Carlos was taken off-guard, but he merely gave the other a contemplative frown before reaching out to comply. “Uh… alright,” he said.
She smiled, taking his hand. “Sorry, I lied, there’s… actually nothing wrong. You’re just cute, and I needed an excuse to introduce myself. Hi, I’m Selina.”
“O – oh, I – I see!” Carlos said. He laughed and the back of
his neck felt uncomfortably warm. Well, she was cute. “Heh, I’m Carlos. I’m a
Scientist.” He used their joined hands to awkwardly give a polite hand-shake in greeting.“Carlos,” she repeated, letting the name roll off of her tongue. It felt like melted caramel in her mouth. Soft and warm. “How lovely. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she lilted. “You favor any particular field, or just… science?” she grinned.
Carlos wanted to laugh at the way she said his name – it was
cute.“Uh, well, I have multiple degrees related to Mechanical
Engineering. But I also worked to get degrees in other fields so… you can say I
am a well-rounded scientist. Mechanics and robots are my favorite though.”“Yeah? We should maybe… get together so you can tell me about those other degrees sometime,” she said, a soft smile on her face. “Perhaps over dinner?” she added with a casual shrug.
Carlos blinked at her. “Dinner?” he asked. He wasn’t sure about that – he often had dinner very late, as he was very busy with his science. “What about lunch? Or Coffee?” he asked her
with a smile.Had dinner been too formal and forward? Maybe she was pushing this a little too far, too fast. Maybe he just wasn’t interested. That was disappointing to think about… She was mildly disheartened, but gave him a big smile in response anyway. “Coffee sounds perfect,” she replied, making sure to keep up her air of confidence. “What time works for you?”
Carlos laughed softly. “Well, time is really relative,” he
said. “Or not relative. It might not even exist at all – who knows! But…” He
thought about it. How could he sync up their perceived time? “What about the
sun? When it’s… say, at a seventy-degree angle to the west? We head over to the
Starbucks or something?”
The Perfect Scientist 