Part 3

We did the typical lab partner blah blah blah. Anyone who has taken a college science lab knows the drill. You are partnered with this person and good or bad, you get to know them very well as you hang out and watch water boil for four hours (minimum) per week.

I found out he was a chemical engineering major from Anchorage, Alaska. Sound familiar? I asked him if he knew my other ChemE friend from our PChem class. Sure enough... turns out their dads worked in the same industry (banking) growing up and they were acquaintances. He also told me the guy was "quite well known" in the engineering department as being a lady's man. I left it at that.

I started going to football games with two of my geek-boy friends. They were fun enough and taught me the rules... "if the ball is moving, no talking".

A few weeks go by and aside from the weird purple pants episode, my lab partner was growing on me. He was good looking and he was smart. He was entertaining to talk to. He was athletic and also enjoyed my favorite sport, volleyball, though he professed a real love for water polo. We talked about our past loves. He was newly out of a relationship and not looking for anything. It had been a year and a half since my last serious relationship (the guy I moved from Fort Collins with) and I was ready. We talked about the upcoming football game and I asked him if I could join him.

He seemed perplexed that I asked if I could watch the game with him but agreed upon a place to meet. He told me he had reserved tickets, but there was always plenty of room to squish in. I looked forward to squishing up next to him.

I bailed on the geek-boys. I showed up and met his engineering buddies and pretended to understand the game in front of me. I even picked up one of the free pom poms on my way in as an effort to show my interest. He was a sweet guy who was thoughtful of me, but darn it, was not showing ANY interest!

I started scooting closer to him in lab classes. Sitting next to him in our associated lecture. Letting my hand linger in pointing out something in his lab notebook. I would stress about what to wear when we would get together to work on our reports. (Would he notice my new Mary Jane Doc Martins? Would he like this brown sweater with a deep V in the front?) I found myself lingering and chatting after working on our reports, dreading the time he would say he either had to do rounds (he was an RA in the dorms) or needed to go to bed. You would have thought *I* never needed to sleep.

He continued to include me in his football plans with his engineering cronies and on away Saturdays I would miss him.

Then finally... one night after working on our lab reports he asked me if I wanted to walk over and get a beer at the bar across the street. I was amped! We went to the bar that was then quiet on that weeknight. The movie Better Off Dead was playing. I knew we were meant to be as we both knew all the lines. ("I want my $2!" ... "He puts his testicles all over me!" She said. "I don't think that word means what you think it means," he would say. ... "This is PURE snow man!")

That night after the beer we walked back to his dorm room in the lightly falling snow. I went to retrieve my lab report materials from his dorm room, and it happened. He kissed me.

I was elated.

To be continued...

(P.S. Purple pants... AB now he professes that he couldn't come to lab in shorts and for some reason had a pair of purple fleece long johns in his bag and put them on under his shorts instead of walking back to his dorm room... makes sense now. I suppose.)