give a sample—”

“A sample?” Jess blurted.

She could see the small hot flash of annoyance in his eyes when they flickered back over to her. If Fizzy was flirty cop, Jess was definitely skeptical cop, and Americano seemed to be barely tolerating even Fizzy’s genuine fascination.

He looked Jess in the eye. “Spit.”

Barking out a laugh, Jess asked, “I beg your pardon?”

“The sample,” he said slowly, “is spit.”

His eyes did a casual sweep of her from face to lap and back up. Inside her chest, her heart did a strange flip.

Then he glanced down at his watch. Well.

Fizzy laughed tightly as she looked back and forth between the two of them. “I’m sure we could both manage to spit.” She grinned. “For you.”

With a wan smile, he dropped a business card on the table; it made an audible thunk. “No eugenics,” he added quietly, “I promise.”

JESS WATCHED HIM leave. The bell over the door gave a single disappointed chime at his departure. “Okay,” she said, turning back to her friend. “What’s the over/under that he’s a vampire?”

Fizzy ignored her, rapping the business card against the edge of the table. “Look at this.”

Narrowing her eyes, Jess looked back out the window as Americano got into a sleek black Audi at the curb. “He was trying to compel me.”

“This card is legit.” Fizzy squinted at it, turning it in her hand. “He didn’t get this shit made at Kinko’s.”

“‘Spit,’” Jess mimicked in a deep, clipped voice. “God, he is definitely not in marketing because that man has zero charisma. Put a pin in this prediction and let’s circle back to it when I’m ninety: he’s the most arrogant person I’ll meet in this lifetime.”

“Will you stop obsessing about him?”

Jess took the business card from Fizzy. “Will you stop obsessing about this car—” She stopped, weighing its impressive heft in her hand. “Wow. It is really thick.”

“I told you so.”

Jess flipped it over to examine the logo: two interconnected circles with a double helix as their point of contact. On the front, Americano’s real name in small, raised silver letters at the bottom. “That’s not what I would have guessed. He looks like a Richard. Or maybe an Adam.”

“He looks like a Keanu.”

“Brace yourself.” She looked up at Fizzy and smirked. “Americano’s name is Dr. River Peña.”

“Oh no,” Fizzy said, exhaling. “That’s a hot name, Jess.”

Jess laughed; Felicity Chen was wonderfully predictable.

“Eh, the man makes the name, not the other way around.”

“Incorrect. No matter how hot the man, the name Gregg with two Gs will never be sexy.” Fizzy sank deeper into her chair, flushed. “How weird would it be if I named my next hero ‘River’?”

“Very.”