"Why’d you ask me out?"
"Pardon?" he asked.
"I'm standing squarely in the no-go zone. Student. Age difference. Work at your other place of employment."
"Oh that. Minor infractions. You're a rule I want to break."
"Why me? Am I the first rule you’ve broken, Lawson?"
"Young Celia, my whole life has been a series of rule breaking and upsetting boundaries. You are intriguing and I like to win. Besides, have you seen yourself in the mirror?"
I blushed. "I'm whatever, I guess, but there are tons of girls more attractive than me. Even in the section I’m in, some of those girls looked like they walked straight out of Vegas."
“Oh, the purple nightmare lecture hall? Those girls are strippers. You have class and you’re humble, and you’re genuinely curious about the world. I like that.”
“It’s kind of like I’m a newbie. All of this is new to me. The Gym, going on dates, talking to people who aren’t just talking about God, drinking coffee, stealing sips of your Margarita. I wasn’t born yesterday, but—“
“You escaped yesterday. What do they do, Joplin Ministries, if they find you? Hypothetically speaking.”
“Kidnap you back if they can. Try to lure you. I’ve heard rumors about hits, but I don’t know how true they are. You have to be careful.”
“How careful?”
Celia reached in her eye and put a finger right up to her cornea. She slid her contact to the side and I peeped the most gorgeous and startling aqua-marine half-moon of color behind the simple brown.
“Holy shit. I think the windows to your soul were trying to show their true selves underneath the streetlight. What else? Tell me more.”
She parted her hair with a fingernail, lifted a curtain of it to the root. Underneath the cascade of rich chestnut, right at the base of her scalp was a streak of white-blonde hair.
“Fascinating! And Celia?” She shook her head no, put a finger to her lips to signal silence and took a quick swig of my drink. “Lou know?” I asked her.
She nodded solemnly. “Some of it,” she whispered.
“I knew Joplin was scary. Sorry, I knew, let’s call her Janis, shall we? I knew Janis was being investigated and I knew people escaped and all that, but I never understood how difficult the exodus was for those who broke out.”
“It’s not your job to know, and why would you care, most people think they’re a bunch of quacks.”
“Because kids are involved, that’s why I care. Because you were involved and I care about you.”
I blushed again. I might have passed as a brunette, but my blush was all O’Hara. I had to change my appearance because everyone in my family was a dead ringer we looked so much alike.
“Do you remember the four basic laws of physics from today’s lecture?”
“Oh my God, a flash quiz and I don’t even get to review my notes?”
“Was my lecture that unengaging?”
“Umm, Newton’s, the law of motion, relativity, electromagnetic, and thermodynamics? Christ, I can’t believe I actually retained that.”
“Bravo! You passed. You can have another sip of my Margarita if you can tell me how all four of them are happening right now.”
“Holy crap! This is cruel.” I grabbed a handful of my hair in stress, but then quickly let it go.
“This is pass/fail, Celia. I won’t put the grade toward your final.”
“How generous,” I deadpanned. “Thermodynamics, in my face, my blush? Relativity, in picking up the Margarita glass and swallowing down the liquid. Motion, when I lift the glass bowl off the table to my lips, and electromagnetic…I don’t know, you stumped me.”
My adrenaline was chugging through me like a steam engine.
“Excellent. I’m truly impressed. You’re already looking at the world like a physicist. You can do electromagnetic—stop thinking about microwaves.”
All I can think about is attraction and how I’m drawn to him, how I want to crawl into his lap and curl up like a cat. Or maybe kiss the hard line of his bossy mouth so he stops quizzing me outside of school. This is ridiculous. It’s a date or am I tripping and reading things into it?
“Is this radio?” I point to the speaker on the ceiling in the private room. If Miguel has the radio on, then that covers electromagnetic,” I say smugly, proud of myself.
“You can do better.” Emery takes a sip of the Margarita and licks the salt off of his lips. I die a little inside wanting to convert into salt and melt on his tongue, but that’s chemistry and not physics. I want to impress him. I rack my brain to come up with something.
“Charged particles, waves, carried on photons, all atoms, magnets,” I list randomly the words that appear in my mind from the lecture earlier.
“Atta girl,” he says. He stirs our giant green Margarita bowl with slushed ice with his pointer finger then licks off the juice. I want to squeeze a lime into his mouth and drink straight Tequila from the divot at the base of his neck. “You’re getting there.”