“So Tomas, when are we leaving to go on the date again? I thought you said 6, but I could be wrong?", Aila inquired as she watched Tomas walk up the steps to his apartment.

“Have you been waiting for long?", he inquired.

“I came an hour earlier just to make sure you didn’t say 5 pm”, Aila lied. She had been testing the windows to see if she could pry them open. The answer was no unless she wanted the security alarm ring.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to postpone our dinner to another date.”, he confessed.

“But you made reservations?”

“I spoke with the restaurant about this on the way over. No refunds.”

“That’s not fair! They just can’t do that…wait, why do you need to suspend our date anyway?”

“I have some work I had to take home tonight. We can eat dinner another time…”, he said as he opened the door with his key.

Aila sneaked right in and took his keys from him, making sure to press them against her gloves before dangling them in the air.

“Aila, give those back.”, Tomas commanded.

“Not until you tell me that our date is still on! I’ve been looking forward to…”

He interjected, “If this is about the dinner…”

“The dinner? You think this is about that? Tomas, I like you and want to spend time with you! You promised we would have a date today and I studied my butt off so I could relax with you this evening so I will be very cross if you say we cannot be together because your boss decided to give you homework!”, she furrowed her brows, folded her arms in and puffed as she said this.

Where was Aila when I needed her to say no to my uncle?, he wondered. If the Master saw Aila, he maybe would have backed down from assigning work to Tomas...or not.

It was more likely his uncle would tell Tomas to not have such a clingy girlfriend that he prioritized spending time with her instead of getting work done. He was wrong though, Aila wasn’t clingy, rather he was the one who couldn’t let her go.

Reminding himself that he needed to answer Aila lest she break up with him, he pleaded with her, “I’ll finish this up quickly and then we can go out to eat.”

“Who says we have to go out to eat? Why can’t we stay inside and eat pizza?”

“Pizza?”

“I can’t cook.”, she admitted, “but I can bake if you ever need desserts to be made!”

“I don’t particularly have a sweet tooth”, he answered back.

“Do you have any problem with having pizza delivered then? I’ve been eating it nonstop since I discovered pizza last month. We don’t have pizza where I’m from in Scotland.”

“Since you’re so insistent on this, then wait 'til I completely review the accounts given to me and then…”

He noticed she was on the phone speaking and stopped talking until she hanged up.

“We can eat some lasagna I put in the fridge.”, he offered and gestured his hand towards the apartment kitchen.

“I already called the pizza guy. He’ll be here in 20 min.”

Why was he surprised? His Aila was a bit spirited and did not let things get in her way easily. As opposed to Tomas who once he found roadblocks would get frustrated and try to think his way out of a problem. He reminisced about the time he had been stuck on a Statistics problem due the next day and Aila had just come from studying for a British Literature midterm and had happened to see him.

“What’s wrong Tomas? How can I turn your frown upside down?”, she teased.

“I don’t know how to answer this question and I’ve gone through the notes and textbook with no luck.”

Aila had looked down at the paper, jotted down the equations for mean/standard deviation and probability and found the answer within a minute after using his calculator.

She said, “It’s the same as the previous problem you did, it just adds a lot more unnecessary information. All you have to do is separate what you need from what you don’t and then follow the process.”

“Bye.”, she told him as she got up to leave.

“How did you do that?”, he asked incredulously.

“Didn’t I tell you that I was a Math major before switching to Communications?”

“Why did you…?”

“Switch? How should I put this nicely… Mathematics seemed stifling and devoid of interpersonal contact so I changed.”

His recollection ended when the doorbell rang and Aila yelled, “I’ll get it!”

“The pizza’s here!”, she screamed as she placed her hands on the food.

“I’ll pay.”, he took some cash out of his wallet and was stopped by Aila’s hands.

“I called.”, she took a 20 dollar bill and paid the delivery person.

She waved and said, “Bye” as he drove off.

“I’ll be right back.”, Tomas stated as he dashed to the restroom.

“This is my shot.”, Aila whispered as she reached into his briefcase only to realize he had laid out the paperwork in the living room.

“Alright”, she muttered as she quietly ruffled through the pages until she found what she was looking for.

Got ya, she thought as she took out her camera from her large purse and snapped photos.

For a moment, her guilt took over her completely and she wanted to undo what she just did.

However, she heard a flushing noise and hurled her camera out of the now open kitchen window to the bushes outside.

“I’m back.”, Tomas greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and sat down at the kitchen table with her.

“Did I leave that window open? I could have…”

“Oh, I opened right now to feel the cool breeze coming from outside.”, she commented.

“I could turn on the AC if you like.”, Tomas proposed.

“No, I quite prefer a natural breeze.”