Three more honeys shoved past. I wished the weather was a little fairer. They wouldn’t be so thoroughly bundled. There was one each of the primary colors: blonde, brunette, and redhead, plus a moon-faced, raven-haired exotic with skin the hue and smoothness of honey. They put off so much heat that they should’ve been immune to the weather. Grizzled old glaciers would melt when they passed.

Whack! A hand got me across the back of the head.

Singe snickered.

Uh-oh. Tactical error. Drooling over Alyx and the honey girl with the challenging brown eyes left my back exposed to the redhead.

Singe snickered some more. Ominous, that, coming from the unique sound box of a ratperson throat.

‘‘Tinnie. Sweetheart. What are you doing with this crowd?’’

Tinnie Tate, devoutly committed redhead, is my off-and-on main woman. Very main, of late. And possessed of not even the remotest intellectual understanding of my broad appreciation of female folk who are easy on the eyes.

‘‘Making sure your fantasies don’t get past the hallucination stage.’’

Alyx Weider being one of her best friends would factor in. Alyx has been chasing me since she was old enough to get up on her own hind legs.

I asked, ‘‘Singe, is Old Bones snoozing?’’

‘‘Probably. But he does pretend quite well.’’

That he does. If he can’t sleep for a year at a time, he’d just as soon pretend. Some people are just so lazy.

We were talking about my partner. A unique sort of beast, even in TunFaire, where it’s a rare and remarkable day when we don’t see the rare and remarkable.

‘‘Let’s go in there. My office is too intimate.’’ And there wasn’t enough furniture in the small front room. Which we don’t use much. It still smells like the Goddamn Parrot.