I nodded.
“Is that how you ended up half-naked on the couch with her?”
“We weren’t,” I said. “I just…I was hitting the heavy bag, and I took my shirt off. We were on the couch, and we fell asleep.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Travis is an idiot,” Beth said with a laugh. “He had me thinking you guys were about to get it on. Let’s step back, okay?”
“Step back?”
“Have you been on a date with her?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Bethany sounded surprised.
“On a date, you go out to dinner and a movie,” I said. “You’re supposed to pay for the girl, and I don’t have that budgeted.”
“Is that all you got?” she said through pursed lips. “Nineteen-fifties dating references? You don’t have to pay.”
“I would want to.”
“Would you?”
I thought about it for a minute.
“No,” I said, revising my statement. “I guess not. I don’t want to go out anywhere. I don’t like being around that many people, and there are always a lot of people at the movies. Besides, the only places to eat in town are bars and that Mexican place. Either way, there will be students everywhere, and they’re loud.”
“Not overly romantic places,” Beth agreed, “but there are better paces in Cincinnati.”
“We would have to drive for over an hour,” I told her.
“So?”
“What would we talk about?”
“What have you talked about before?”
“Our ecology project,” I said, “but I don’t think she’d want to talk about bees for a whole hour. You have to talk at dinner and on the way back, too.”
“What else does she like?”
“Um…soccer, maybe?”
“Why do you say that?”
“She plays on the soccer team.”
“So, maybe you could ask her about soccer,” Beth suggested. “You never played, did you?”
I shook my head.