Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
“Uh…yeah. Sort of. I’m mostly finished with the official paper, but I’m still doing some related research.”
“And what’s your topic again?”
“Advancing technology with artificial-intelligence-based code.”
I snort, feigning brain cells I don’t have. “Oh. Yeah. Of course. I’ve always been really curious about that too.”
“It’s a fancy way of saying we should let the computer do the hard work for us. We input data, and the computer writes the algorithm to give us whatever answer we’re looking for.”
“But isn’t all AI essentially human-taught to start with?”
“Technically, yes.” She nods. “It gets all of its data from us, but it has way more analytical capability than we do. It can take in an abundance of information and build conclusions at a substantially quicker rate.”
“Right. Cool.”
She laughs, and I shrug. “I’m just a dumb jock.”
“Jock, yes, but dumb, no,” she disagrees. “In fact, I’d say you’re a lot more intelligent where it counts than I am.”
“What’s that mean?”
She shifts in her seat a little, sighing. “I’m not good with…social things. Interacting. Understanding emotional needs. Relationships. And trust me, those things come up in everyday life a lot more than AI coding.”
“I think you’re better at it than you think you are.”
“You do?” she asks. And before I can respond, she quietly adds in a voice that barely rises above the hum of the computers, “Because I know being neurodivergent can make me come off as quirky or even cold to other people.”
There’s a vulnerability in her admission. But it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise to me. To me, Lexi Winslow is different in the best kind of way. I mean, clearly, you don’t pursue a woman like I’ve been pursuing her without being completely enamored.
“Lex. Everyone who knows you loves you. They speak highly of you, and they want to be around you.” I lean forward, putting just one hand on her knee and watching as her eyes jerk down to look at it and then back up to meet mine, albeit a little wider. “That doesn’t just happen. If you have a weakness, you obviously have other strengths that make people want to pick up the slack.” I smile. “Take your relationship with me, for example. Your weakness is pursuing and accepting my company. I make up for that by being willing to chase you all over campus like a stalker.”
She laughs, just like I was hoping she would, and I run my hand a little higher up her thigh. She doesn’t stop me. In fact, her body sways toward me in a promising display of yearning for more.
Leaning forward slowly, I touch my lips to hers, a soft, slow kiss of promised intention. She melts into it, sighing softly when I slip my tongue past her lips and just barely touch it to the tip of hers.
But despite the fact that every cell in my body wants to continue this, wants to keep kissing her, I break it off before it can turn heated, and she chases me forward, back toward my chair, with a sway of her body.
It’s exactly what I’m hoping for, even if it’s simultaneously the worst form of torture.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it,” I tell her with a soft smile.
“W-what?” she asks, a small stutter in her normally sure speech.
“I know you’re busy, Lex. I just wanted to make sure you were fed, and now that I have, I’m going to leave you to it.”
“You’re going?”
I nod. I am. As much as I don’t fucking want to.
“But remember…I’m just a phone call or text away.”
It’s one of the hardest things I’ve done—and I’ve done a lot of difficult shit—but I stand from my chair and leave the lab, walking down the hall as the door clicks shut behind me, and I don’t look back.
If this has any chance of going anywhere at all, I have to create the opportunity for Lexi to want me.
The time is now or never, and I sure as shit hope she’s ready to play the game.
Saturday, May 31st
Lexi
Twenty-four hours, ten minutes, fifteen seconds…sixteen seconds.
That’s how long I’ve been thinking about Blake Boden and his stupid Chinese-food-tainted kiss without being able to stop, and now I’m outside the entrance to his apartment building on the west side of campus, standing under an umbrella as the rain pelts down on me and wondering where I’m going to go from here.
I look up at the illuminated windows of several floors and then back down at my feet, which are starting to tingle from being so soaked.
Finally decided, I turn around and jog across Broadway, checking first in both directions for cars, and then dip straight in the front door of Brower Center to escape both the weather and my intentions.
A few students are milling around inside the dining room straight ahead, but thankfully, nothing too overwhelming. My nerves are far too stimulated right now to handle a crowd.