Chapter One

Sophie chatted excitedly all the way back to their apartment, detailing her idea for their project. “Ok. The first thing we have to do is figure out what questions to put on the application.” “And just how are we going to do that?” Liv looked at Sophie, expectantly awaiting her answer. “Easy.” Sophie responded confidently. “We poll the girls on campus. We’ll put up signs in all the girls’ dorms and have a table in the commons where they can respond.” “Then what?” “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here. First, we get the questions. Then, we move on to phase two.” Sophie jumped around, clapping her hands together. “This is going to be so much fun!” “Yeah.” Liv was obviously not as excited about the idea as Sophie. “I can’t wait.” She followed he roommate along, a curious feeling of foreboding settling over her. By the end of the evening, they had created signs to post in all the girls dorms and locker rooms across campus, and had formulated their plan of phase one. Every day that week they took suggestions, even going so far as to stop girls in the quad and ask what kinds of things they would want to know about a guy they were considering dating. “I can’t believe the responses we’ve gotten from this!” Liv cried in surprise. We’ve got five shoeboxes full of questions!” “I know,” answered Sophie with barely contained enthusiasm. “Isn’t it great? Now all we have to do is compile the questions into one list and we’ll have our first report ready for Monday’s class.” Sophie smiled brightly. “I can’t wait to get started on phase two. Micah won’t believe this! I have to call him!” Liv watched as Sophie ran out of the quad to go phone her boyfriend. She sat on the ground and began going through one of the boxes of questions to which the female population wanted answers. Most of the questions she had seen so far seemed pretty basic, asking for things like hobbies, and favorite foods and music. She came across one, however, that seemed outlandish. It caused her to laugh out loud. “What’s so funny?” A deep masculine voice interrupted her thoughts. Liv looked up to see Grant smiling down at her. “Some of the research my roommate and I are doing for this project.” Liv rolled her eyes and sighed. “I can’t believe someone would actually ask some of these questions, let alone expect someone to answer them.” “So, this is your research for Dr. Richards’ class?” Grant sat down on the bench directly behind her. Liv couldn’t help but notice the way his t-shirt stretched across his arms and chest, severely defining his broad shoulders and muscular physique as he moved to stack his books on the bench beside him. She felt a slight blush rise over her face as she realized he was watching her intense scrutiny. “Uh. Yeah.” She answered weakly, looking back to the stack of papers in front of her. I’m just kind of sorting through to get rid of duplicates and to see what kinds of things women think are important.” “OK.” He grinned slightly, and a look of confusion shone in his eyes, mesmerizing her once again. “What exactly is this research project again?” “The Boyfriend Application. We talked about it earlier this week, remember?” She rolled her eyes and looked up at him with a look of shock and surprise on her face. “Ah, yes,” he answered, nodding slightly. “The Boyfriend Application.” He shook his head ruefully. “And how is that research going?” “Well,” Liv gestured to the five boxes of questions spread out on the ground in front of her. “These boxes are all full of questions the female population of this campus thinks are important.” “That’s a lot of questions.” Grant was clearly amazed at the amount of responses. “You’ve gotten all of that in a week?” “Less than a week, actually,” she answered proudly. “We started polling on Tuesday. So, technically, this is only from four days of research.” “Wow. I’m impressed.” Grant nodded towards the card in Liv’s hand. “Is that one of the questions?” “Yeah.” Liv smiled as she re-read the question and additional comments, remembering her initial reaction. “I thought this one was funny, especially since I didn’t have a clue what it was about until I asked the girl that turned it in.” “What’s the question?” Grant leaned over her shoulder to catch a glimpse at the card. “It says, ‘Can you describe a tesseract or the importance of the number 42?’ I had no idea what either of those were until I asked her for the answer.” “You’re not actually going to use that question, are you?” “Well, sure.” Liv looked up at Grant and noticed a crease had formed between his brows as he considered the question. “We have to keep all of the questions or it’s just about what Sophie and I would ask. We can’t edit our research.” “But how can you expect a guy to answer that when you don’t even know the answer, yourself?” Grant’s voice dropped a bit as he spoke, belying his consternation. “I mean, is that really fair?” “Just because I don’t know the answer doesn’t mean no one does.” Liv sighed deeply as she explained. “I’m sure the girl that turned in the question knows the answer, and she may expect a guy she’d date to know it as well.” “But that’s a ridiculous question.” Grant’s voice held a hard edge as he continued to argue his point. “If I were to fill out that application, I’d refuse to answer that question based on the sole fact that it’s discriminatory.” “Discriminatory?” Liv’s voice rose at least an octave as she seethed. “How can you say it’s discriminatory? Wouldn’t it be discriminatory to leave it out?” “Maybe,” he conceded grudgingly, “but you’d have to know a specific type of information that not everyone is privy to in order to be able to answer.” Grant peered at Liv thoughtfully, then carried on. “Based on that, I’d refuse to answer.” He leaned back against the bench and crossed his arms, taking a position that showed he clearly thought he’d won the argument. “You probably wouldn’t even fill out the application.” Liv accused. She could feel the anger building up inside her. She didn’t know why his opinion mattered at all, but for some reason she didn’t want to explore, it did. It mattered a lot. “You’re right,” he sighed. “I wouldn’t fill it out. As I said before, I think the whole idea is insane.” “You said the idea held merit!” Liv reminded him angrily. “No,” he corrected calmly. “I said the idea for the research held merit.” He stretched his arm along the back of the bench and crossed his left ankle over his right knee as he regarded Liv smugly. “I’ve never liked the boyfriend application idea. It’s ridiculous and superficial.” “Well!” Liv’s barely holding control snapped. “I don’t know why I even asked you in the first place!” She began packing up the boxes, and in her haste, dropped one from the top of the stack. She muttered a quick curse as she glared at grant. “Now look what you’ve done!” “What I’ve done?” Grant stared at her incredulously as he leaned forward to help her pick up the quickly scattering papers. “Yes, what you’ve done!” she accused. “If you hadn’t ticked me off I wouldn’t have dropped the box in the first place.” Grant handed her a stack of papers he had collected and unwittingly brushed against her arm. The jolt of electricity she felt pass through her caught her unawares and caused a sudden shiver to pass through her body. “Oh, just leave me alone,” she admonished angrily. “I can get it myself!” Just then, Sophie came up to them and noticed the papers in grant’s hand, as well as a few that were still blowing gently in the breeze. “What happened here?” she questioned, glaring at Grant as if knowing somehow that this was his fault. “Nothing I can’t handle,” Liv challenged quickly. Once she and Sophie had all the papers picked up and placed back in the box, she looked up at Grant, realizing he still held some of the papers in his hand. She held her hand out, waiting for him to return them to her. She quickly placed them back in the box and slammed the lid shut, then handed three of the boxes to Sophie. Liv tossed Grant an icy shoulder as she walked away. “Good day!” She said it a bit more forcefully than she had intended, but he deserved it. He was insufferable! With the boxes split between her and Sophie, she stormed away, leaving Grant to stare after her in wonder.