Dragon in the System

Chapter 7

Eric hesitated for a moment, then plunged onward. "The thing is, though, it smelled like lizard down there. Sort of musty but organic - kind of like your lab, you know. So I wanted to rule out the possibility. I'm not an animal expert and I'm not from Michigan, so I really don't know much about the local wildlife."

That made her curious, but she'd ask about his background later. "Nope, no giant lizards. Just lots of clever, obnoxious students." She cast a quick glance at Megan-the-snippy-waitress, who was eyeing Eric from a couple tables over, swishing her perfect, twenty-year-old backside as she walked. Speaking of obnoxious...

"Did you get the computer?"

He shook his head. "By the time I got Security down there, it was gone. Room was even dusty again, just like it had always been empty."

"Sounds like this prankster is using the costume to scare people away from his computer set-up" she observed.

Mouth full, he nodded and they finished the pizza in relative silence, each darting glances when they thought the other wasn't looking. Lori was a hearty eater and carried a few extra pounds to prove it, but even she was awed by the sheer magnitude of food that Eric managed to consume. For such a slender guy, he could really pack it away.

"Sure you've had enough?" she asked, tongue-in-cheek, as he paid the check.

"Yeah I guess so," he replied. "Why, do you want dessert?"

Lori let out a laugh. "I'd explode. What I really need is to walk off that fourth slice. Why don't you show me where you saw the lizard tail?"

He looked startled. "Why?"

She just shrugged, standing up to put her jacket on. "Just curious, I guess. Got anything better to do?" Okay, so she really just didn't want to go back to spending Friday night alone. Eric seemed like a nice guy and if she could help put his mind at ease about his reptilian hacker, what the heck?

As he walked beside Lori back to her car, Eric still couldn't believe she was taking him seriously. Or at least she seemed to be. He supposed it was possible that she was just humoring him, sort of a sympathy thing. Of course, he'd never been particularly skilled at guessing what went on inside a woman's head, which was a big part of the reason he was thirty-two and still single. Heck, it wasn't like he didn't know he was a geek. He was still pondering the question of why she was here with him, when another, even more puzzling query occurred to him. What on Earth was a smart, pretty young woman like Lori doing all alone on a Friday night? Were all the men in the Biology Department morons?

The light spring snowfall had gotten worse while they were inside the pizzeria. Thick clumps of snow swirled about their faces instead of delicate flakes and now there was an even dusting of the white stuff on the ground, except for the asphalt road, which gleamed darkly in the glow from the streetlamps, insidiously wet and slick. Eric shivered a little, wishing once again that he'd remembered a jacket that day.

"Cold?" Lori asked him solicitously, buttoning up her denim jacket and stuffing her hands into the front pockets of her skirt. "Sometimes I hate Michigan weather. Yesterday was so nice and today we're all freezing." She echoed Eric's shiver and drew closer to his sheltering warmth. "God, I wish I'd worn slacks today, or at least had the sense to put on pantyhose."

Eric grunted slightly at the reminder that her legs were bare under the short skirt, but he, too, moved closer. "Yeah," he replied, mentally whacking himself upside the head for his utter lack of eloquence. Way to go, genius.

She jumped a little when he opened her car door for her, then looked up at him, her smiling face shining in the warm glow of the streetlight. "Thanks." Feeling like a million bucks, he closed her door and sprinted around to the passenger side of the car. She was still, he noticed with pleasure, smiling as he climbed cautiously into the undersized passenger seat.

"I think there may be a sweatshirt in the back, if you want it."

He glanced behind him. Her car was as cheerfully cluttered a mess as her desk had been. Sure enough, though, there was a faded black and gold SMU sweatshirt jammed on the backseat between a half-empty box of Kleenex, a big cardboard box filled with student research papers and a handful of empty soda bottles. With his long arms, he could reach into just about any corner of the tiny vehicle, so he easily snagged the shirt, then shook it out in front of him, checking the size.

"Why does somebody as little as you have a 2X?" he queried with cautious curiosity. The word "boyfriend" kept going off in flashing neon lights inside his brain.

Lori chuckled sweetly. "I'm short, not little," she told him, which made no sense at all. Sure, she didn't look emaciated, like most of the female undergraduates, but her curves were soft and feminine, not unpleasant. "Besides, I bought that one for my brother. I was going to give it to him for Christmas a couple of years ago, but I forgot about it and accidentally left it in the car. Anyway, it just kind of stayed here, which turned out to be handy. One night that next semester, I was eating dinner right before my night class and I spilled a big, huge glob of spaghetti right down the front of my white shirt. It was one of those total-disaster sorts of days. I couldn't even find my wallet to run to the store and pick something up. Fortunately, I when I checked my car, I found this. An oversized SMU sweatshirt works over just about any outfit. So now I just keep it in the car for future emergencies. I've used it lots of times when it's gotten suddenly cold, or I spill something, or whatever. Then I wash it and put it back in the car."