“Very noble of him.”

Pia’s eyes left the road for a moment and darted over at George. “Are you being sarcastic?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I had too much to drink.”

“At least it was good wine,” Pia said.

A few minutes later Pia pulled into her apartment complex’s parking area. She hopped out of the car and headed in, leaving George in her wake. The cool evening air was refreshing for George, so he made it last. Once back inside, he drank three full glasses of water and took a couple of ibuprofen tablets to preempt the headache that was sure to get worse.

When he walked back into the living room, Pia’s door was already closed. George could see the light was still on in her room. He sighed and started to undress, another uncomfortable night stretching out before him.

The door to Pia’s bedroom opened, and she stood in the doorway looking at George. “Thank you for being here so that I could see Berman’s house. I enjoyed it.”

“My pleasure.” George tried to make eye contact, but she looked away.

“Do you really have to leave tomorrow?”

“I do. I was only able to wrangle two days.”

After a pregnant pause, Pia’s eyes zeroed in and locked onto George’s for a fleeting moment.

“Why don’t you come in. I don’t think it’s fair to make you sleep on the couch again.” A second later she disappeared. George fumbled with his clothes half-on, half-off, trying to get to the doorway. He didn’t want her to change her mind. Now he truly wished he hadn’t drunk as much as he had.

12.

THE ENVIRONS OF NANO, LLC, BOULDER, COLORADO

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013, 12:30 P.M.

It had not been the best morning for Pia. First she had to get up earlier than usual to take George down to the bus station to catch a bus to Denver Airport. She hated saying good-bye in general, especially with the potential for a scene since George had ended up wanting to drag it out, sitting in her car. She’d come to appreciate his visit, especially as it had allowed her to see Berman’s house and make sure he knew she had a boyfriend. But the previous night after they had gotten back from the dinner party and she had warmed up to him and wanted to have sex, he’d proved to be incapable with all the alcohol he had foolishly drunk. So she was glad he was leaving, but then couldn’t get him to get out of the car. She had been eager to get to work, looking forward to asking some of the programmers at Nano about the feasibility of her mechanical solution to the flagellum problem. When George finally did climb out of the VW, Pia had made sure to leave quickly, lest he return to ask her to promise yet again to be better about answering his communications and pressure her into making a commitment to come out to L.A.