Swimming Without a Net Read Free

feet dangled several inches above the floor and she snuggled farther into Jonas’s lap.
    “Fred doesn’t need any help to look good,” her besotted boss was saying. Fred, meanwhile, had opened her fridge and was desperately hunting for a beer. Or Drano. “You leave her be.”
    “Sorry, baby.”
    “You’re forgiven, for a kiss.”
    “Two kisses!”
    Fred kept hunting. Could she get drunk off of two measly wine coolers? Maybe if she spiked them with the spoiled milk…
    “Done!” Jonas cried, and then various smacking noises cut off the annoying conversation. Of course, now she was dealing with a whole new set of annoying, but—
    “Success!” She snatched the Miller Lite left over from some party. Let’s see, the last party Jonas had made her host had been in the twentieth century…Did beer go bad? Oh, who cared?
    “Your hair is so soft,” Dr. Barb sighed, running her fingers through Jonas’s carefully coiffed locks.
    “So is yours, baby, but you should use more of that deep conditioner I left at your place.” Jonas was a chemical scientist who worked for Aveda, and was always dropping off free product. Fred ignored it, but Dr. Barb took it to heart. “Just wrap your hair in a towel and leave it in for half an hour or so, then rinse.”
    “I will…” Fred looked around for a bottle opener, then gave up and wrenched the cap off with her bare hand. “For a kiss.”
    Fred guzzled.
    “Done!” More smacking sounds.
    Fred finished the beer and noted, with despair, that her damned superior metabolism had taken care of any meager alcohol offered by the good people at Miller, Inc. She should have known. But desperate times called for desperate—
    “I love your eyes,” Dr. Barb sighed, coming up for air.
    “I love yours,” Jonas said, caressing Barb’s long strands of hair.
    “I could look into yours all day and never get tired of the view,” Dr. Barb said, stroking Jonas’s shoulder.
    Jonas nibbled on her ear in response. Fred coldly watched the primates groom each other and actually wished her blind date—the third in two weeks—would show up already.
    In answer to her prayer, there was a sharp rap at her door.
    “Oh thank God,” she mumbled. Then, louder, “Get out, you two. I’ve got to go. Uh…what’s this one’s name again?”
    “Sam Fisher,” Dr. Barb said patiently.
    Fred shot Jonas a look. Dr. Barb didn’t know Fred was a mermaid…yet. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
    “We had the same advisor in graduate school. It’s not his fault he ended up in marine biology.”
    “Out!”
    “We’re going, we’re going,” Jonas said.
    “I’m sure you’ll just love him,” Dr. Barb said doubtfully, climbing out of Jonas’s lap. “You’ll have lots to talk about.”
    “And brush your hair before you take off,” Jonas added, following his ladylove to the door. Jonas yanked it open, nearly got a fist in the face (Sam liked to knock, lots, and loud ), and said, “Nice to meet you, good-bye.”
    The door shut behind them and Fred sized up her latest blind date.
    To her amusement, he was frowning at her. Tall and whip thin, with wire-rimmed glasses and a shaved head, he had the most amazing green eyes she’d ever seen, the color of moss on a rainy day.
    “Hi,” she said. “I’m Fred Bimm.”
    “Sam Fisher. Look, the only reason I’m here is because Barb has been on my ass to hook up ever since she started getting laid regularly.”
    Fred swallowed a cough of surprise. “It’s, ah, nice to meet you, too.”
    He raised an eyebrow at her. “And I bet you’re only here—besides the fact that you live here—because your friend wants you to hook up, too.”
    “It’s not the only reason.”
    He frowned at her.
    “It’s the only reason,” she admitted.
    “I’m perfectly happy with my life right now, not to mention you’re too young for me.”
    “I’m thirty,” she protested.
    “A mere infant. Also, my TiVo is on the fritz and if I take you to dinner, I’m going