Apple and I were at dinner together, a semi-weekly occurance. "Managed to ditch the Muse, hmm?" she asked. "You two seem joined at the hip these days."

"Well, I had to find someone else to latch on to the scar you left there once you took off on your own."

"I didn't leave a scar," she said. She broke open the crab leg in her hands and began picking out meat. "It's not like we were dating or anything."

"True, but we were spending roughly five days a week together there for a couple of years. It might not have had all the fringe benefits of a dating relationship, but you do have to admit that going cold turkey from you wasn't maybe the easiest thing to do."

"You're nuts." She tossed a piece of crab into her mouth.

"I just might be," I said. "You, however, are incapable of realizing when someone thinks you're nifty-keen."

"Don't use that Muse-speak on me, buddy," she said through a mouthful of crab. "Nifty-keen isn't part of my vocabulary."

"You just said it," I pointed out. "Therefore it is now."

"Do I have to hit you?"

"Nope," I said. "That would be a Muse thing to do."