############

“How was class?” Wally Bayer asked the young woman who approached his table near a window in the Adams University Student Center.

“Hey there. It was okay. Is that what you’re having for dinner?” Stacey Darien looked down at the chocolate milkshake in Bayer’s right hand.

“Yeah, you want some?” Bayer tilted the cup in her direction.

Stacey shook her button of a nose as she sat herself opposite her date and next to the window which looked out upon the December night that had just fallen on the Quad. She smiled. “I brought my own dinner.”

Bayer sucked furiously on his straw and watched Stacey pull the rubber band off a box of sushi. He made a mild look of disgust.

Stacey caught the look as she slid her chopsticks out of their sleeve. “Makes more sense than a milkshake, Buddy.”

“Yeah, but this shake here has carbohydrates in the form of milk and sugar, as well as an ample supply of the fats group, not to mention protein, which of course takes us back to the milk part—”

“Wally, you’re so strange,” Stacey observed with a smile as she split her chopsticks.

“Sorry.” Wally sucked more furiously than before.

Stacey tilted her head to one side as she smiled at the soy sauce squirting out of its package. “It’s okay.” She reached for the wasabe. “How’s your research going? Still not going to tell me what you’re working on?”

The hollow sound of a straw sucking bottom emanated from the cup. “You know I can’t say that.”