Page 3 of One-Star Romance

“Well, that’s only because you’re spending too much time in the basement of the library, and the ladies don’t know that you exist!” Angus stepped back, narrowing his eyes at Rob. “Have you been getting out of the library? You’re a little…what’s that word for when you’re all pale and weak-looking?”

“Wan,” Natalie offered. “Feeble. Anemic.”

“Yes!” Angus pointed triumphant finger guns in her direction.

“I am none of those things,” Rob said. “I see the sun for at least fifteen minutes each day.”

“Anyways,” Angus said, “this man is also my best friend in the entire world.” Rob reached out a hand and politely shook Natalie’s as Angus continued, “Except for Gabby.”

“Have I been replaced already?” Rob asked, his eyebrow arching up, his voice pleasantly rough. Distracted by Angus, he’d looked away from Nat but forgotten to let go of her hand. They were stuck in something that was part handshake, part hand-holding for a moment, until Natalie loosened her grip (even though Rob’s grasp was warm), and he looked down in surprise and perhaps a bit of embarrassment.

“Buddy.” Angus reached up to take Rob by the shoulders. “Never.” He shot a glance at Gabby in the crowd. “Well, maybe. She is much prettier than you are, I’m afraid.”

“Ouch,” Rob said.

“You could compete,” Nat said to Rob, “if only you weren’t so anemic.”

He half laughed in surprise, his serious face momentarily transforming.

“Oh, they’re here! I should…” Angus began, catching sight of someone across the room. “Nat, entertain him while I’m gone?” Angus bustled off into the crowd, leaving the two of them alone by the bar, suddenly responsible for each other.

“A drink?” Nat asked after a beat of awkward silence, and Rob nodded. They turned to the bar and ordered.

As they waited, he cleared his throat. “Angus gave my entire biography, but I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I’m Gabby’s Rob. Her best friend.”

“Ah. I always thought my doppelganger would be taller.”

“I’m still holding out hope for a growth spurt. Drinking lots of milk, stretching, but there’s only so much a person can do.”

“We’ll have to settle for being doppelgangers in every aspect except height.”

“And that I could never live on the West Coast. East Coaster through and through.”

“But at least you’re also studying to be a linguistics professor,” he said, deadpan.

“I have to admit that I don’t quite understand what linguistics is.”

“Well,” he said, “have you heard of words?”

She smiled. “Yes, I know it’s something about the science of them. But that makes me picture you in a lab coat peering at a petri dish containing a long and complicated word, and that can’t be correct.”

“No, that’s exactly what I do all day.” He squinted his eyes and did a winding motion with one hand while making a circle with the other. “That’s a word, all right. Next dish.”

She copied his motion. “What is this? You are…using a magnifying glass while also going fishing?”

“It’s a microscope.”

“Of course. How could I not see it?”

“I thought it was very clear.” He shook his head. “Actually, linguistics was my second choice for a career path.”

“Oh?” she asked sympathetically as she took a sip of her drink.

His expression was solemn. “Sadly, the mime academy wouldn’t take me.”

At that, she snorted so hard that the whiskey in her mouth shot up somewhere into her brain. He did not seem, at first glance, like a man who could be particularly silly, more like a man who devoted himself to thinking about important problems in the world. She looked more closely at him. The corner of his mouth had turned up, as if he were pleased and almost surprised at how fully he’d made her laugh. Then he cleared his throat and went on.

---