Chapter 4

"So he has feelings for her?" Tommy said, opening the Tupperware container. "I thought this was just for that dance."

"So did I," Adam said, taking a sip of coffee.

Tommy began spooning the rice and chicken dish, savoring each of the bites. "What did he say," he said, his words muffled as he continued to devour the container's contents.

"Exactly what I told you. He said he has feelings for her but he isn't sure how he feels."

Tommy swallowed hard and took a sip from his water bottle. "That sounds a little confusing, man."

"I keep going over it in my head. Rocky never hinted that he had feelings for Aisha. He's never seemed interested in her beyond friendship. He doesn't even hang out with her that often alone. I don't get it. It's like it came out of nowhere."

"Love is like that, sometimes." Tommy said, taking a bite of chicken.

Adam rolled his eyes at Tommy. "Tommy, if I tell her how I feel now, it'll just make things weird for all of us."

"Why?" Tommy asked with a matter-of-fact tone.

"Think about it," Adam said, "If he asks her and she says yes, I'm done. If he asks her and she lets him down, I'm still out. I couldn't ask her out after she turns him down without making things weird and I definitely can't ask her out if she's dating him. I'm screwed either way."

Tommy sighed and took another drink of water. "Do you think she likes him?"

Adam thought about the question. Aisha never really let on for her feelings for any guys. She was friendly to everyone, but he had never witnessed her flirt out in the open.

"I'm not sure. I don't even know how she feels about me so I can't even gauge how she feels about him."

"But, you and Aisha are really close. Don't you think she would have mentioned it to you? Think Adam. If she had feelings for Rocky, she would have at least revealed that information to you of all people," Tommy paused. "—and Kim."

"You might be right, but…" Adam trailed off.

"But you're going to keep this to yourself, aren't you? You're never gonna tell her your feelings and you're gonna let Rocky make the first move," Tommy said scraping the last bites of food from the container.

"What choice do I have?"

Tommy looked at the nearly empty container and smiled. "Well…you could at least try to get her to cook more of this before Rocky makes his move. If those two start dating, I'll never get her to make me a batch of anything."

Adam couldn't help the smile that spread across his face.

"She made that especially for you. I think Rocky beat me to their place for the leftovers. They felt bad after I mentioned it to Kim so Aisha made you a small batch before she went to work last night."

"Listen, if you date her, I can get more of this. If Rocky dates her, none of us eat." Tommy said sternly as he finished off the final bite of the food.

Adam could only shake his head at Tommy's need to cheer him up and push him forward. He took another sip of coffee as he felt someone's hand on his shoulder.

"Hey guys," Aisha said as she placed her books on the table and sat next to Adam.

"Hey, Adam said you were running late." Tommy said.

"I would have been another hour, but my manager let me leave early since we were so slow," she looked at the empty and very clean container. "You ate it already?"

"I was looking forward to that meal since I heard about it," Tommy said, patting his belly.

"I'm sorry we didn't invite you and Jason. We may do the same thing on Sunday, so keep the day open."

"My stomach can't wait," Tommy laughed.

"So, what's going on? Did you guys make any progress?" Aisha said, taking her notebook out of her yellow polka-dot covered canvas bag.

Adam and Tommy exchanged glances and began turning pages in their chemistry books.

"Not an inch," Tommy said. "Seems like we can't crack this one problem."

"Yeah…"Adam said, cautiously.

"Hey, Aisha. Did you hear about Jared and Nikki?" Tommy asked.

"No," she said.

"Well, they finally hooked up."

"Really? Good for them." She said.

"Right, I know. But Jared actually wasn't going to ask her out." Tommy said, quickly glancing at Adam.

"Why? They were totally an item already," Aisha was baffled by this revelation.

"You see, there was this other guy that liked Nicole. He happened to be one of their mutual friends and he told Jared that he had feelings for her and wanted to ask her out." Tommy tried his best not to look toward Adam.

Adam was looking directly at Tommy. "I didn't hear the story that way, Tommy," he said, keeping his gaze fixed on Tommy.

"Well, I have a partner I spar with at the gym who knows Jared. This is the story I was told," Tommy still not looking at Adam and only addressing Aisha. "So, this other guy told Jared he liked Nicole and to keep it a secret so that he could ask her out. But Jared explained that he liked her, too."

"This is crazy! Nikki had two guys after her? Wild." Aisha said, fully engrossed in the story.

"Now, just imagine if Jared would have kept his feelings inside. We all know these two are made for each other."

"Wow, I wonder how awkward that made things between the three of them. I don't think I would know how to handle a situation like that," Aisha said, looking down at her notebook.

Adam began to fidget with his pencil, only looking down at it and his books. "I think I would rather keep feelings like that to myself than risk a friendship," he said, his voice almost shaking.

Tommy looked at the two of them as they both sat side by side and looking down at their very uninteresting books.

"I wouldn't," Tommy suddenly announced. "I'd just come out with how I really felt and tell her." He stood up and walked over to Aisha, dropping to one knee and grabbing her hand. "Aisha, I'm in love with you! I need you in my life and won't take no for an answer," he said, kissing her hand.

"WHAT!" Adam jumped from his seat, knocking his coffee cup as Aisha stopped it from tipping over. Out the corner of his eye, he could see Mike and Nakia from their calculus class turn from the computer tables to watch the scene unfold.

"I can't go on hiding this from you any longer. The moment we met, I knew I needed you in my life and by my side. After tonight's meal, I know that to be true more than ever before," Tommy continued, attempting to pull her hand in for another kiss.

She pulled her hand away as horror took hold of her face. "Tommy, it was just jollof rice and chicken. I hardly think that's a declaration of love." She pulled the other hand away as he took that one and attempted to kiss it.

"I really hope you're joking!" Adam said, stepping between the two and looking down to meet Tommy's eyesight.

"Unless this is some strange residual brain damage from one of Rita and Zedd's spells," Aisha said, looking from behind Adam.

"Okay, I'm joking," Tommy said, getting up with a playful expression. He went back around to his side of the table and took his seat.

Adam and Aisha settled back into their seats as Adam moved his chair slightly closer to Aisha.

Tommy watched the two for a moment.

"Seriously," Tommy said, "if any of us were to end up in a similar situation as Jared, Nicole and their unnamed friend, would it be that surprising? For example, look at you two and Rocky."

Adam's eyes widened as he tried not to look in Aisha's direction. "But Tommy…"

"What do you mean?" Aisha fixed her eyes on Tommy as she searched for where his conversation could be headed.

"What if Adam and Rocky both had feelings for you. And let's say hypothetically, you had feelings for only one of them. But what if the one who told you how he felt was not the one you had feelings for. Would it be strange if the other guy came to you later or better for him to keep his mouth shut?" Tommy clasped his hands on the table and put his best poker face on as he looked only at Aisha.

Aisha sat silent and bewildered. She still had not looked in Adam's direction and could feel her face grow warm. Unsure where Tommy was going with his question, she began to answer slowly.

"I don't know how I would react. I guess it would get weird for the three of us."

Tommy, unsatisfied with the answer, pressed on. "So, even if the guy you are hypothetically in love with felt the same way, you would rather he not say anything?"

Aisha pursed her lips at the further questioning. "No, I would rather he at least tell me how he felt. I just wouldn't want to see either of them hurt. They're both my friends and I don't want to lose them that way."

"I get it. Listen, it's hypothetical, anyway," Tommy said, sensing Aisha growing more uncomfortable.

"Right, I'm sure we won't have that same problem," Adam said, his voice tense.

"Well, what about you? What would you do in this situation?" Tommy asked, turning to Adam.

Aisha smiled and leaned into Adam's arm. "I don't think it would be exactly the same scenario. If Rocky confessed his undying love for Adam I would step aside no matter how much I love him."

Adam blushed and dared not look at Tommy.

"That is not what I meant…," Tommy dropped his head to the table in surrender.

"Let's just get some of this study guide done. It's Friday and we have our chemistry exam Monday morning," Adam said, trying to keep his emotions in check.

"Well, Billy is going to be late. He has an incubation and assay that need to run for three hours. He said he should be able to get here by seven after he leaves the lab, but we should work through as much as we can without him," Aisha said.

"Cool, I guess we're on our own for a while," Tommy said.

"Hey, how did it go in the lab with him? He said he needed help with a project this week," Adam asked, finally turning back to Aisha.

At this question, she wrapped the black rubber hair tie taut around her braids. Hoping she had disguised the visible tremor that went through her body, she folded both hands in her lap before answering.

"It went great," she said, not looking him in the eyes, "The PCR he was running wasn't yielding the expected amount of DNA per cycle. We couldn't figure out anything beyond missing a step for one of the reagents."

"Translation, please?" Tommy asked.

Aisha looked up to the ceiling lights, as if attempting to bring the words down from above. "PCR is a reaction we can use to make more copies of DNA samples. But, we use a machine to do it. All the correct ingredients put in to the machine allow the reaction to run for the number and amount of times we want to copy that DNA."

"So, what was the problem with his experiment?" Adam asked.

"Well," Aisha seemed to hesitate, "Billy noticed that the DNA copies he was getting from the thermal cycler—the machine we use—were missing half of the…um…molecule."

"I'm not really sure what that means. But from the part of the study guide I understood and by the look on your face, it doesn't seem like that's a normal thing," Tommy said, tapping his pencil to the table.

Aisha sighed, "It's not. The molecule is normally in two parts that are easy to predict based on the way it replicates itself. As long as everything is in place, this shouldn't have happened. Neither of us are sure why it occurred, but the last time we ran it, the whole process seemed to correct itself."

Adam noticed the distant look her eyes had taken on after the brief explanation. "Aisha, is there more that you aren't telling us?"

She looked down at the same page of the uninteresting table of contents to Principles of Biochemistry. "I think you should ask Billy for a better breakdown. I'm really not sure how to interpret his data."