Chapter 19

Later that week, Eric poured himself a second cup of the sludge that his department called coffee and waited for the photocopier to finish running off his handouts for the next day's classes.

"Hi, Eric," a husky, feminine voice murmured up close to his ear. Eric jumped, spilling a glob of the scalding black tar onto his bare forearm.

"Ow!" he cried. "Damn it, Celia, what did you do that for?"

Celia Clemens, a colleague of Eric's, laughed softly. "Sorry, pal. Didn't realize you were off in your own little world."

Eric nodded. "Sorry. Still got that virus problem on my mind, I guess." It was a lie. He'd been daydreaming about Lori Tremain again. He just couldn't seem to get those big brown eyes out of his mind, but telling that to Celia would essentially be taking his life in his hands. All of campus would know about his unsuccessful date within milliseconds.

"So, I've got tickets to the symphony concert on Friday, want to go?"

"Huh?" Eric asked, shaking his head. "What did you say?"

Celia laughed again. Her short pale hair was at odds with her tanned complexion and dark eyes. Eric knew from personal, up-close observation that Celia was not a natural blonde, but she wore it well. "Earth to Eric, come in Dr. Gordon. I asked you if you wanted to take me to the concert at Harrison Auditorium this Friday."

Eric thought about it for a second. Celia was a good-looking woman, which made her a truly hot commodity in a department dominated by male computer nerds. For some inexplicable reason, she had picked on Eric as a likely escort and after an uncomfortable incident with a male co-worker, Eric had seen a need to assert his masculinity just a little. So, he'd gone out with Celia a few times, even had a little lighthearted, carefree sex now and then, but things between them had never gotten serious. Fortunately, she agreed with him and for the last year or so they'd strictly been friends.

He considered her offer for this weekend seriously for a moment. Maybe a romp with Celia would take his mind off of Lori, he thought. Maybe it was exactly what he needed. "I don't think so, Cele. I think we're both better off seeing other people." Damn, where had that come from?

"Granted. This was just an extra ticket, not a booty call." Celia regarded him thoughtfully. "Who is she, Eric?"

Eric looked up at her in genuine confusion. Was he that transparent? "Nobody."

Celia laughed, then lightly punched him in the shoulder. "Whatever you say, bud. Good luck and all that."

"You're not mad?" he asked, tilting his head curiously.

"We were always just friends, Eric," she answered kindly. "Far better to leave it that way, don't you think?"

Eric nodded in amazement. Then, collecting his copies from the collating tray, he headed back to his office, still in a daze.

Half an hour later, Eric still couldn't concentrate. He spun his chair around and looked at his officemate. "Hey Dave, do you understand women?"

David Garavaglia, Eric's officemate, almost spewed a mouthful of Mountain Dew. "What? Hell, no! I'm a man, dude. Ergo I cannot possibly understand women. Simple logic."

"Oh." Eric pondered for another moment.

"So that's what's been eating you today?" Dave asked. "I wondered what bug had crawled up your ass. It figures there'd be a woman involved. What happened, did Celia decide it was time to get serious?"

Eric shook his head. "No, Celia just more or less told me to get lost, or maybe I told her to get lost, but that's not what's bugging me." He fidgeted with a paperclip, bending it into all sorts of shapes that the manufacturer had never intended. "More to the point, that's not who's been bugging me."

Dave swiveled his chair 180 degrees to face Eric and put his combat-booted feet up onto a battered steel two-drawer filing cabinet. "Women problems, huh?" He scratched at his full, reddish-brown beard thoughtfully. "So, tell Uncle Davey all about it."

Eric turned his own chair so that the two men were face-to-face and placed his own sneaker covered, size fourteen feet opposite Dave's on the file cabinet, but crossing his ankles. It was their typical brainstorming pose. Their desks each faced opposite walls of their small office and what little space they had was filled to overflowing with books, papers and expensive computer hardware. This one, small black file cabinet was kept bare for the express purpose of serving as a footstool.

"Remember I told you about finding that computer in the subbasement of Harrison?"

"Yeah," Dave answered. "So where does the babe come in?"

Eric flashed him a snotty look. "Her name is Lori and I'm getting to that." He finished off the dregs of the so-called coffee and tossed his mug back onto its usual corner of his desk. Then he recounted the events of Friday and Saturday nights, leaving out very little except for his constant frustration since that first kiss. That, he assumed, David would be able to infer on his own. "So I called her Sunday and she blew me off. Then yesterday at lunch time, I saw her sitting with this Antonio Banderas look-alike," he finished glumly. "When Celia asked me out, I knew I should go, but somehow, I couldn't. I just don't want to be with Celia. I want to be with Lori."

Garavaglia laughed. "Dude, you have got it bad!"

"Shut up, jackass!"

The insult only made David laugh harder. "Oh, man and I thought this was going to be a boring semester. Boy was I wrong! This is going to be fun to watch."

Eric snorted and threw a wad of paper across the tiny space at his friend's head. "What's there to watch? She blew me off. She had lunch with some cover model. It's over."

"Man, haven't you learned yet that women are never that straightforward?"