Page 71 of The Scientist
“What is it?” I already knew this was going to be absurd.
“Reciprocity,” he answered. I was surprised he could even say the word without slurring.
“You wantmeto set you up with someone?”
“It’s only fair,” he said.
“This room is occupied by a large majority of the people I know here in California.”
“Hadley, you work in the liberal arts department. You’re surrounded by women who are morally opposed to the brassiere. I’m sure you could find at least one who would be interested in a lovable, five-foot-eight, Jewish neurobiologist.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Five-foot-eight?”
“Fine, five-foot-six… whatever.”
I chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.” Hopefully, he’d forget about this conversation by tomorrow.
I tried glancing up inconspicuously at Lex’s table only to find him glaring holes in the arm Stuart had around me. My immediate reaction was to pull away, but I stopped myself. My relationship with Stuart was the epitome of platonic. Meanwhile, the esteemed Dr. Strovinski was letting his ex attempt to fuse her body with his.
The dealer must have called for his attention because he abruptly pulled his gaze away from us. He seemed flustered as he looked down and played one of his cards. I heard the grating sound of Nicky’s giggle before she leaned over and rested herhead against his shoulder. A buzzing sound filled my ears before my mind went completely blank. Without thinking, I shot to my feet. The guys all stared at me with puzzled expressions. I’m sure they were wondering what the hell I was doing, but I couldn’t stay here any longer. My skin felt like it was crawling, and my drink turned sour in my stomach as I looked at them.
“What’s wrong?” Stuart asked.
“Nothing,” I said curtly. “I just told Sarah I would meet her out at the bars downtown tonight, so I think I should get going.”
“You could just say these guys are boring you. They bore me all the time,” Stuart said, sloshing his drink around.
“No, I’m having a good time.” Or at least Iwas. A thought suddenly sprang to my mind. “You guys should come with me.” I thought I might like the distraction of having a big group with me.
“You want us to go out to the bars with you?” Stuart looked even more confused.
“One of Sarah’s friends is having a bachelorette party, and they’re just going bar hopping downtown. She told me to bring some friends if I wanted to.” It was a joint bachelor/bachelorette party, so there would be guys there too.
“Are you kidding me?” He stood up so quickly, he swayed a little. I grabbed his arm to steady him.“Sarah’s hot.”
“Okay?”
“So, it’s a known fact that hot girls travel in packs and they’ve been drinking! I’m a solid seven to a drunk girl.”
“Whatever you say,” I said with a shrug. “You guys coming?”
“I’m in,” Peter said excitedly.
“I’m in too,” Dan agreed with a smile.
“I can’t,” Jace said, looking disappointed. “Sanjay would kill me if I left him here to deal with the whole party and its aftermath alone.”
I had forgotten that Jace was Sanjay’s roommate. I thought it was respectable that he wasn’t ditching him.
“Awww bummer,” Stuart said, not looking disappointed at all. “Let’s go.” He started heading for the door.
“Wait. Let me just go home and change.”
“Fine,” he grumbled, falling back in his chair. “Meet us back here when you’re done.”
“Okay, we can call an Uber then.”
Stuart perked up. “This is going to be awesomeeee,” he said, dragging out the last word. I laughed at his enthusiasm about going to a bachelorette party, but the smile quickly faded when I turned to see Nicky’s head still leaning against Lex’s shoulder. I walked out past their table hurriedly without giving them another glance.