Emily and Steve Part 10

"Well, you should, I here the lecturer is going to be excellent." The girl reached up and pulled down a book from the shelf. "She will be discussing her work from this book," the Latina girl said. "You should check it out."

With that, the girl turned and started to walk away. She turned back after a few steps and said, "hope to see you at the next lecture. Bye."

I looked down at the book. It had a long academic title, "Measurement of Counselling Constructs within Gender Identity Analysis Technics" and was written by Danielle Gabriel, PhD candidate at the university. I flipped the book over, and on the back was a picture of the author. It was, of course, the girl I was just talking to.

So I attended the next lecture. I was pretty sure that Danielle smiled when she saw me as she scanned the crowd at the start of the lecture. I must admit, I didn't follow the lecture much at all. It was a lot of numbers and graphs and discussions of "outcomes", but I found Danielle engaging. Just listening to her speak was an enjoyable experience.

After the lecture finished, I hung around. A lot of people were going up and talking to Danielle about the lecture, so I hung back. Finally the crowd thinned out, and I was able to get up and speak to her.

"Great lecture," I said.

"Really, did you understand it," she asked.

"Not a word," I said, laughing. "Too much complex math for me."

"If you aren't interested in statistical analysis methods of counselling outcomes, why did you come to the lecture," she asked, a wry smile on her face.

"I was hoping to ask you out," I said.

She stood there silently, but with a smile. Finally, after 30 seconds of silence, I said, "So?"

"I am waiting for you to ask me out," she said.

I laughed. "Okay, do you want to go out on a date with me?" I asked.

Danielle agreed, and we went and got a coffee that evening.