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and curiously. But it was obvious she was going
to get nothing useful out of him, not tonight. Hope tucked away her suspicions
to examine later and changed threads.
    Hope
held up the tiny phone and fiddled with it for a moment. Her fingers felt too
big for the buttons and a window had opened up without her meaning to do it.
“How do I work this thing? I tried to call you, but then I angered it.” Oh no,
the window had closed and now other windows were opening.
    “There’s
nothing too special on it,” Rick said, waving a hand dismissively. He peeked at
it and then glanced away, purposefully disinterested. But as convincing as the
bored rich boy act was on him, Hope was starting to doubt it. She had seen
Rick’s eyes bright with sparked interest, and heard him ask terribly perceptive
questions about things she wouldn’t expect even a friend to notice. “The usual.
Internet, calls, texting, access to all the latest scientific papers. I
subscribe to all the university papers, and internationally…”
    “That’s
great,” Hope interrupted, “but where are the contacts? And I think I just
turned it off?” She stared down at the blank screen.
    Rick
finally turned toward Hope and fixed her with an incredulous look. She stared
back.
    He
seemed to struggle with himself for a second, but curiosity won easily, and the
next second he walked over and ducked into Hope’s space, stooping to look at
the phone from her perspective. His shoulder shoved right up against Hope’s to
fit in the crook of hers. It brought his face up close to hers, so that his
hair tickled her cheek and though their skin wasn’t actually touching anywhere,
Hope’s body felt charged. She couldn’t stop herself from turning and looking at
Rick’s tousled hair, his cheekbones, the tiny wrinkle that creased his forehead
as he frowned.
    “Did
you…” Rick reached up with a finger and tapped across the screen as Hope
unthinkingly held it up for him. He shook his head, brushing his hair back and
forth across her cheek. “What did you even - oh my God, are you from the past ?”
    Hope
hmphed. “All I need is a beeper, alright? A flip phone could work.”
    Rick
went very still and then twisted around to look up at her, his bright green
eyes wide and horrified. His hand kept moving on the screen, just by feel. “No,
please, you’re not saying this right now, you can’t be, Hope, you’re breaking
my heart here, babe.”
    Like a
knee-jerk reaction, Hope immediately imagined having that power. She wondered
for a fraction of a second what it would be like to have someone like Rick look
at her and want her.
    Rather
than dwell on it, Hope shook the images out of her head and dropped the phone
in Rick’s palm so she could move away.
    “Sorry.”
Rick tilted a glance up at her, watching her back up, but didn’t say anything.
“Guess I’m just not the gadgety type.”
    A smile
flitted over Rick’s lips.
    “Maybe
you just don’t have the right gadgets,” he said.
    Hope
frowned. “What gadgets would I want?”
    Rick
tossed the phone from one hand to the other, his eyes still on her. “Are you
looking for something you want… or something you need?” His eyes never left her
face.
    Hope
blinked.
    “Are
we… are we still talking about phones?” she asked cautiously, and Rick laughed.
    He
winked. “We’re talking about whatever you want to talk about, babe.”
    This
man was going to give her a permanent headache, Hope just knew it.
     
     
     
    The
next morning, Hope was even more tempted to sneak into Rick’s room and figure
out what was going on over there. But there was a knock - a lot of knocks
actually - on her door at 8am, and apparently breakfast with Trinity was a
thing they did now.
    “Are
you going to go do more paperwork?” Hope asked. Trinity snorted, presumably at
the idea of Rick actually doing work. It seemed unlikely to her too, but Hope
wanted Rick out of her hair. If he wasn’t going to give her answers, she’d go
find them