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EIGHT: "You're too intriguing to ignore"
Spencer arrived, punctual as ever. He was wearing a hoodie with a t-shirt over it. Anna decided not to question the look; most people would wear a t-shirt under a hoodie. But Spencer was different, and this was just another example of that.
"Hi," he said.
He looked adorable. The hoodie was way too oversized, the sleeves falling below his hands. Anna thought about how big that hoodie may be on her, but tried to not let that thought go any further.
"Hi," she responded.
While she thought he was adorable, he thought the same of her. She was wearing some flared leggings and an oversized hoodie that would have been normal sized on him.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yeah," she responded with a smile.
Spencer led her to his car which was kind of thrilling, in a way. So far she had seen the nerdy, know it all side of Spencer, who had an answer for every question in the book. She had seen the side of Spencer that was brave and strong enough to instruct her to strip in his back office. She had seen the side of him that he displayed at work, where he was so focused on solving the case that he made little room for sharing personal information. But she hadn't seen who Spencer was on his day off. She didn't know what he liked to do outside of work, the places he liked to go and the things that excited him.
Anna wanted to be exposed to every side of Spencer before making the decision of if she really liked him, or if it was more of a middle school crush type of thing. She knew that the brain released a chemical called oxytocin upon physical contact which is associated with bonding and trust. She knew that she couldn't stop thinking about Spencer simply because of brain chemistry; it was common after sex, and she wasn't going to let that get in the way of forming a normal, healthy friendship with her colleague.
But then, there was nothing normal about sneaking into a museum with a man at midnight, not unless there were some feelings involved. But Anna decided that this was just one of Spencer's quirks, that maybe he simply just didn't have many friends, so he didn't know the normal way to plan a social outing.
The overthinking was cut short when they got to Spencer's car, and after barely having said anything, he broke the silence, "Can I ask why you wanted to be my friend. You could have just spent the next 10 years of your life ignoring me?"
It was a sad sentence, Anna thought. For the first time she started to consider his feelings about the peculiar situation she was in. The thing he said, the other day, about not knowing who he was, resonated with her, and made her sad. Being in Spencer's position must have been difficult. The man looked like he had gone through so much, it was present in his eyes and in his longing glances. But at heart, it was clear that he was just a kid who still made physics jokes.
