The Pace by Shelena Shorts Page A

curious as to what he thought, so I figured I would use his own question on him. “Why? Is that strange to you?” I asked.
    He smiled again and looked down. “No, not at all.”
    “Books can be very cool, you know.” I was trying to sell my apparently odd choice of employment. “Especially at a used book store. Talk about telling stories. You can’t help but wonder how many places those books have been. It’s very neat.”
    “Oh, I believe you,” he said, swallowing a French fry. “I have quite a collection myself.”
    “Why does that not surprise me?” I was staring at my own food, now, realizing I’d been playing around with it. He noticed as well.
    “It helps if you actually eat it.” He smiled.
    I was too busy absorbing every word he spoke to think about eating, but I bit off a French fry and showed him the remainder.
    “I like books, too,” he continued. “It’s nice to see someone appreciate old things as well as new things. Most young people nowadays seem so wrapped up in technology, they don’t have time for hobbies that involve thinking.”
    Now that we had my boring life summed up, I was feeling like a nerd—plus, he had called me young. I didn’t like it. I needed to divert the attention away from myself. “What are you studying at Berkeley?” I asked, between bites of my own sandwich.
    “Chemistry,” he said, matter of factly. Instantly, I didn’t feel like the nerd anymore, but I did feel a little inadequate. Not only was he good looking, wealthy, and incredibly charming, he was smart, too.
    “Wow. I would’ve never thought,” I replied, and I knew instantly that was a mistake, because he wasted no time with the obvious follow-up.
    “What would you have thought?” he asked, leaning back, taking a break from his sandwich. I had to think for a minute.
    “Well...” I looked him over, contemplating deeply. “Maybe finance?”
    He laughed. “That’s a good one, but no.”
    We were finishing up our food by then, and he started gathering our trash to throw it away. I would’ve wanted to prolong the afternoon but I, unfortunately, had to go to work. It was the first time I wished I didn’t have to go in. I had more questions.
    “Why chemistry?” I asked, as we threw our trash away. He didn’t seem like the chemist type, although it did run in the family, so I don’t know why I found that so surprising. It could’ve been because I kept envisioning him on a magazine cover and not in a lab coat.
    “My uncle piqued my interest. He was working on some medical breakthroughs that could have cured many people when he died, so I thought I would continue on for him. We’ll see.” He shrugged, opening the door for me.
    It was hard to keep my eyes on him because we were walking by then, but I could tell he was trying not to boast too much about it, but there was no way he could hide it. I added compassion to my list of good qualities about him.
    I daydreamed all afternoon at the register, and my curiosity grew by the second. There were things that didn’t make sense to me, and I wanted to resolve them. I had met a guy, who I liked more than I should, and yet there was so much left unknown. He had more money than even a middle-aged person would responsibly know how to manage, and yet he had no family to help him. He was incredibly kind and open, but complex at the same time. I couldn’t decipher whether I was overthinking things, as usual, or if there were missing pieces that I should try to locate. If I hadn’t liked him so much, I probably wouldn’t have wasted my time, but I did like him.
    In fact, if I believed in love at first sight, I would have said I loved him already, but I refused to go there. So many things were too mysterious for me to allow myself to fall hopelessly for someone who may not reciprocate my feelings. I wanted to know everything about him and more so, I wanted to know why he was interested in me. He could have had anyone he wanted. It didn’t make sense.
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