Love Lessons

“A break?” She glanced pointedly at his lazily reclined position. “From what?”

“From thinking. My brain is tired. Let’s go for a walk.”

“It’s pouring rain outside.”

“Is it?” He frowned, listened for a moment to the rain that had starting pounding steadily against the windows only a few minutes earlier, the

n made a face. “Okay. Then let’s do something else. How do you feel about bowling?”

“I haven’t bowled since a school field trip when I was in the eighth grade. I was lousy at it. My friends called me the queen of the gutter ball.”

“I could give you some pointers. I’m pretty good.”

She had no doubt of that. Mike seemed to be good at everything he did—with the exception of concentrating on his studying today. “Auxin acts by increasing the plasticity of the cell wall. You should remember that in case it’s on the test.”

“And I will,” he said, a little impatiently now. He set Norman gently on the floor and swung his legs around to sit up. “I have plenty of time to get ready for the test. But you and I have only a few hours to spend together today, since you have to go into the lab this evening. Let’s not waste our time with this stuff. I’ll study after you go to work.”

He’d had a little trouble understanding why she had to go into the lab at 8:00 p.m. and would probably be there until midnight. It pretty much took another scientist to comprehend the tricky timing of most experiments.

She set his study sheet aside. If he didn’t want to study for his test, she certainly had no right to nag him. She wasn’t his mother.

“Okay,” she said, “we’ll do something else. But do we really want to go out into that pouring rain?”

He was already putting on his shoes. “You have an umbrella, don’t you? We’ll only be out long enough to get to the car and then into the bowling alley.”

“You really want to go bowling?”

“Sure, why not? It’s something active we can do inside. It’ll be fun. I’ll even buy you some nachos.”

Setting aside her reservations about his studies and her disinclination to go out in the rainstorm, she compromised. Again. “I’ll get my jacket and my umbrella. But I have to be back by seven.”

“No problem,” he assured her with a grin that was just a shade too close to smug.

“So. Dude. When are you going to rejoin the living?” Bob asked, sounding disgruntled.

Speaking into the headset that allowed him to keep his hands free while using his cell phone, Mike tightened a screw on the new showerhead he was installing in a recently vacated apartment. “I’ve just been busy, Bob. Work, classes—”

“A certain sexy scientist.”

The screwdriver slipped a little. Mike quickly corrected it. “Yeah, I’ve seen Catherine a few times.”

Which translated to every chance he got, he added silently. And even that didn’t seem like nearly enough, which worried him more than a little.

“You haven’t hung out with Brandon and me for the past couple of weeks. Every time we’ve called, you’ve had other plans. We’re sensitive guys, you know. We could get our tender feelings hurt.”

Mike chuckled, as Bob expected, but he knew his friend wasn’t entirely joking. He’d been hearing much the same things from his mother and sisters, whom he had been avoiding lately.

“So how about this afternoon? Want to meet us at Jolly’s for some wings and beer?”

As it happened, Catherine would be working late that day; she had said she probably wouldn’t be home before eight. He had told her that wouldn’t be a problem because he had to study. He had not just one, but two tests tomorrow. Both of his classes.

“I guess I could join you for a little while. But I can’t stay long, Bob. I’ve got to study.”

“Oh, sure, no problem. We’ll just hang out for a little while. You can hit the books later.”

Even as they disconnected the call, Mike was aware that Bob had brushed off the studying as unimportant. Which meant it was going to be up to him to make sure he got away at a reasonable time, he told himself firmly.

“How about meeting for sushi this evening?” Julia asked Catherine over the phone in Catherine’s office. “We haven’t done anything together since we went shopping last month.”