The Science Of Love: A Billionaire BWWM Romance (2 page)

Fate
decided to play a fun little game one day by placing them both in the
same student lounge one slow evening in the fall. They were both
between classes that evening, having been forced to take a later
class in their studies because of the way the scheduling had worked
out. David needed to take an advanced math class and was waiting for
the lecture hall to empty. Jada was taking an education theory class
the same hour on a different floor, but in the same building. They
had both ridden the same bus across campus to the other side to take
their courses, but were oblivious to each other. For some reason, the
college had built an extension onto it on the other side of the
Franklin River, which ran next to the college.

David
was sitting down with his laptop trying to get a complicated code to
run correctly. He had figured out a new route for it the night
before, but something just didn’t want to initiate like it
should. He was on his sixth attempt when he turned and saw Jada. He
was stunned. She was a vision like he had never experienced before.
Across from him in the room was a long-legged black woman of his age
who was wearing a dancer’s leotard under a large sweater. She
was sitting on the floor of the lounge which was cushioned by a
carpet. Her hair was tied-up with a scarf and she was reading a book.
The book title caught his attention:
A New
Kind of Science
by Stephen Wolfram.

David
had just about had a mental break-down trying to get through
Wolfram’s tome on cellular automata and couldn’t fathom
someone trying to read it as a past time. From her place, it appeared
she had read at least the first quarter. He had to find out who she
was, but how? Every time he tried to meet a woman it went south. He
would walk up to them, start talking about something he noticed and,
usually, it was the wrong thing to notice. How was he supposed to
introduce himself to this stunning woman without making an absolute
fool of himself?

Jada had
noticed the skinny, but tall, white guy on the other side of the room
swearing under his breath at what he saw on his laptop. He’d
startled her a few times when he slammed his hand down on the table
where he sat, but she realized he wasn’t aware of her and
assumed he was the only person in the room. She tried to avoid
laughing the first time it happened, but just tuned him out
afterwards. Then she went back to her book. It was a thick book to be
hauling around on campus for a subject she wasn’t studying, but
it interested her. She’d found it at a used bookstore the other
week and took it home, referring back to it when she had the
opportunity. She had delved deep into it by now, finding Wolfram’s
contention that seemingly random events were the result of complex
automata. It was an intriguing idea, but she wasn’t sure she
bought into it just yet.

Out of
the corner of her eye she saw the guy turn and look at her. Perhaps
he would be a little bit quieter now that he realized she was in the
room too. She had another five minutes before the class began and
wanted to get as far along in this book as she could. She had just
left a dance rehearsal for another college production and needed to
get back to the dorms after her class was finished. It was her first
time joining a campus dance group and she wanted to stick with it
this time. It was early in the term, but she had an exam coming up in
a few days and needed to spend some time studying for it.

David
looked at his computer screen and pretended not to notice her. He
felt the stirring inside himself whenever he had to interact with
someone on a personal level. It was not easy. And he truly wanted to
know her. She was an exotic and beautiful creature which had caught
his attention. He closed his eyes and tried to come up with a
scenario that involved meeting her where he didn’t look like a
fool. Someone had once advised him to just “go for it”
and not worry about any embarrassment, but David found that
impossible to accomplish. He was still suffering from the effects of
trying to phone a popular girl in high school. The entire school had
known about it the next day and he never attempted calling another
girl again, much to the grumbling of his mother who couldn’t
understand why her son didn’t have a steady girlfriend she
could brag about.

Jada had
another look at the guy who was trying to avoid looking at her and
wasn’t succeeding. Had she seen him somewhere before? She had,
he was the awkward guy on the bus she’d taken this evening who
seemed oblivious to everything around him. How nice it must be to
walk through life not having to worry about people who judged you and
men who wanted to get into your pants every minute. She had shut one
Romeo down that afternoon on her way to the rehearsal that kept
following her. These college boys were becoming an increasing problem
and she wondered if dating an athlete might be a good way to get them
to leave her alone. All she would have to do would be to inform one
of the stalkers that she already had a boyfriend and he kicked field
goals. It seemed like a good idea.

David
wished there was a program he could run which made talking to women
easy. Maybe he should write one. He couldn’t be the only
science major with issues meeting girls. There were always the webcam
girls to practice on, although their motivations were to keep you on
line and feed money into their account. If he found a method to shut
one of those down, imagine what money he could make! He made a note
to look into the possibility later. But for now, he had to find a way
to approach this girl. Dammit, she was looking at the clock; this
could only mean she was thinking of leaving the lounge. How could he
make his approach with the time running out? Wasn’t there
supposed to be some kind of anti-anxiety medication you could take
for this situation? Wouldn’t do him any good now without a
prescription and time to get to a pharmacy. There was only one thing
he could do and that was to make an approach and do it now.
Now
!

Jada
watched the guy get up from the desk and walk over to her. Okay, he
was going to talk to her. She only had five minutes and didn’t
have time to deal with this. So help her God if he tried another line
on her today she was going to slam him in the head with the book. It
was hardbound and over a thousand pages, so it would do some damage.
But the young guy just came over to her and stared at the book. He
continued to stare at it until she closed it, put it down on the
floor and looked up at him.

“
Yes,”
she said. “Did you want something?”

“
The
book,” he said to her. “How far are you into it?”

She told
him the page and subject. He asked her what she thought of it and she
told him Wolfram had some good ideas, but the true test of any
science was how reproducible it was. If the results he claimed were
conclusive, then it would be a new kind of science. But she doubted
it was an entirely new branch, just a subgrouping of an existing
one.”

“
Oh,
I’m sorry,” he told her, “My name is David. I’m
sorry if I interrupted.”

“
Jada,”
she told him. “It’s okay. I haven’t found any other
people who’ve tackled this book. Do you have it?”

“
Yes
I do,” he said. “I’ve been a big fan of his
programming language, Mathematica. I’ve used it several times
to get some things to work I couldn’t in any other language.”

“
I
have to leave, David,” she told him. “I've got a class in
two minutes. You here for a class too?”

“
Yes,”
he told her. “Advanced math. It kicks off in a few minutes too.
You’re taking the bus back?”

“
At
ten,” she said. “My class only meets once a week.”

“
I’m
leaving at eight,” he told her. “I guess you’ll be
here on Tuesday nights?”

“
Yes,”
she said, gathering up her books and school papers to return to her
backpack. “I guess I’ll see you next week.” At
least he hadn’t tried something on her and seemed interested in
the book she was reading. It was a favorite tactic of Jada to shut
down the suitors when she was reading a book to ask them what the
last one was they had read.

“
Do
you live on campus?” he asked her. “I’m just off
the college, in one of the apartments at the corner of McGuffy and
Low Street.”

“
I’m
still in the towers,” she told him, hitching the pack over one
shoulder. “Will probably be there until I graduate.”

“
Would
it be alright if I called you?” he asked. “I’d like
to talk some more.”

“
Sure,”
she told him and gave him her phone number. “Just not tonight
and never after ten, I have roommates who don’t like to be
disturbed. See you later.”

He
memorized her number and watched her go, the lithely figure drifting
down the hall.

David’s
hands were shaking as he picked up the phone to call Jada. It was
nine in the evening, well within the time frame he had allowed
himself to speak with her. He couldn’t believe this beautiful
woman had voluntarily given him her phone number. He only prayed it
was a legitimate number and didn’t go directly to some prank
line. That had happened to him one time; a woman had given him her
phone number at a party and when he called it, it turned out to be a
sex chat line. It was still a weeknight and he hoped she would be
able to talk. He was in the bedroom of the apartment he shared with
another computer science student. His roommate was out for the
evening and he had the place to himself where no one would hear him
make a fool of himself, if he did.

The
phone rang and he heard Jada say: “Hello?” David almost
hung the phone back up again. It was too good to be true. The phone
number was real and she would talk to him!

He asked
her how her day had been and they chatted for a bit about the
college, their course work and the cost of tuition. They found they
had much in common when it came to a love of science. David had seen
the latest photographs of a space probe to Mars and she had as well.
They both chatted about the possibility of life on the red planet and
came to the conclusion it was very improbable. He loved science
fiction and she was familiar with the works of Octavia Butler. Jada
wanted to know if he had ever gone out dancing, one of her favorite
activities and the silence on his end let her know all she needed. So
she switched the conversation to the ballet and it turned out he had
an aunt who danced for the Cleveland ballet and had been to see her
many times. They talked longer than either of them expected to and
made plans to speak on the phone again in two more days. David told
her to have a good night and hung-up.

David
stood looking at the phone for a good while after he had finished
talking to Jada. He couldn’t believe he had been able to hold a
conversation with a woman for more than two minutes. He turned and
looked at the clock: they had been on the phone for at least an hour!
He felt he had achieved something, but he wasn’t sure what.

Jada put
the phone down as one of her roommates walked into the dorm room. She
was a tall woman from New Jersey named Tanisha. Her father was a
doctor in Salem, so she didn’t have any money troubles at all.
Daddy had made sure his little girl had joined the right sororities
and dated only the best athletes. She tended to give Jada advice on
how to be “noticed” by the right people on campus. Jada
appreciated her concern, but wasn’t interested in being noticed
by anyone. She had her studies, her new dance company and an eye on a
student teaching position with one of the better schools.

“
So
who was that on the phone?” Tanisha asked Jada.

“
Just
a guy,” she said, while pulling out a book on math education.

“
Sounds
like your social life might be picking up,” Tanisha asked her.
“Anyone I might know?”

“
White
guy.”

“
You
just described half the men on this campus,” she said. “Is
he cute? Does he play on any of the teams?”

“
No,”
she told her. “He’s a sophomore like me and majors in
computers.”

“
Oh,”
said Tanisha. “Computer guys make a lot of money. Keep it in
mind.” Tanisha went on to her room.

Jada
smiled and returned to her book.

It was
the dawn of the internet age. Every college was being wired for high
speed cable and the colleges were trying to keep up with how the data
would be allowed to flow in and out of the campus. Everyone wanted to
be a computer sales executive or an internet marketing guru. For the
first time in history, it was very cool to be a nerd. There were
people who came from nothing who were being touted as financial
geniuses one day only to watch their net worth plummet the next.
Famous magazines would do photo spreads on cool internet companies
who wouldn’t exist in two years. Money was being made and blown
in the space of nanoseconds. Paradigms were changing.

And a
whole lot of it was being driven by adult content on the internet. It
was the dirty little secret of the internet that the ultimate brown
paper bag had been discovered. Adult bookstores were being decimated
as lonely men no longer had to shuffle inside and pay absurd amounts
of money for their fix. The internet anonymous option was changing it
all. The man who could find a way to make it all pay would emerge as
the winner.