I couldn't stop giggling. It was that time of night when everything was so freaking hilarious. Olive and I tried desperately to muffle our laughs as we lay in bed. Olive could only stay for one night before she went back home. Katerina had the guest bed, so Olive and I shared in my room.
"Oh my god, that's so cute!" Olive said.
"Okay, okay, but you can't tell him. And you especially didn't hear it from me," I laughed out.
"Oh no! Romano would be so embarrassed!" Olive turned her face into one of my pillows, subconsciously feeling the shame for Romano. She took a moment for herself and showed her face again. "Enough about my boyfriend, tell me about yours!"
"Sorry, but I don't have any embarrassing stories about him yet," I said. Yet. All it would take is one call to his brother, and I would be set for life.
"I want to know about this Matt guy. How did you meet?" Olive asked. She wriggled anxiously.
"Well, it was the day before orientation..." I settled further under the covers to tell the story. "I went to Chicks, you know that diner across the road, and I accidentally sat down at his table. He was super nice about it and let me stay, and we've sort of been sitting together ever since."
"And you just now made it official? I was wondering why you ate pancakes so often," Olive said. "So, what's your favorite thing about him?"
"My favorite thing..." His eyes? Not to mention his personality. His brain? His dedication? His adorable face? The way he kissed me? Oh man, the way he kissed me. "I don't know, everything. Everything about him is awesome. What about you? What do you see in Romano?"
"I guess it would be...his honesty," Olive said.
"His...honesty?"
"He's very romantic," Olive said, a silly smile spreading on her face. "And he's very open about his feelings for me. Which is really important for us, you know? We don't get to see each other that often, but when we do meet, he always lets me know how much he loves me. And he's so passionate, too. I just love him so much," Olive said.
Love? Already? Wow. How could they love each other that quickly? How long had it been? A month? Two months? A month and a half?
Still, she must see something in him I didn't. They do say that the people who cuss more also tend to be more honest. From that perspective, I guess it did sort of made sense.
"It's hard, huh?" Olive said suddenly.
"Hmm? What's hard?" I asked.
"Waiting so long to see him again," Olive clarified with a yawn. "It's hard, isn't it?"
"Hmm," I said. I did miss him, but I knew it'd be that much better when I saw him again. "I'm anxious more than anything."
"I know the feeling, chica," Olive said. "I know it all too well," she said with a yawn.
It wouldn't be much longer now. In the morning, I could call Matt. In a week, I'd be able to see him again. We'd eat lots of pancakes and everything would be perfect.
I was nearly twitching from suspense. Just a couple more hours to go.
I had said goodbye to my parents and was back in the dorms. Katerina could ignore each other more comfortably. Most importantly, I just had one more class before I could run over to Chicks. Couldn't the clock tick any faster?
"You're Miss Bielschmidt, correct?"
"Right, yeah. That's me," I said a little too quickly.
"I have a lab to teach, but I'll have one of my TAs look after you," the professor said. She put her hands in the pockets of his long, white lab coat. "I've just got to go find one. Follow me."
We headed out into the hallway.
"Trust me, we're usually not this disorganized. It just gets a little chaotic the first day of the semester. I'm Dr. Cooke. I teach a couple of chemistry classes."
We passed by an open door. Dr. Cooke stopped and took a few steps back. She stuck her head in the doorway where a man in a white lab coat was looking at a computer screen hooked up to some strange machine.
"Do you happen to know where Williams is?" she asked the man.
"He's in lab 237a. He heard that you needed someone to set up for another round of exploratory students," the man said without looking up.
"Gotcha," Dr. Cooke said. "Good thing he's still here."
She walked a bit more briskly down the hall until we got to another door. This one was closed, but Dr. Cooke walked right in.
"Matthew! I'm glad I caught you. You're a saint. Do you think you can stick around and show her the ropes? What was your name again? Julia, right?"
"It's Jules," I answered in response to the questions directed at me.
I walked in after Dr. Cooke. I couldn't see anybody right away. Sure enough, a head popped out from around the corner. This bespectacled, begoggled cutie took my breath away with a smile that could put the sun to shame.
"She shouldn't be too much trouble," he said.
"Great. You two should be just fine," Dr. Cooke said.
"Awesome," I said, not even trying to hide the smile on my face.
Before the door even closed as Dr. Cooke left, Matt was whipping off his goggles. I couldn't even get a snarky word out before his lips were on mine.
"Mmmm," I hummed. I could feel the hard plastic of his goggles pressed gently against my back. His hand warmly caressed my cheek.
"Well, hello there," I said after we broke away after what seemed like a blissful eternity.
"I believe I owed you that," Matt said.
"Oh, is that how you kiss hello? Maybe we should say goodbye more often," I said. I traced the red goggle lines on his face.
"I'd rather not," Matt said. "Especially now that I know your real name, Julia."
"Oh, you're really one to talk, Matthew. I thought your last name was Jones," I accused.
"No, no, that's just my brother's stage name. People would start to get suspicious if we shared both a last name and a birthday," he explained with a stupid smile.
"I see that your hands are okay," I said taking each one in mine.
"Oh yeah, my doctor friend is a great surgeon. Sewed it right back on. Didn't leave a scar or anything," Matt said.
"Good," I said. I pulled on his arms so I could kiss him again. "It's a miracle of science."
"Right! Science! Follow me," he said, eyes bright with eagerness. He slipped his safety goggles back on over his glasses like the adorable dork he is.
I laughed. "Are we really going to do this?"
"Come on! It's really cool," Matt said. "Enlighten me."
The lab itself looked like it had several stations. There was one with a couple of beakers with some sort of clear liquid.
"Okay, watch this!" Matt proceeded to slowly pour the equally boring clear liquids together.
"Wow, Matt. That's...uh...really impressive," I said like the supportive girlfriend that I am.
He gave me a look. "I'm not done yet."
He picked up a pair of tweezers lying to the side and put it in the beaker. He moved it around halfway into the liquid and pulled it out again. Attached to the liquid was a string of...something. A string that didn't see to have an end as he continued to pull it out of the cup.
"It's nylon," he said. "A synthetic fiber. They make clothes out of this stuff."
"Witchcraft," I countered, wiggling my fingers at him.
"Science," said he.
He moved on to the next part. There was another clear liquid of something, and it was bubbling on a hot plate. There was a plastic cup with something colorful and a Popsicle stick. Matt picked up the beaker, poured it into the plastic cup, and passed the cup onto me. "Stir," he ordered.
"Fine, fine," I said. I swirled the Popsicle stick around for a while until the red mixture started to congeal into a slime. "You know, I think I did something like this in middle school once." I held up the Popsicle stick and let the slime thing slowly fall back into the cup.
"Do you like fire? You seem like a fire girl to me," he said like a bad car salesman.
Matt turned a knob that caused a five inch flame to come out of some janky metal device. He hastily grabbed a squirt bottle and sprayed the flame. The fire turned a bright green.
"Okay, that's a little cool," I admitted.
Matt grinned and handed me a different spray bottle. This one turned the flame a dark, cobalt blue. He picked up another one and turned the flame bright red. We continued to attack the flame with our spray bottles until the fire was a confusing mess of blue and red.
"Not working, huh?" Matt said.
"Not even a little bit," I said.
"Any way I can convince you?" he asked.
"Well, I can't say I'm not interested," I insinuated. "I mean, I think we have chemistry together." I wrapped my arms around his waist. "And I like how much you like this sort of thing."
"I do like this sort of thing," he said, hugging me back. He sighed. "But it is a lot of standing around waiting for things to boil. Just a bit of a warning."
"Oh well, then I think I'll definitely let you handle this department," I said.
He smiled and chuckled, holding me closer.
"Hey," I whispered. "Do you want to skip out early and get some pancakes?"
"Only if you help me clean up," he said.
"Deal." I grinned.