The length of an hour seemed to have duplicated that day. There just didn't seem to be an end to it, driving Charlie close to insanity. In preparation of his evening with Amita tonight he had called some friends of his fathers with the excuse that his father was feeling a bit lonely lately. He managed to trick them in to inviting him over for a card game knowing that his father would not return until at least past midnight. Not long after he had hung up with his fathers' best friend, Alan called to tell him that he would not be home tonight.

Charlie smiled. He was almost ensured of an interruption free evening with Amita. Now he had to call Don. He had planned on calling to see how he was doing and then make sure that Don had no intention to come over. If need be, he would lie to his brother as well and tell him that neither he nor his father would be home that night.

It had been two hours since Charlie had made the first phone call and Don had not picked up the phone. Charlie started to get nervous, as he didn't want to call more than two times. Any more missed calls and Don would be at his house in no time worried that something had happened. But he just had to know what his brothers plans were going to be tonight and it frustrated Charlie beyond belief that his brother didn't answer the phone.

Finally Charlie decided to go with his back up plan. He was going to leave Don a message on his voice mail.

"Don, hi Charlie here. Just to let you know, dad and I won't be home tonight in case you wanted to drop by. Just give me call when you have time"

Charlie closed his phone and wished he felt more at ease. He had something big planned for tonight and could not deal with another ruined evening. It was now or never. This morning when Amita was waiting for him in his office he could barely constrain himself and he was overjoyed when he learned that she showed she felt the same. She intoxicated his brain making him unable to think of anything else but her. During class his mind wandered off on more than one occasion as he thought of what might have happened had he not pulled back. He kept on seeing Amita as her cheek followed the movement of his caressing hand with closed eyes and satisfying smile. The emotions he felt during that moment had been a mixture of pure ecstasy, lust and most of all love. He could hardly wait until tonight.

---

Charlie stormed in the house making a leap for the stairs when he almost ran over his father.

"Whoa there son! Who put a firecracker up your rear! Alan asked grabbing Charlie by the arm.

"Dad! Hi… I….. ehmmmm… really need to go to the bathroom." Charlie said with a bewildered look in his eyes.

"Bathroom is down there Charlie; you were going for the stairs." Alan said with a frown.

"Yeah… yeah. I know where the bathroom is dad. Thank you. I need to go get something upstairs before I have to go to the bathroom downstairs." Charlie responded acting a little stressed.

"What on earth could you be….? You know what. Never mind." Alan said letting go of Charlie and waving his hands. "I don't think I want to know. I'll be leaving soon anyway. Go do whatever it is you feel you need to do son."

Charlie sighed. Whatever weird thing his father had on his mind he was about to do, he couldn't care less at the moment. All he cared about was to get his father out of the house as soon as possible and making himself ready for tonight.

He sprinted up the stairs and went his room to pick out something to wear. He opened closet and picked out his favorite pair of dark blue jeans. He didn't want to overdress. The fancy type, that was just right for the sort of evening he was hoping to have. Then the t-shirt, or no better yet; a blouse. The red one, he looked nice in the red one. He walked over to his drawer to pick out nice clean dark blue socks. Then he stopped to think. What about underwear? Charlie shook his head. This was not the trail of thoughts he should be having. But then again, who knew what was going to happen and he shrugged with a smile picking out his favorite and most expensive pair.

His father yelled goodbye from downstairs. Charlie wanted to ask his father if he had heard from Don at all today but he was too late. He heard the door close. Charlie decided not to worry any more about Don or his father.

Satisfied with the choice in clothing he decided to take a shower. What good is it to wear clean clothes do if you're not clean yourself. And Charlie knew exactly what he smelled like right now. Like chalk and pre-date stress. As the water washed away the day Charlie managed to relax a little. He really needed to relax a little if he wanted tonight to go smoothly.

After having showered he wrapped a towel around himself and took a good look in the mirror. He needed to shave. He most definitely needed a shave. Grabbing another towel to dry his curls he gave himself another look, this time stern.

"Today better be the best hair day ever, or so help me God…. I'll shave my head."

---

Showered, shaved and perfumed Charlie was anxiously waiting for it to be seven 'o clock. That's when he had asked her to come over. Still ten minutes to go. Charlie sat on the couch staring at the clock as the seconds ticked away. He had carefully calculated how much time the chicken and lemon drenched potatoes would need to cook in the oven taking in account the weight of the poultry and what the correct amount of potatoes needed to be. It was nearly done. He had made sure that it was done about ten minutes past seven.

He had ransacked the entire house looking for candles and a CD with romantic music to play during their dinner. He had placed the cd in the player and placed the candles in the candlesticks on the dinner table that he had carefully set.

His cell phone rang. It must be Don calling back about the voice mail he had left. As he picked up the phone to his terror he saw it was Amita's name blinking on the screen. Oh God, please don't let her cancel tonight.

"Charlie? I'm so sorry, I just received a phone call from campus that there has been a power out and they say the back up generator failed. I need to go there to see what the damage is on my project!" Amita's voice panicked.

"Oh my God Amita, yes of course, you go, you need to go! I'll come too! I need to be there for my students! I need to know if there is anything I can do…." Charlie responded realizing the urgency of the matter. Amita had been working on this project for months now not to forget about all the other students.

"I'm there right now. Please hurry" Amita's voice sounded small.

"I'll be right there" Charlie said decided and he hung up.

He quickly jumped up, cleared the table and the turned off the oven pulling out the dish leaving it on the kitchen counter. He put on his coat and rushed out the door. He had to be there for her and his students.

---

By the time he arrived at campus it was as busy as if it were a normal school day. People all over the place frantically checking the status of the projects anxiously trying to get as much information as they possibly could about the reason for the power down. He went straight for the room where he thought Amita would be, and when he found her she smiled from ear to ear.

"It's fine! It's all there!" She exclaimed.

Charlie let out a relieved sigh. Thank goodness it was all there. The thought of all that hard work disappearing into thin air made Charlie sick to the stomach.

"I'd like to go check on my students. I'll see you in a couple of minutes" Charlie said.

Amita smiled as she checked for the seventeenth time if all the data was still there.

Charlie talked to a couple of students and was assured that most of the data was still available for most projects. A couple students hadn't made a proper back-up and had lost a few weeks of data. But that was nothing compared to the initially thought incurred damage. Charlie went to find Larry; he knew must have been one of the first to be at the campus after the he had been notified of the news. But Larry was nowhere to be found.

Charlie figured he must be with Amita. As he walked up to the room where he had found her, she came walking towards him grabbing him by the arm almost hauling him into the nearest empty room. Completely taken aback by her actions he stared at her.

"Charlie, Larry is just down the hall working with his students. I told him I was going to look for you." She whispered

"Ok….?" Charlie said still not sure where she was going with this.

"Unless you want to spend another evening with Larry we need to go now Charlie. My project is fine and you've checked up on you students right?" She asked.

"Yes, yes. But…" Charlie stopped talking. All this excitement had made him almost forget about the evening they had planned. If he was going to meet up with Larry there would be no getting rid of him, not in the state he would be in right now. Larry tended to stay worked up for quite a while after events such as these.

"Charlie?" She looked at him

"Let's go." He said grabbing her by the hand leaving the room in a hurry.

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