Biker's Virgin

“Please do,” she replied, without looking up from what she was doing.

I went about sorting the chemicals, carefully measuring the exact quantities we needed for our experiment.

“Alright, I'm all set here,” she said. “How about you? Are you good?”

I measured out the last of the potassium. “Yep. We're good on this side.”

“Great. Write that down, then we'll get it going.”

We both scribbled down the details needed, and we then put everything together in the main beaker and turned on the Bunsen burner.

“Are you writing the chemical equations under each step or have you created a separ

ate table for them?” I asked.

“Separate table. It looks neater that way, but I think the prof is fine with either.”

We watched as the concoction started to bubble.

“Looks like the elements are starting to separate,” I remarked.

Her face remained cool and expressionless. Strictly business seemed to be her attitude about this whole thing. “Yeah. It should only take another two minutes before the process is complete,” she responded.

“You sure?”

“I know it will.”

“You know nothing, Jon Snow,” I replied with a grin.

For the first time since I'd entered the lab, she looked up and locked her eyes with mine. “What did you say?”

“Oh, nothing,” I replied, feeling deflated, assuming my joke passed right over her head. “It was just a Game of Thrones reference. Just, you know, trying to get a bit of humor in here.”

She chuckled, and I could see from the way her eyes lit up that her laughter was genuine. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she said, repeating my words with a smile. “He's my favorite character, you know. Him and Arya.”

I smiled, realizing I may have just struck gold. “My favorite was Eddard—that is until he lost his head at the end of season one.”

“Oh, my God, spoiler alerts please!” she exclaimed with mock horror.

“Come on,” I chuckled, “if you know the line, you've already seen way past season one!”

“Alright, alright,” she said. “I'm just messing with you.”

I tried to keep the conversation going. It felt good to finally connect on something with this girl. “So, as I was saying before I so selfishly gave away that massive spoiler, Eddard Stark was my favorite character, but now I'd have to say it's Tyrion.”

“A Lannister always pays his debts,” she commented. “I have to say I'm pretty fond of Daenerys, too. She's come a long way since being sold as a bride to a Dothraki warlord in season one. I feel like she's really gonna start causing some proper chaos with those dragons of hers in the new season.”

“Oh man, I literally cannot wait! She's gonna set shit on fire!”

We had gotten so into our conversation that we hadn't noticed the chemical reaction in the beaker had started to intensify and was bubbling over the edges.

“Oh no!” exclaimed Brooke as she saw this. “Looks like we're gonna set something on fire!”

I leaned across the lab table and turned off the Bunsen burner. Immediately, the mixture started to recede back into the beaker. “Whew,” I said. “That could've been bad.”

The smile that on Brooke's face while we had been talking about Game of Thrones had vanished and been replaced by a look of icy somberness. “It is bad. We've overcooked this. We should have been paying attention.”

“That's alright, just dump that out, I'll measure out the quantities again and we'll repeat the experiment.”