Page 22 of Electric Blue Love
“Exactly.”
I let out a deep breath and sat up on the bed eyeing my backpack. “I hate to ruin the moment, but I need to study some more for my test tomorrow.”
“What’s the test over?”
Pulling my bag onto my lap, I grabbed my textbook and notes and flipped open to the last chapter. “Systems of first-order equations.”
“Let’s work some problems then.”
“You want to help me study?”
“Isn’t that what you’d want a boyfriend to do? Plus, I’m sorta curious to see that brain of yours in action.”
Her brain turnedme on. It was incredible. She was way smarter than me – not that I’d admit it to her. I had the advantage of years of practical use, but she had a book smart like I’d never seen before.
“What are you going to do after college?” I asked when we’d finished working a handful of problems and it was clear she knew the stuff.
“The career fair is next week. I have some interviews and I’m going to try and get my resume in front of a few other companies while they’re on campus.”
“I don’t think I ever asked you what kind of engineer you were studying to be,” I said, wondering why I hadn’t thought to ask her before. I didn’t know much about her hopes and dreams outside of Todd. Shit, when did I start caring about other people’s hopes and dreams?
“Electrical. I’m interested in signal processing, specifically machine learning.”
“How very new age of you.”
“You majored in finance, yeah?” she asked.
I paused because I’d never told her that. I was certain I hadn’t. I didn’t like talking about myself – specifically my degrees or awards because it felt fucking weird to be defined by something so unimportant as what I’d majored in. Had Bianca looked me up?
“Someone did her homework.”
“Well, I had to make sure you weren’t some crazy psycho-stalker.”
“And my majoring in finance means I’m not a stalker?”
“No, but I didn’t find anything alarming. In fact, I found very little.”
This made me smile. “Good.”
“Why did you go into finance?”
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I thought about my answer. “I guess I wanted to do something challenging, but practical. And I wanted a career path that had stability so there’d be less of a chance of being out of a job when times were tough.”
“Wow.” Her voice had a hint of amazement and I was afraid I’d said too much – given too much away about my past. What kid chose a career path based on the economy? Parents and adults would like to think we all did, but in reality, I thought we all chose our paths based on things that sounded cool or for lifestyles we desired. Engineers didn’t want to dress up in suits every day any more than I wanted to roll into the office with cargo shorts and a t-shirt. I cringed at the thought.
“I guess that doesn’t sound like a very cool way to pick a career.”
“No, actually, I think that’s amazing. I don’t think very many people consider what life is going to be like after graduation. It’s tough out there even for people with lots of work experience.”
Her words soothed something inside of me. She got it. She gotme.
We talked for an hour and every word out of her mouth captivated me more. My 8B was deep and thoughtful without being hokey or insincere. She saw the world through rose-tinted glasses but tackled decisions like the glass was half-empty.
I didn’t know what to make of her, but I was intrigued. I wanted to know more. I wanted to knoweverything.
When she eventually yawned loudly into the phone, I looked at the clock noticing it was midnight. I felt like a dick for keeping her up so late the night before a test. It didn’t occur to me until after we’d said our goodbyes and I’d stretched out into my bed that this was the first time I’d had a conversation with a woman like that. Without it even being planned, we’d had a phone call that had almost felt like a date – or at the very least the pre-cursor to a date. The getting to know you stage was a rush that I’d completely forgotten about.
The next morning when I arrived at the office, my boss was waiting for me. Still wearing the Bianca-induced smile, his presence didn’t annoy me the way it might have on a different day. Teddy Harrison was a good man, a good boss, even, but his penchant for starting the day off by blind siding employees with impromptu meetings made us all scratch our heads in frustration.
