He wouldn't win the match reacting to her that way. He tried for casual and stood up, facing her with Chinese food forgotten in his hand. "What are you doing here?"

She took a step back. "I'm bowling."

He gave her the look that said she was slow-witted but would come around in time. It was the superior look that some would call a bluff, but he'd call survival.

She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder toward the raucous jock party her mother held the highest score at. "I'm b-o-w-l-i-n-g." Her lips tightened in annoyance, and he remembered being able to kiss her out of irritation with him. "And I'm finishing a psychology class for my associate's degree. I'm drinking Red Bull with my vodka, and I'm saying, once again..." She leaned forward, closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and slid her middle finger up the side of her cheek.

He smiled, a real one this time he was glad she missed with her eyes closed. It would only encourage the sass on her face. Damned if he could resist. He gave her a kiss, intended it to be a light, drive-by kiss. But the minute he felt her, he knew it was a mistake. He jerked back in time to watch her eyes pop open and save himself from doing it again. Letting out a breath that could have contained a swear word, he hoped she didn't know it was aimed at his own stupidity.

Twenty years he'd gone without kissing Gwen Ciarrochi, and in the middle of Belmar University's bowling alley, he'd kissed Gwen Frame.

He had to go before... hell, he just had to go. He'd aim for a casual retreat even though he had two powerful impulses: the first to grab her again and the second to bash his head in with a Hello Kitty! bowling ball. He tossed the take-out box in the garbage, thanked god he made it, and wondered if she'd watch him walk away.

Gwen's Journal - September 26th, 1989 - Wednesday Job at the cafeteria's going pretty well. Everyone calls the head guy Old Man Jameson, but I think that's kind of mean. I mean, he's really old, and that's why we should be nice to him. He's cranky, and he yells a lot, but how long does he have to live? I like to imagine that he has something terminal, and it makes it easier to smile at him even though he mostly makes people really mad.

Max came in yesterday during my shift. I haven't seen him since dinner at his parents and then the ice cream, real ice cream he bought me after. It's okay, though. He's probably busy. I'm really busy, and neither of us are looking for anything serious. I mean our lives are just starting. He had on these great jeans, kind of beat-up and a camera.

Gotta go study. Who knew Curriculum Development for Elementary School Teachers would be so stinkin' boring?

Gwen's life - the day before...

She didn't mean to watch him walk away. She didn't want to. He hadn't even called her once since she'd kissed him against his car. Even the memory of it made her face red. She was definitely not going to remember it if he came through her line. But when he picked up his tray, he turned, and he wasn't walking away from her at all but walking right toward the entree. She should tell him the French toast wasn't very good. It needed something. She didn't know what, but something.

A camera, new by the looks of it, its leather case black and smooth, hung around his neck. He moved it over to his side so he could hold the tray in front of him, but it nearly swung back and took out his juice. He straightened it, stopped when he saw her.

She didn't know what she expected. She'd run into him on campus eventually. It wasn't that big a deal. She'd ignore him, or he'd ignore her, or they'd both give a polite head nod like two old ladies who'd once had tea together. But he smiled at her so quick and bright and then shook his head and laughed, and she laughed too, realized she was grinning back.

Setting his tray down on the nearest table, he unsnapped the cover on the lens, started to raise it, and stopped. "It's a mistake to take your picture, Gwen Ciarrochi."

She waited, sure she wasn't breathing, then heard the click.

He lowered the camera and held it against his chest.

Back to U...

She enjoyed her quiet mornings in the cafeteria having a sub-par breakfast while she studied psychology or recipes, which might be the same thing. She successfully avoided Old Man Jameson, but he might show up at her table any moment. Lately, it seemed she'd become magnetized and couldn't do anything without a crowd. Her mother had plenty of room at the table, at the head of it, if that was possible at a round. But Hayden wouldn't fit and pulled up an extra chair.

She couldn't even butter her toast without knocking Bryan in the ribs, not that she minded. He was flirting with Mranda, who graced their presence because Ty was there. Bryan could and should do better than a mean girl. She'd have to talk to him about that. Even Guy, mystery man of the ninth floor, had pulled up a chair. He probably thought it was an American ritual to worship the grandma.

Mranda giggled, and Gwen felt her jaw lock. She elbowed Bryan with intent, but he put his hands up in response. "What?"

"Seriously."

He whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "Seriously. Female."

Her talk to him about Miranda would consist of two words. "Aim higher."

"I am."

She laughed. At last a man who understood his worth. "Okay, you got me there. Still, I'm keeping my eye on you and my eyes open for someone more suitable."

"Gwennie? Suitable?" Ellen shook her head. "You don't want to settle down with some tool. I saw a very nice looking janitor as we came into the cafeteria. A very fit sixty-ish, probably pulling retirement from another job too. Get yourself a double-dipper. They have more spending money."

Wow, could the morning get better? She was supposed to trawl the waters of retired men with second jobs. Dare she dream of hooking up with a chain store greeter? After twenty years of marriage gone in a puff of smoke, she planned to remain single for the time it took the universe to recover from the big bang. "Mom, I'm not looking for anything."

"Exactly. This time in your life is just about sex."

Guy laughed with his chin in the air, all white teeth and abandon.

Everyone turned to him, but he finished and went back to his cereal.

Gwen shook her head. "Nah."

"It was just the s word." Bryan lifted his hands. "In every language we're tools."

Gwen quickly tallied her own success in the Jeopardy category of Interpersonal Relationships. She'd scored less than nothing, scars even, in the Max answer and less than nothing again in the Steve answer. What was the Jeopardy question? Who should not be in a relationship? Gwen whatever-her-last-name-is. "Bryan, in every language we're all tools."

Chapter Six.

Finish sweet with a kiss of chocolate.

Max felt like the teacher-voice in the Peanuts cartoon. The sleepy-eyed kid in his office wasn't tracking anything, and he was saying, wah, wah, wahwah, wah. When had he become the boring adult? "Dalton, show me your last batch." He motioned to the beat-up back pack. The kid had something going for him. He wasn't cruising campus with some fancy mall messenger bag.

He spotted his own messenger bag across the office. It was fancy leather, he supposed, but beat-up. And he'd bought it in Riyadh. Saudi shopping didn't mean he was in danger of settling down. He'd tried that, hadn't he?

The kid pulled out a handful of black and white photos, edges battered and bent from riding loose in the bag. Max let out a breath. Pick your battles. He took the mess and flicked through them. Red's Bar and Grill. Old men playing poker was classic, but the kid was all over the place. "You need to be patient. Sometimes you'll get into a rhythm, but mostly you've gotta watch and wait and then just get it."

He felt his own finger press down, a motion that caught, sometimes, a world. Watch and wait. Maybe he needed to take his own advice. He was beginning to see that avoiding Gwen wasn't helping him, maybe it never had. He should just click, see what was going on with her, and move on.

He thumbed through a couple more photos, then, ah, there was a good one. He set the photo of a sharp-featured man, younger than the rest, on the desk. "Nice work with the shadows on his face, but anybody could have done that."

Dalton appeared to not listen at all, and Max fought a smile. Tough guy. He pointed to the subject's eyes, waved his finger between them. "Sad."

Dalton's head came up.

"Sharp face, sharp mind, but sad eyes. He's wastin' time playing cards and knows he's living an old man's life already."

Leaning forward, Dalton motioned to the grainy waitress behind the man. "I tried to get her in there clearer. The guy tried to get her to talk to him, but she ignored him just like she did the old dudes."

Max jabbed a finger at Dalton's camera."You gotta lower the ISO. Really important in black and white. The lowest you can manage. You're getting too much noise. Get the shot good and sharp. You can add grain later, but, man, it's damn hard to take out."

"I tried, really tried on this one. I couldn't get it. Man, ISO. Got it."

Max handed him the prints, sat back in his chair. "Get out there."

Dalton gathered the photos and started to shove them in his bag. He seemed to register Max's sigh and instead dug around, found a Mylar envelope, and slid them in before heading to the door.

"There's a football game this weekend."

Dalton stopped, looked confused.

"They used to do a bonfire the night before."

He shrugged, "Probably."

"Fire and dark make real nice black and white photos."

"Ah," Dalton nodded.

"Probably be some cheerleaders too."

"Ah!" Dalton smiled.

An entire semester of Daltons. It was plenty entertaining, that was for sure. But who would have guessed that's where he'd land, back at Belmar, after knocking around the world? His folks had made him go to U the first time. He supposed his mom was responsible for the second round also, but he could have come and gone, couldn't he? Gone when she was. He looked around the office, half moved into was half more than he'd ever done before. Maybe he was on to something. Maybe he was kidding himself.

Gwen nearly ran across campus. She hated to be late, and it looked like she might not make it to psychology on time. Damned if she hadn't slept in. After she'd settled into dorm life, there was something about going to bed there that let her really conk out at night. Maybe her mom radar was finally turned off with Missy in another state.

She headed to the south entrance of the social sciences building and spotted Max coming down the sidewalk, hands in his jean pockets looking, well, she didn't have time to go there. She could get into the building without even having to acknowledge his...

"Gwen." He picked up speed without any visible effort, and she'd practically sweated through her top just crossing the oval. But she could probably get away with a... she waved and darted into the building, power-walking down the empty hallway. She held her breath for the sound of the door closing behind her, but it didn't.

"Gwen."

She turned but kept walking, waving her thumb toward the lecture hall at the end. "Late for psych."

He caught up and walked with her, but she couldn't imagine why, so when she reached the door, she smiled a goodbye and walked in. She took the first seat she spotted at the back of the hall and couldn't remember if she'd grabbed her glasses. They were for reading but sometimes it made the front monitors clearer. Damn, she really liked to be up closer. Served her right for being late.

Someone took a seat beside her, and she slowly turned her head. Max. She held her hands, palm up, and whispered, "What are you doing?"

"Sneakin' in." He sat back, legs under the row in front of them, hands linked on his very trim middle.

He'd always had amazing... she shook her head. "You're not in this class."

"Faculty."

"Stalker faculty." She said it under her breath and decided to ignore him so he wouldn't confuse her anymore. Pulling out her notebook, she concentrated on the lecturer, almost ant-like from where she sat. At least the technology he used made the visuals almost big enough on the screens.

"Do you want me to stalk you, Gwen?"

She turned, eyebrows drawn. "I didn't say that."

He waited. "You didn't say you didn't."

"Didn't what?" She pointed her pen at him. It was so like him, bomb right into things and mess them up. "Knock it off. You're distracting me." She faced the front. She would not be derailed by him or anybody else. Hell, if the prince from Cinderella sashayed in and really put himself out there singing to her from the front podium, she'd say no, thank you, I'm focused.

"I'm a distraction?" Max said it like it was a good thing, his voice all buttery beside her. "Well, I'm flattered. But we're practically strangers. What with you being middle-aged and all."

Her eyebrows drew together so tightly she felt the start of a headache. She was middle-aged? Well, men died so much earlier than women, that even at the same age he was probably a decade closer to death. He could just, "Shut up and listen."

"Oh, you want me to stay. That's very nice." He looked at his watch. "I wasn't planning on this, but all right."

She hit his arm and was instantly horrified that she had resorted to some eighteen-year-old version of herself. She ignored his laughter and concentrated on the professor.

"Female mammals carry most of the reproductive burden of their species." The dot of a professor went on with his psychology of human pair bonding lecture she wished she could hear alone in the dark and not with Max practically breathing on her elbow. His head tilted so close to her writing arm, she could lift her elbow and cold-cock him.

Another few minutes and she just might, especially after seeing a disturbing pie chart that explained her entire existence thus far. It showed the lifecycle of a mother, whole years lost to bringing people into the world who would go on to ignore you.

"Females invest far more time and energy in the process. Pregnancy, birth, nursing, raising." Even as she wrote it down, she knew Max was reading her notes. He'd cribbed off her before, but she'd show him. Next to females and time she wrote male investment= fifteen minutes.

Max, all slouched in his chair, leaned his cheek practically against her shoulder. "Darlin', he's not doin' it right."

She felt an electric jolt that she hoped to god he'd missed. He'd said not doin' it right with the total and utter confidence of a man who could rectify that, not immediately, but over the course of, what, hours?

He sighed, like he pitied human males. "Even at eighteen it should take the better part of an afternoon."

Better part of an afternoon. She would just ignore him and any possible memories of anybody naked ever in the history of afternoons.

"A female's reproductive success depends on the quality of her choice of mate."

She kept writing, glad that her marrying a tool was justified at last and in front of Max. Well, other people thought Steve was a tool. Not that she didn't after he'd gone, but still, a woman needed to choose a responsible mate, didn't she?

"A woman needs a tool," he whispered so close to her ear, she could feel his breath, "to make up for that fifteen minutes."

Her mouth opened but nothing came out.

"For the male there is a psychological obsession with paternity, so they can be assured that it is their genetic contribution."

Max took her pen and wrote, children?

She pulled the pen out of his hand. He did not just ask her about children after a discussion of paternity. To think that he had even for one moment considered that after...

He took the pen back, smiled his forgive me charming smile and circled her handwriting obsession with paternity. He drew a line through it.

Well, still, he could have picked a better moment in the lecture to ask her about children. She sighed, wrote daughter, 18 and hoped their scrawled conversation would end there because nothing good could come of it, ever. She didn't even need to ask him if he had children. Somehow she knew, without knowing anything else, that he didn't. There was something not parent-like about him. She wished that made her sad, but a part of her, the selfish part, was glad. It didn't even make sense.

"The sexual double standard discourages female sexuality, and as we've discussed earlier, women have a far greater sexual capacity than men."