People didn’t patronize her in LA, either. She encountered the random tactless supervisor or co-worker, but it hadn’t taken long to establish herself in the lab. Her first year as an actual agent went well. She’d taken her lumps. Paid her dues. Didn’t need anyone telling her what was the ‘real deal’ as if she thought someone had given her a cover identity and an apartment to just fuck around with.
She glanced toward Bagley Hall and remembered her father asking her if she had reconsidered pushing on with graduate studies and becoming a real scientist. Because, again, nothing she had done up until then was anything but fucking around, right? All her double major did was qualify her for the next step up.
The way Dad’s eyes spun when she told him she’d been hired on by the Bureau’s research lab…
A growl rumbled somewhere in her throat. Okay. Fine. Maybe daddy issues couldn’t be completely written off. Whatthefuckever.
She loved the university. This place opened up the world for her. It ushered her into adulthood. Opportunities. Freedom. Her first decent friendships since middle school. None of that meant she wanted to come back, let alone so soon. And certainly not to take Composition for Topics in Social Science.
Amber drug herself out of her grumbling thoughts as she arrived at her class. Thankfully, Jason caught her eye and waved. He sat in the back here just like he had in the lecture hall. That was good. There was also an empty seat beside him, which was excellent. Amber went through the same introduction with this professor-scratch that, with this grad student instructor-as she had with the TA the day before. Again, she found few objections.
Get your head in the game, girl. He’s right there.
At least he’s a nice enough guy so far.
Finished with her introductions, Amber shuffled to the back of the classroom, dumped her bag and slumped into her seat. She glanced up at Jason and muttered, “Hi,” before she turned around again to dig out her notebook and a pen.
“You look like you just got out of a shitty conversation,” he observed. Amber looked up, finding nothing but a sympathetic smile in his eyes.
“What? No,” she chuckled. He kept his gaze on her, waiting for her to say more. “No, I just-it’s nothing, I mean-what?”
“Nothing,” Jason shrugged. “I’m listening. I don’t want to interrupt.”
Amber blinked. He’d meant that. It wasn’t a cheap line or a ploy. He meant it. He was a genuinely nice guy. Lorelei’s words echoed in her head: He listened to me.
“Is it obvious?” Amber asked.
“Shot in the dark. I don’t know you well enough to guess what might be bugging you, but I figure most people have parents.”
She held back her grin long enough to look away. He was still looking at her.
Unbidden and unasked for its opinion, a tiny voice within her admitted that she liked it.
“I had a nice time last night,” she said.
His reaction wasn’t what she expected. He seemed chagrined, embarrassed, pleased and amused at himself all at once. “Yeah, that didn’t quite go how I hoped,” Jason muttered.
“It was fine.” They heard a noise at the front of the classroom as their instructor got set up and ready to go. Amber considered, with a sinking feeling, that this assignment could go on for a while. She might well need to maintain her cover faithfully for the foreseeable future. That meant actually following the course material and doing the assignments. Like writing research papers and essays. Great.
“What other classes do you have today?” she asked.
“Just one, right after this.”
“Welcome back, people,” said the instructor, who then began to drone on about something or other.
“You wanna hang out later?” Amber hissed.
“Well, I don’t want to seem all clingy or needy, but hell yeah.”
She grinned, nodded back in confirmation, and then turned her attention to the instructor and his PowerPoint slides. Waking up had been rough, as had her commute. Thus far, Jason’s eagerness to spend more time with her was her sole accomplishment for the morning. Now Amber needed a way to keep herself awake through Mr. Grad Student and his lecture.
Three minutes in, a tiny slip of paper appeared on her desk. She glanced over to Jason, who completed his stretch as if nothing untoward had prompted it. She turned over the note. It read, “Such a bullshit subject. I’m going back to real sciences next quarter. Quarks or GTFO.”
Her heart jumped. She pushed it back down. Just because he said and did all the right things didn’t make him any older or any less of a person of interest in a Federal investigation.
She turned to a fresh page in her notebook and wrote in big letters, holding it up to him when she was finished so he could read. “Notes in class? Really? Don’t you have text messaging?”
Jason gave his best rapper’s shrug, patted his chest, and flashed her two letters in sign language: “O.G.”
Amber couldn’t bite down on her laugh fast enough to avoid an annoyed glance from Mr. Grad Student.
* * *
“Boom!” Amber shouted gleefully. Jason’s wrestler went over the ropes and onto the concrete. “Suck it, n00b!”
“This is bullshit!” Jason moaned, twiddling his controllers while his opponent bounced around happily next to him on the futon. “Aw, you’re gonna blow my streak! I-holy shit, how’d you program your girl to do crotch-chops? Is that even in the options menu?”
Amber’s triumphant laugh continued. She brought her custom female wrestler out of the ring and put Jason’s avatar through another health-bar-punishing piledriver. She quickly went for the pin. “Falls count anywhere, biatch,” she cackled.
“Aw, man, that’s it,” he sighed. “I’m down. Crap.”
“What? Hey, don’t give up, fight out of it!”
“Why?” he asked, but worked the controller anyway at her behest. “I’m not gonna recover in-see? You got the pin.”
“It’s sweeter if you keep struggling,” she grinned.
“You put in cheat codes while I was in the bathroom, didn’t you?”
“Just the one for the crotch-chops,” Amber confessed. “We can start over and I’ll trash you again on a fresh character if you don’t believe me.”
“No, no, I believe you. Wow. That was ugly.” He noticed right away that Amber’s bouncing had brought her shoulder to shoulder with him. The closeness felt good. Her head turned to look at him, revealing her triumphant grin and her glittering eyes. That felt even better.
His mind went into warp speed.
Is this a good first kiss moment? Pro wrestling on a console? Really? It’d be funny at least. Maybe sweet. We’re bonding regardless. She’s so close. She’s looking at me. Wait, she’s slowing down here, like she’s wondering if I’m gonna go for it, should I? Oh God I don’t know, I want to but our shoulders are both in the way and if she I go for it and she turns away I’m gonna-no. She turned. Okay. Well. Damn.
He didn’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved that he didn’t try it before the moment was gone. He opted for the latter. Nothing romantic about pro wrestling video games anyway.
Amber took a deep breath, managing to keep her smile up as she put her initials into the game’s record of champions. Thought he was gonna go for it. She did not allow herself to consider whether she actually wanted him to or not.
“Okay, how often do you play this at home?” he asked.
“Often enough, but usually just against the computer. It’s not like I’ve had a lot of live opponents lately.”
“I have a hard time believing you can’t find people to play with.”
“Well, not people I really like, anyway,” she huffed, “and that’s the problem with finding real live friends, right? You can’t just turn them off. They have drama or needs or low social skills. Or they won’t go home when you want them to, so you can’t bring them to your place. Or they don’t pick up after themselves or clean their bathrooms, so you don’t want to go over there.” Amber shook her head. “People are complicated.”