“What did I start?”
“Horniness.”
“Oh, I can definitely finish that, baby.”
***
“So then, he told the professor to kiss his ass and flipped him off on the way out of the lab!” Lena exclaims, laughing hard.
“You did?” I stare at Mark, who is blushing bright red.
“Yeah. He pissed me off. I was right.”
“You were right, but you also got yourself thrown out of that class and had to repeat it the next semester.” Colin shakes his head and takes a drink of his beer. Colin is not pasty white. In fact, his skin is a dark, rich mocha and he has the kindest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s very tall, at least six foot five, and lean. He shaves his head bald.
Colin and Lena make a very unlikely couple, but they clearly couldn’t be more in love with each other.
They’re also all incredibly smart. When they start talking about work, I can’t keep up.
“English,” I beg and hit my forehead with the palm of my hand. “Speak English, not Super-Smart-Genius. I can’t understand you.”
“It’s all boring anyway,” Mark says and pulls me against his side.
“It does sound kind of sexy when you pull out the genius-speak,” I say and kiss his cheek. “Kind of like a foreign language.”
“You like that do you?” He smiles that naughty smile. “I’ll tell you all kinds of things later.”
“Awesome.”
“Does my vast rocket science knowledge turn you on?” Colin asks Lena while wiggling his eyebrows.
“Oh, yes, definitely.” She snorts and sips her sparkling water.
He leans down to whisper in her ear and to my surprise, she blushes bright red. “Now that turns me on,” she says.
“Why do I feel like we just witnessed something we shouldn’t have?” Mark asks with a frown. “Should we leave you alone?”
“Nah, I just gave her something to think about for a while,” Colin replies and winks down at his wife.
Lena clears her throat and sips her drink again.
“I need more dirt on Mark’s college years,” I inform them. “Tell me everything.”
“There isn’t any dirt,” Mark insists.
“Come on. Frat parties? Girls lined up at his door? Spring Break trips to Daytona?”
“Not really,” Colin replies. “He was too focused on graduating early. Which he did. A full year early.”
“I’ve never known anyone to get both a bachelor’s and master’s in five years,” Lena says and shakes her head. “He was like a man possessed.”
“I told you,” Mark says with a shrug. “If I worked my ass off, I wasn’t thinking about you.”
The table grows quiet at that admission until Lena finally says, “We did have fun together. We worked hard, but vacation breaks were fun. Mark usually invited us to come stay with his parents and they were cool.”
“His parents are the best,” I reply and hold Mark’s hand as he leans in to press his lips to my hair.
“You two are adorable,” Lena says as she leans on Colin’s arm and watches us with a soft smile.
“So are you guys,” I reply. “This was fun.”
“We’ll do it more often. Colin needs to learn to work less, especially now.” Lena grins at him then announces, “We’re going to have a baby.”
“No way!” Mark exclaims. “You said you weren’t planning to for a while.”
“I didn’t know I was pregnant when I saw you.” She shrugs and tosses her long dark hair over her shoulder. “I just found out this morning. Peed on a stick.”
“That’s awesome,” I say and squeeze the other woman’s hand. “Let us know if you need anything.”
“Our parents are going to freak and buy this kid way more than it’ll ever need, but I’ll keep you posted.”
“I’m excited for you,” Mark says. “It’s about time.”
“We might need you to remodel the bedroom we’ve been using for storage into a nursery suite,” Colin says.
“I’m happy to. I’ll come look at it next week.”
“He’s crazy good at the remodel thing,” I say, so proud of him. “We’ll invite you over to see the house. He’s made it incredible.”
Lena’s eyebrows raise as she glances at Mark then back at me. “We’d love to see it.”
“We picked out kitchen stuff today, so when it’s all done, we’ll have you over for dinner.”
“Sounds like a date.”
I glance up to see Mark staring down at me with deep blue eyes and a happy smile.