The persistent droning of my alarm eventually roused me from my troubled sleep. I punished it with a few smacks to its snooze button but eventually got up. I managed to drag myself to my first class on time, but paying attention to the lecture proved to be a considerable challenge. I drifted between nearly falling asleep and thinking about the previous night. When the class finally ended, I dragged myself to the Student Union and grabbed a late breakfast including a large mug of hot black tea. It was no Intergalactic cold brew, but it seemed to help get my neurons firing.
Jake walked up to my table just as I was finishing my breakfast.
"Hey, Barry, haven't seen you around the dorm lately. Is that hotty of yours keeping you out past your bedtime?" He punched my shoulder playfully.
"It's not like that, Jake. Well... OK, yes, I've been spending time with Dee, but she's not just some 'hotty'." Jake's juvenile banter was annoying me more than usual today.
"Hey, no need to get so serious, dude," he replied as he pulled up a chair, "If you've got, like, a real thing going with this chick, I'm happy for you and all."
I started to object, explain that Dee and I were just friends, but stopped. 'Friends' didn't fully capture the complexity of the situation. And Jake wouldn't understand anyway. His views on male/female relationships never seemed to rise beyond the carnal. I decided to let it drop. Instead, I just said, "yeah, sorry. I'm just a bit wiped... been pretty busy lately."
"No probs dude, just don't forget we have study group again tomorrow night."
"Sure, I'll be there," I assured him.
"Awesome. Bring your Theory notes. I need to copy yesterday's lecture. Oh, and don't be afraid to bring your squeeze around... she's totally cool."
"Yeah, I'll tell her you said that." I tried to imagine Dee's reaction to being described as my 'squeeze'.
"Cool. Say... does she have any friends? Like... hot single friends?"
With an extreme effort of will, I manage to not roll my eyes. "I haven't met any of her single friends," I insisted. OK, maybe that wasn't technically true. Ruth was probably single, but I doubt she would have much interest in someone like Jake, and I wasn't particularly in the mood to pimp Dee's friends to him anyway.
"Well, never hurts to ask," Jake replied, "It's all about networking, you know what I mean? You have to be constantly expanding those social connections... opening up opportunities."
I just nodded. This was not the first time Jake had share this philosophy. Heck, he had nearly declared as an art major just to expand his chances to meet women. I slurped down the last of my tea and stood up. "Well, I've got to get going. See you at study group," I promised, and headed on to my next class.
The rest the school day seemed to fly past. I ended my last class a few hours before I was due to meet Dee at the Intergalactic, so I swung back to the dorms to clean up and change clothes. While there, I remembered Dee saying something about snacks. We could bring in snacks but not beverages. Did that mean I should bring snacks, or was it optional? Would it be rude to show up empty handed? I decided to take no chances and stop at the store on the way there.
Rupino's Market is a great little grocery store. Big enough to have everything you might want, yet locally owned so it has more personality and charm than your typical chain store. It is within walking distance of the campus as well as one of the nicer residential neighborhoods. The owners really know their customers and have managed to stock a decent balance of specialty foods for their upper middle income shoppers while still offering low cost staples for the local college crowd. I drifted through the extensive snack aisle, looking at bags of vegan whole grain chips and gluten free crackers and two-for-one student saver specials on generic chips. I finally decided on an inexpensive bag of pretzels and a jar of mustard. Less greasy than chips and a better value by weight. Plus I love mustard. Honestly, the pretzel is just a vehicle for the mustard, so I went cheap on the pretzel and then spent a bit more for a decent brown mustard. Happy with my choice, I headed to the checkout.
YOU ARE READING
Devious Origins
AcciónShe was definitely the most interesting woman Barry had met at Penbrooke College, but when she claimed to be a superhero, he realized she must be crazy. Then again, maybe he was the one losing his mind, because the more time he spent with her, the...
