Chapter 1
It was already 2:30pm. She knew that this was going to be an absolute waste of time, but she had no choice. Sure, her scholarships covered almost all tuition and room and board, but as part of the whole financial aid package she had to do work study. What she couldn't figure out was how she managed to get work study in the athletic department. And to add absolute insult to injury, one of the athletic directors pulled her file and found out she was a BioChem major. Ok, so to be fair, she wasn't just a BioChem major, she came into freshman year with several summers of experience in the BioChem lab and managed to get her name on a few of the most recently published papers. So it made sense that the AD talked to the work study program and managed to get Lauren to sign on to tutoring one of their star athletes for 2 hours a week. Although she had her reservations, 2 hours of tutoring was better than 10 hours a week of paper pushing, so she agreed.
Apparently she was going to have her hands full with her tutee this year. From the brief email she received, she would be tutoring the number one fencer on the nationally ranked fencing team. Surprised that the athletic department had any investment in fencing whatsoever, she googled the star sabre's name. Her name was Isabeau Dennis and the internet was buzzing about her gold medal potential.
The thought of knowing someone who won a gold medal was kind of exciting. But that excitement waned with every minute that Isabeau was late to their first tutoring session. Having a thousand other things to worry about, Lauren figured she would give Isabeau 10 more minutes, and then she would call it a day.
"Well, this was a the biggest waste of my time," Lauren said aloud to no one in particular, especially no Isabeau because she still hadn't arrived yet.
Thoroughly annoyed, but not entirely surprised that this dumb jock couldn't make it to a tutoring session on time, Lauren gathered her stuff in her arms and stood up to leave. As she turned to leave the library and get some more lab time in, she managed to run into another student who was clearly in a rush.
"Oh god. I am so sorry, I am super late for tutoring and I wasn't paying attention to where I was going," said Lauren's unknown assailant and she bent down to help Lauren pick up her notebooks that now littered the floor.
"Don't worry about it," Lauren said with an audible level of annoyance. She wasted an hour and now got knocked on her ass. This would be the first time that happened today, at least in the literal sense.
"Here, let me help you grab your stuff," the woman plead with Lauren.
"I thought you said you were late for something. Maybe you should just go," Lauren said with more hostility than she meant. It just figured that in an attempt to help Lauren, this other woman made Lauren fumble the notebooks that she hadn't managed to drop before.
"Aw, it's no big deal. I am so late anyway, I figure my BioChem tutor is long gone," the stranger smirked as she grabbed Lauren's remaining notebook.
"Hmm, that would make you Isabeau. And don't worry, your BioChem tutor was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and only decided to leave a few minutes ago," Lauren said as she lifted her eyes to finally make eye contact with Isabeau.
"Really? She just left? Dammit. Wait, so you know her? Do you have her email or cell phone so I can call and apologize? And totally reschedule because I can't afford to fail another test or I can't compete this weekend," Isabeau asked meeting eyes with Lauren.
"No need to call or email, let's just get a table and get to work. I really need to get back to the lab to set up my samples," said Lauren, the irritation fleeting from her voice as she looked at Isabeau up close and personal. Her college profile didn't do her justice, she was gorgeous. She body was incredibly lean, but extremely muscular. After running into her and nearly bouncing back off, Lauren could feel the sinewy muscles that belied her sweatshirt and matching sweatpants. But far more impressive than her athletic frame, Lauren was completely awestruck by how entrancing her eyes were. She had never seen anyone with blue flecks in brown eyes. These eyes clearly had to be strange genetic mutation because the dominant brown eye gene would easily mask the recessive blue eye gene, but standing right in front of her was a clear co-expression. And this co-expression was probably the most beautiful feature she had ever seen.
"Hey, are you okay? Better yet, am I okay? Do I have something on my face?" asked Isabeau, feeling a little self-conscious that Lauren was staring, even though she couldn't deny enjoying the attention.
"Huh?" Lauren said, not registering what Isabeau had asked, but feeling like whatever it was required some sort of response.
"Is there something on my face?" Isabeau asked again.
"Heterochromia," Lauren said absentmindedly.
"Hetero….what? I mean yeah, definitely hetero. It's not like I play softball or anything, but," Isabeau quickly spouted out, feeling a little uncomfortable by Lauren's accusation.
"Isabeau, no. Not heterosexual. Well, I don't know that at all, and regardless that isn't something for me to comment on or judge about, so don't worry," Lauren could feel herself starting to ramble, but couldn't help it. "I mean, heterosexuality affects approximately 90% of the population in the human species, and is thought to express equal rates in other species well, or at least species whose sexual reproduction creates genetic diversity," Lauren could feel her geek starting to shine through and needed to reign in her rambling before she made a further ass of herself in front of this girl. This really beautiful girl.
"Anyway, that is completely irrelevant to heterochromia, except for the prefix of the term, which means different. As in the color or chromia of your eyes is somewhat different. Your eyes don't match and express both dominant and recessive genes at different rates." Finally, her nerding was reaching its end.
"So what are the rates of heterochromia in people?" Isabeau asked with genuine interest.
Completely shocked that her audience was actually captive at this point, Lauren was speechless. "What?" was all she could manage to say.
"Was that not right? Clearly I am in more need of BioChem help than I realized because we haven't even started talking about this stuff. But, I was wondering how common is it to see people with different colored eyes?" Bo mumbled as she rubbed the back of her neck. Her face was starting to turn red with embarrassment that her tutor had her work cut out for her.
"Oh, this isn't really BioChem. Actually, I worked at a lab this summer and got chance to meet some really fascinating geneticists." Afraid she was going to start nerding out again, Lauren hastily said, "200,000 at least in the US. To answer your question, Isabeau."
"Bo."
Lauren gave her a quizzical look.
"My name is Isabeau, but so is my grandmother's name, so growing up, everyone called me Bo."
"Oh," said replied. "Like Gilmore Girls."
Bo laughed out loud at this outdated pop culture reference, and Lauren couldn't help but offer a chuckle as well.
Bo and Lauren stood just outside the library for a few more minutes before Lauren offered to sit and review the most recent BioChem notes Bo needed. As they moved to sit at a table, Lauren was warming up to the idea that she would be spending several hours a week with this Bo person.
