Page 55 of Legacy Ascended

"You're going to have to stay a while," I tell him. "If you walk out now Renzo will have a theory by supper."

"He'll have a theory regardless."

"He'll have a worse theory."

"Then I'll stay." He doesn't move. "Come to dinner with me."

"We eat dinner together every day."

"Not in the hall. I'll have something catered, in my room." His thumb keeps moving. "Tomorrow evening. Dinner."

"Are you asking me out?"

"I appear to be, yes. I've never done it before and I'd be grateful if you didn't examine it too closely."

"It was good."

"It was passable."

"It was good," I say, and lean up and kiss him until he stops arguing with me about it. "Yes. Dinner. And the radios."

"The radios aren't—"

"Have them sent," I say, "or I'll write to your father's office and ask for them myself, in writing, and I'll be extremely polite about it."

Ander puts his face in my hair and laughs until his shoulders shake.

Then his phone starts ringing from inside the coat on my floor.

Ander goes still.

"Your reading group?" I ask.

"My father's office."

The phone stops. A moment later, it starts again.

"That seems determined. Do you need to answer?"

Ander looks at the phone, then at me. "Probably."

"Right now?"

"No," he says. "I’ve got better things to do right now."

The ringing stops. A message appears on the screen.

Ander glances down and reads it. The last of his laughter disappears.

"What does he want?"

"For me to come home."

"When?"

"Tonight."

Chapter ten