Sighing, I got up and opened the door.
“Hey,” Electra said, surprising me with a quick peck on the lips as she stepped inside.
“Uh…hey,” I greeted her in return. “I’m sorry – I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Well, the way you vanished after the meeting, it’s almost like you were trying to avoid me.”
“You’re right,” I acknowledged. “I should have said something. I’ve just been so wrapped up in this thing about Mouse that I’m not thinking straight.”
“It’s okay – you’re forgiven,” she said with a wink. “Anyway, I brought you something.”
For the first time, I noticed that she was holding a brown paper bag, which she now held up.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Dinner,” she said.
I frowned. “It’s a little early, don’t you think?”
“I admit it’s only a little after five,” she said, “but you never finished lunch so I figured you were probably hungry.”
“Honestly, I don’t have much of an appetite,” I confessed truthfully. Even without tweaking anything internally, I simply hadn’t felt hungry.
“All the more reason to eat,” Electra insisted before heading to the kitchen (although it was really more of a kitchenette).
I was tempted to argue with her, but simply decided to relent. Thus, I followed in her wake and found myself in the kitchenette a few moments later.
“No, no, no,” she said, suddenly shooing me out. “I’ll prepare the plates. You just go kick your feet up.”
“Uh, okay,” I responded uncertainly, heading back towards the living room. As with the pizza the previous night, this kind of behavior wasn’t typical for Electra. I could only assume that she was doing it because she thought I was under a lot of pressure.
Unexpectedly, a fanciful thought entered my head: me and Electra once again a couple, but with her constantly waiting on me hand and foot. I snickered to myself, knowing that it was something that would never come to pass, but it was fun to imagine.
A soft musical ding suddenly interrupted my thoughts – the sound of the microwave going off in the kitchenette. I assumed it meant Electra had finished warming up the food.
As if reading my mind, she unexpectedly called out, “Almost ready. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Taking that as my cue, I began heading for a small breakfast table near the kitchenette, which was where I usually ate when staying in my quarters. I took a position behind a chair on one side of the table, deciding to wait until Electra joined me before sitting down.
She came out of the kitchen area a moment later carrying two plates. She placed one on the table in front of me and the other on the opposite side. It was my first time actually seeing what she’d brought, and I noticed that it looked like some kind of fried rice, and that Electra had already placed a fork in it for me.
“When did you order this?” I asked out of curiosity.
“While we were sitting in that debriefing,” she replied, and I had a sudden recollection of seeing her play with her phone a few times in the meeting. “I thought you might enjoy some takeout, so I got one of the guards to go pick it up.”
I fought to keep my face impassive, but sirens immediately started screaming in my brain. Several pieces of a mental puzzle unexpectedly fell into place, and I suddenly realized I was quite possibly in a very dangerous situation.
“You know,” I intoned, trying to sound casual, “I’m actually not that hungry.”
“What?” Electra blurted out. “No, you have to eat.”
“I’ll just get a power bar or something from the pantry,” I countered.
“No, no, no. I went through the trouble of getting this for you – the least you can do is eat it.”
“I’ll get some later,” I promised.
“No, not later. I want you to eat it now.”
I gave her a hard stare. “What’s the big deal about eating it now?” I asked.
Electra merely stared at me for a moment, looking vexed, and I felt frustration and anxiety starting to roll off her in waves.
A moment later, she sighed and said, “Look, I miss you, okay? I’ve enjoyed being around you the last few days and I was simply hoping we could have dinner together, like we used to. So could you please just sit and eat with me – even if it’s just a few bites?”
“Sure,” I said with a nod. “It actually sounds a lot more enticing when you put it that way. Just let me run to the bathroom.”
“Okay,” she said with a coy smile, “but hurry up.”
“For you, I’ll go at super speed,” I promised with a smile. I then shifted into super speed and went into motion, but was back in place probably before she knew I was gone.
“All right, let’s eat,” I stated as I sat down.
“Wow, that really was quick,” Electra admitted as she took her own seat.
“I aim to please,” I shot back as we began to eat.
I took a quick bite of the food on my plate and discovered it was actually rather tasty.
“Mmmm,” I droned. “This is really good.”
“Agreed,” Electra stated with a nod. “So, where exactly did you go when you left us in the lounge earlier? I don’t believe you ever said.”
“Just to check out a lead. Like I said in the meeting, it didn’t pan out.”
“What kind of lead?”
I shook my head. “Nothing major – turned out to be a waste of time.”
“Hmmm,” Electra muttered, clearly not satisfied with my answer.
As we ate, Electra continued to ask detailed questions about where I’d gone and the lead I’d been following. I gave generic responses to all her
