That earned him a sympathetic grimace. She so hated the way that people threw around that word. Especially when it could mean so many things, not all of them bad.

But she let it go at that.

Every probability she saw suggested that Cole knew her secret. She didn't know how, exactly. Something to do with his otherness. But it wasn't something she felt ready to talk about.

Not yet, anyway.

"You should be very careful, giving me free license to ask questions," she warned him. "I might never stop. But I don't know if I'm being rude or not."