Saturday morning at the Tragers meant family breakfast, with everyone actually sitting down. Nicole made the scrambled eggs and watched as Jessi made her perfect golden pancakes. Jessi appeared particularly cheerful, looking away from her griddle from time to time to watch Kyle set the table. He smiled at her in response.

With the preparations completed, the family gathered around the table, getting juice, coffee and filling their plates.

Nicole looked at Jessi and Kyle, both still smiling and said, "I guess I don't have to ask how the dance went. You two look like you had a good time."

Jessi smiled at her, "It was different dancing with Kyle. When I went dancing with Raymond, I was trying to do the right thing. I was trying to understand what he wanted me to do. With Kyle, even though we were just dancing, we were still a team. We were doing it together." She looked at Kyle and smiled.

Kyle nodded, "That's true, after a while we weren't 'trying to dance properly' we were just dancing with each other, each of us testing the other's ability. By the end, we were dancing together watching each other instead of the other dancers."

"I'll say you were dancing," Josh said. He looked at Nicole and said, "For one dance they came over and danced with Katie and me. The two of them followed my every move. It was just like Kyle back at that alternative dance last year, only this time there were three of us dancing together. Everyone was pretty impressed."

"No," Kyle said, "that was just copying like you told me. You were dancing and we were copying your movements. Later, the two of us were dancing and there was this energy all around us like a magnetic field. I could feel Jessie's moves before she made them." He looked at Jessi.

"I felt it too," Jessi said. "There was a strong feeling of connection."

Jessi and Kyle looked into each other's eyes. Nicole broke the silence by asking Josh, "So, it sounds like you and Katie had a good time, too."

Josh frowned, "Not so good. The dance with Kyle and Jessi was the high spot of the night. Katie and I aren't doing so well together. I don't think Katie is going to want to go out with me again."

Nicole looked sympathetic and asked, "What happened?"

Josh sighed, "It was the same old thing, when we kissed she could tell that I was thinking of Andy." Josh continued, "She's been waiting patiently but I think she's come to the end of her rope. She says she just can't be the odd man out on our dates anymore."

"How could she be the odd man out?" Kyle asked. "She's a girl."

Nicole smiled at him, "When a couple is dating and one of their friends goes along, that person is called the odd man out. It can be uncomfortable to be that person. You feel you are in the way. What she meant was that she could feel Andy's presence in Josh's mind, even though Andy wasn't actually there." She turned to Josh and said, "I can see how she could feel that way. You still obviously have strong feelings for Andy."

"I do," Josh said. "She knows that and wanted to go out anyway. Andy keeps pushing me to take her out. It just isn't working."

Nicole glanced at Jessi. She was looking at her plate, pushing a bite of pancake around, her cheerful mood dimmed.

"I guess my 'dating' is going to be talking to Andy online," Josh said. "It's just as well. I like Katie and I don't think it's fair to her. I should probably call Andy and tell her about it. We're supposed to be playing G-Force this morning." He got up from the table and headed for his room.

Was I being unfair to Jessi by taking her out when I still loved Amanda? Our date had been wonderful and I couldn't regret it. I don't think Jessi did either, even though the conversation had made her remember that I still had strong feelings for Amanda. I didn't know what I would do when Amanda came back. I couldn't imagine life without her in it. But Jessi and I were connected. Now that I had been on a date with her, I wanted to date her again. Would Jessi become tired of waiting?

Nicole asked Lori, "Are you ready for your performance tonight?"

"Are you trying to spoil my appetite to keep me from eating the last pancakes?" Lori asked jokingly. "I guess I am, my name is posted and everything."

"We'll be there," Nicole said. She asked Kyle, "Are you and Jessi coming?"

"Of course we are," Kyle said with a smile.

"Well I better go practice," Lori said. "Or pace or something."

"I don't think pacing helps," Kyle smiled. "It never does for me."

Lori smiled at him and left the table.

Stephen turned to Jessi, "I got a call from the real estate agent, Dave Hamm. He says you can have the keys to your unit on Monday."

Jessi said, "He said it might take time to get the lease approved."

Stephen explained to Nicole, "He got uncertain when he found out that Jessi was actually going to be the one leasing the unit." He smiled, "A call from Jessi's bank made him very cooperative." He and Jessi exchanged smiles.

Jessi said, "Tom Foss says that we should form a corporation to buy things and rent facilities. He says it would make it easier to deal with suppliers."

Stephen nodded, "That's probably a good idea. It's not very hard to do; you could probably fill out the paperwork yourselves. Lots of people do that, with what you can do, it should be easy for you."

"I can read some books on corporate law," Kyle suggested.

"I don't think you have to go to that much trouble, it's just a couple of forms," Stephen said.

"It's no trouble," Kyle said with a smile, "It would be good to know. We can stop by the library for a few minutes."

Stephen and Nicole exchanged looks.

"Should I call Foss and tell him he can move his things to the upper area?" Kyle asked.

"Yes tell Tom to go ahead," Jessi agreed. "He should also make the security improvements he talked about." She turned to Stephen, "Thank you for helping me with this. I can work out all the technical details but I'm uncomfortable dealing with people."

"I'm glad to help," Stephen said. "I'm looking forward to seeing this computer you are building. I'd like to know more about how you are going to balance running your model over that many processors." He looked at Nicole who had that tolerant, 'the computer geeks are talking' look and said, "Jessi is just casually extending the art of computer science in multi-processor applications as part of this model she is running. If she wrote it up as a thesis she could probably get a PhD for it."

"We're not in a hurry to be done with school," Kyle said. "We want to graduate from High School before we get PhD's." Nicole laughed and shook her head wonderingly.

Jessi said, "We should order the computer equipment before we go over to UDub today. I want to get our project moving again."

"I can help," Kyle offered. "We should probably do that now." They got up and went to Jessi's room to get on the computer.

Stephen commented to Nicole, "So their date seemed to go well. I'm glad you gave them your consent. I know it's going to be awkward, but so far it seems to not have turned the world upside down – although I do think that's what the two of them are going to eventually do."

"I was fighting a losing battle from the beginning," Nicole admitted. "I decided it was better to be able to keep the lines of communications open than to make them sneak around me, and put the guilt on Kyle. The whole issue is fraught with peril but sending Jessi out into the normal dating world didn't work all that well either. Fortunately she didn't seriously hurt the guy."

"Well she should have," Stephen said. "He got off easy. I don't want anyone trying that kind of stuff with my daughters."

Nicole smiled at the use of the word 'daughters', "Our life is complicated enough. We don't need to be dealing with a court case too. And you can bet that some of the people at Latnok would get involved if a legal issue came up related to what either of them can do."

"That's true," Stephen agreed. "I hadn't thought of that."

Nicole mused, "Their date went well, but if the relationship deepens, and it certainly isn't going to stay static, then things could get interesting around here. There's also the fact that Amanda is coming back in a couple of months. That's likely to destabilize things. I have no idea what is going to happen there. We could be in for some rocky times."

"We may have to lay in a stock of candles," Stephen said. "The house wiring may be at risk."

Nicole objected, "It isn't funny." Then she laughed and added, "All right, maybe it is a little."