Page 46 of Engineering a Love Story

“I have the radio.” I nudge it with my foot.

“Do you listen to sports on the radio?”

I laugh and rejoin Seth at the table. “Only baseball.”

As we eat, he tells me that his fancy Singaporean hotel room fried his laptop. He had a new one FedExed from San Francisco to Manhattan, but then he left his cord behind in one of the banks. “I don’t even know which one.” He lost power on the machine not far past New Haven and rode the last few hours vibrating with heat and frustration.

“The usual chaos,” he says with a shake of his head. “Can we buy a power cord today?”

Before we venture out, Seth showers. Then he returns to where I’m tucked in a chair reading the paper, and he coaxes me back to the bedroom. He says he barely remembers being there with me the night before. I can recall the prior evening perfectly but don’t need much convincing.

My bedroom is bright. Seth explores me from every angle, an almost puzzled concentration in his face, like I’m a mathematical theorem he’s trying to prove. His focus is dizzying and maybe even, as the morning wears away, a little exhausting, but it also feels like a validation, and I can’t help thinking: this.

It’s mid-afternoon when Seth again pleads hunger. “Maybe we can go out? I can’t survive on cheese and fruit.” He bumps me. “Unlike you.” I realize I should have planned something, made a reservation at some cool spot like the one we went to in San Francisco. “And can we get that power cord?”

“We can go to Micro Center.” I picture the massive computer store near my office. “And there’s a noodle place near there that isn’t bad.”

I park a few blocks south of Kendall and we go first for noodles, as Seth’s complaints of hunger have grown more insistent. Kendall Square has an empty, Saturday feel, and at this odd, late-afternoon hour, we have what is normally a busy lunch spot almost entirely to ourselves.

After, we stand on the brick sidewalk and I point across the square, telling him there’s a funky theater nearby that shows unusual, independent films. Does he want to see one?

“I need that cord. Will the store close?”

I shake my head. “It’s not the kind of place that closes early.” I wave my hand in the general direction of MIT. “Not here.”

Seth relaxes and steps closer, saying he still thinks maybe we should just go to the store. He’s not sure he can behave appropriately, sitting beside me in a dark theater. Maybe we could watch a movie back at my place instead? “Oh no, wait.” He chuckles, his breath hot by my ear. “We could try baseball on the radio. I’m pretty confident I can get you out of your clothes if that’s my only competition.”

I trap his chin against my neck and am letting him know that the Sox are playing the Yankees tonight, so he’s setting himself more of a challenge than he might realize, when I see Travis walking across the square, his eyes already on us. “Shit.”

Travis lifts a hand and there’s nothing I can do but wave back and wait for him to cross Main Street and arrive on the sidewalk beside us.

“Hi,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

Travis gestures back toward the office. “Trying to catch up. I basically blew last week off entirely.” He moves his eyes from me to Seth, and I can practically see the gears turning in his head as he tries to place this man he’s just seen licking my neck. It seems ridiculous suddenly that I’ve kept secrets from my friend.

“Travis, this is Seth.” I wave a hand between them. They shake and we stand awkwardly for a few seconds. Travis watches me, but I can give no further explanation. “Where’s Daisuke?”

“I’m headed to meet him for dinner now.” Travis points his chin in the direction of the river and Boston on its other side. “Are you … do you want to …?”

“We just ate.” I gesture to the restaurant behind us. Travis raises his eyebrows and I know what he’s thinking: You took this hot guy to the noodle place? As if this might be more offensive than my secrets.

“Right. Well, I’m heading. Great to meet you, Seth.” Travis moves past us toward the T.

Seth watches me, sinking hands into his pockets. “You still up for that movie?”

I turn and begin walking. “No. Let’s get out of here before we run into anyone else.”

We pass onto a narrower street. “Is that trouble for you?” Seth asks.

“No. That’s only Travis.” I explain how Travis and I are cube neighbors. I tell him too of Travis’s absence from the office this past week due to Daisuke’s arrival. Seth whistles low when he hears about Daisuke’s round-the-world move.

We’ve just arrived at Micro Center, the automated sliding doors swooshing open as we pass through, when something occurs to me. Something I hadn’t thought through fully before.

“You’re a Republican,” I say, perhaps more loudly than I intended. A guy in a battered Phish t-shirt exiting the store swings his head up. His eyes go from me to Seth.

“Independent,” Seth says quietly, glancing down at me. “I think you already assessed that.”

“But … gay marriage?”