Waves and Light
Opposites Attract
Elizabeth J. Merrill
K. Kelly Publishing
Copyright © 2020 Elizabeth J. Merrill
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: ebooklaunch.com
To James
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Twp
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Waves and Light: Opposites Attract Series
Waves and Light: Opposites Attract Series
By
Elizabeth J. Merrill
(c) 2020 by Elizabeth J. Merrill
Book Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com
Chapter One
David
I surveyed my domain from my throne i.e. the executive chair behind the reception desk. Unfortunately the unwashed masses would soon defile the perfect, right-angled rows of desks and carrels, but I could enjoy it for now. Currently, the carpet was vacuumed and free of trash and the terrazzo of the reception area gleamed. The glass doors were perfectly clear and free of finger prints. I sighed contentedly and logged into the computer system. As one of two student directors of the tutoring center, I was required to either tutor or staff the desk a minimum of twelve hours a week, hire and schedule additional tutors, and generally maintain order. I was good at maintaining order both abstractly in the physics world of forces and energy and the real world of classes and students.
And, the start of my senior year was looking good. For the first time since my freshman year, I had my finances completely in order, and I was on track to graduate with unicorn status i.e. non-athlete without student loans. Well, sort of a non-athlete—I actually came to the University of Texas on a swimming scholarship, but dropped out after my freshman year when I realized I was definitely not the next Michael Phelps. Plus the training time made maintaining a good GPA difficult. I only completed 9 hours my first semester because I had to drop six hours—the training time for swimming didn’t allow for a full schedule. When I got selected as a Fineman scholar, I elected to drop my swimming scholarship and devote myself to physics.
The Fineman scholar program was fantastic. Every year they gave a scholarship to the most promising physics student from the freshman class. For the next three years they paid for tuition, fees, and books. It also plugged you into a network of scholars and mentors. So, with the Fineman, I only had to pay for my room and board. Sophomore and junior year I had managed it by working in the tutoring center and getting a position as a lab assistant. This year, the lab assistant gig had fallen through, but I had enough cash because I managed to save most of the money from my summer lifeguard supervisor gig and a small coding job for a gaming company that paid a ridiculous amount of money for a small amount of work. Apparently they wanted the bodies falling off of tall heights to fall realistically. Gamers were crazy. Still this year I would have cash to blow and still get through with my 4.0 intact without tapping my mother or Uncle Sam for a dime.
Not stressing out my mother was important. She had raised me essentially by herself with some help from her mother before she died. She had dropped out of school to pursue a promising modeling career and then dropped that to marry my father—a real, live oil tycoon. Her life seemed set. She had me, a stunning wardrobe, several homes, and celebrity friends until my father dropped her when she reached her expiration date—28 years. My father divorced his next two wives at 28 as well—at least that’s what I’ve read. I’ve barely spoken to him since my seventh birthday shortly after the divorce was final. The pre-nup that my mother signed left her with almost nothing, and my father used his connections to secure a ridiculously low child-support payment that stopped the second I turned 18. My mother used her modeling connections to get a job as an assistant to a buyer at Neimans. Now she was one of the main buyers at Neimans--a job that gives Mom a comfortable living, but not a lot of extra cash to send her kid to school. It does provide me with a pretty incredible wardrobe of last season’s samples as long as I manage to maintain a model’s physique which is easy for a twenty-one year old guy like me; as long as I swim every day, I have no problem maintaining my 28-inch waist, and every time I go home, my mother showers me with designer cast offs. Most of the clothes are too nice for school, but she still manages to bring home $100 T-shirts that look great on me. And I do get to wear my Ungaro tuxedo to the winter banquet.
All-in-all this year looks to be pretty good, but right now I have to earn my cash with grunt work. Grunt work like this guy who just wandered in. Typically he appears to have more muscles than brains but I have to help him. It’s my job. Who comes to the tutoring center on the first day of classes anyway?
“May I help you?” I asked.
“Uh is this the tutoring center?” he grunted.
“What gave it away?” I replied while waving my hand over the giant tutoring-center sign on the front of the desk.
He looked confused, “Uhhh, oh, ha, ha. Well I need a tutor for English. The syllabus says we have to write five papers, and I’m not good at writing papers. The teacher said we should probably schedule tutoring sessions early.”
“The writing center, across the hall, is really the place for that, but they don’t open until next week. I can book some slots for when they open though.”
“Uhhhh….okay.”
I handed him the intake form. He pulled out a pen, knelt, and started filling out the form at the reception desk. I guess I should have directed him toward the 20 or so desks in the room, but I didn’t expect another student this early in the semester.
As the mouth breather laboriously filled out the form in red pen, a real hottie strolled in behind him. She was just my type too despite the way she was dressed. She had auburn hair pulled back in a severe bun, but some strands still managed to escape in wispy curls around her face. She had a whisper of badly applied makeup around her big, green eyes and full lips that were pink without lipstick. Clearly she was trying to hide her full breasts in an ugly brown, corduroy jacket—in August, who does that—but I wasn’t buying it. I could tell she had some serious curves under her tacky jacket and cheap, polyester pants. It was easy to imagine the cascade of auburn curls that would fall down her back when I ripped out her hair tie. Not to mention how great she would look on my arm at the banquet in the right dress and with a decent make-up job. I couldn’t help but pray, please let her need a physics tutor. Oh please let her need a physics tutor, but I knew it was hopeless. Cute girls never took physics—not even physics for the curious. My classes were a testament to that. The best I could hope for was calculus, but since Steve “grade-whore” Whitman had decided to quit to work on his GP
A before applying for med school, I was the only physics tutor left. Sonya, the director, wouldn’t let me schedule myself to tutor calculus. Oh but if she were here for physics, I could spend all semester working next to her, leaning over her to correct her work, taking a peak at those glorious breasts, maybe even brushing up against them a few times. Maybe Mom would give me a few accessories even an entire outfit to deck her out in, although she looked a little short for samples. Regardless, at the end of the semester, after saving her fine damsel-in-distress ass, she would be soooo grateful for the B I had helped her achieve, that she would fall into my arms. At the end of the semester, I wouldn’t have to worry about violating any ethics rules about fraternization because she would no longer be my student. It was easy to imagine her luscious breasts wrapped in Perla as she leaned over to wrap those soft pink lips around my cock.
An irritated sigh snapped me out of my reverie. What was taking that kid so long to fill out a simple form? “What do I put in this blank?” asked the kid at the desk. I craned my neck around to see. “Professor? That blank?”
“Yeah, what do I put in the blank?” asked the kid.
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe you should put the name of your professor—just a wild guess.”
“How am I supposed to know that?”
“Haven’t you been to class? Didn’t she mention her name or give you a syllabus?”
The kid gave me the dog watching a card trick look.
“It’s probably on Blackboard or you can get your schedule using Bevonet. Why don’t you go sit over there,” I said pointing to a desk away from the reception desk, “finish filling out the form, and bring it over when you’re done.”
The kid looked around and realized someone else was waiting. “Oh, okay, I’ll come back when it’s filled out.”
“Great!” “May I help you?” I asked the hottie in my coolest voice.
“I’m here about the physics tutor position,” she purred.
Physics! Score! Ding, ding, ding! She needed a physics tutor. “Of course, we’re a bit short handed; I’m the only physics tutor we have at the moment, but I’m sure I can work you into my schedule. It’s not too full yet. You were smart to come early in the semester, before you got into trouble. Just fill out this form, and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
She gave the intake form a look of irritated confusion, then reached into her messenger bag and pulled out a folder.
“I’m not sure I understand.” She spoke slowly using the same tone and speed one would use when speaking with a toddler. “I’m applying for the PHYSICS-TUTOR position” pause “posted in the career center.” She pulled some papers from the folder. “Here’s my CV and completed application. Do you want me to fill this form out too?” She waved around the intake form. Then she added, “I’m the new Fineman Scholar.”
“Huh? I thought the new Fineman Scholar was some guy named B.D.” I looked down at her CV; it read B.D. Chase across the top.
“Oh,” I whispered lamely.
I continued to scan. 4.0 GPA, already published an article in Physics Today—not peer-reviewed but still--with another student and a professor, then I saw it. “You’re Professor Hrezecovic’s new lab assistant?”
“Yes, she was actually the one who recommended that I apply for this job. That position is only 12 hours a week and doesn’t quite cover my room and board, so I was hoping I could tutor a few hours per week here to make up the difference. And as you can see [she pointed to the relevant section of her CV] I was a physics and math tutor in high school. Plus I’ve already completed fourteen hours of physics classes—well I placed out of six hours and took another eight last year, so the physics problems that come through here should be easy for me. I can tutor calculus too.”
I had wanted that lab assistant position; Dr. Hrezecovic was changing the trajectory of AI. Her work essentially taught computers to see and hear using wave technology, and it had far-ranging applications from allowing computers to spot terrorists in crowds to helping biologists locate endangered species in the forest to improving the accuracy of cytology. I could be changing the world, but instead I was handing out forms to troglodytes because she had given the position to a sophomore named B.D. --one with really nice breasts.
“Dr. Hrezecovic mentioned that someone named David Slade was the student director here, and that he could help me. Can I speak to him? Is he around?” She bobbed her head around trying to see into the back.
I sat up in my chair. “I’m David Slade. And you’re speaking to me.”
“Oh, well can you help?” she batted her big green orbs at me. Now she flirts.
I started typing officiously on my computer and pulled up Olivia’s schedule, the other student director. “Can you come in Thursday at noon for an interview? Just meet us here in the lobby.”
“Sure,” she said with a little shoulder shrug. “I’ll see you then.”
She turned, tugged open the big glass doors of the tutoring center somehow managing to leave a big hand print on the glass as she walked through the doors.
B.D.
That David guy seemed a little off. Maybe he’s one of those geniuses who lacks social skills—all numbers and not people. Still for a nerd he was particularly hot. The way that t-shirt brought out his eyes and lightly hugged his chest just barely hinting at actual VBs—visible abs—was smokin’ hot. His dark, brown hair and baby blues weren’t bad either. He didn’t even have a weak chin. If he ever figured out how attractive brains AND looks were he would be seriously dangerous. As it is, he’s still nice to look at, and hopefully I’ll get this job and get to spend a bit more time looking at him. But that’s all I plan to do--just look. I don’t have time for anything more. My freshman year I dated one loser, briefly, and I made a B on one of my chemistry exams and decided it wasn’t worth it. I’ve got to keep my eyes on the prize—for me and my family. He’s probably gay anyway. No smart, straight guy looks that hot.
And my family can’t take another disappointment right now. My genius father is currently serving three years in federal prison for insider trading. He didn’t start out as a trader, but a mathematics professor. He’s a genius--really. He worked at Rice University and studied imaginary numbers. We lived in a nice three bedroom house in Idlywood. I swam at the Y. My mom didn’t work when I was little, but decided to go back to teaching kindergarten when I was ten and my sister was eight. Dad didn’t like it. He felt like she should be available to drive me to math camp and robot school and aikido lessons. Just like my dad, I’m pretty good at math and physics, and he felt obligated to provide me with every advantage to foster what he referred to as my gift. He wasn’t quite as interested in my younger sister, Veronica. She’s not a genius at anything except maybe pulling together an outfit and she’s got a killer tennis serve, but she’s popular at school. Regardless my father started worrying about giving us a “good education” and helping me get into the right school. As the child of a faculty member, I would get free tuition at Rice—one of the best schools in the country—but he didn’t think Rice was good enough for me. So, he started consulting for an investment group in Houston. And at first, it was great. He made almost as much money crunching numbers and making projections for these guys as he did teaching at Rice, and he only put in a few hours per week on the side. We didn’t have to watch the budget quite so closely; we took a trip to Carmen del Playa--hung out at the beach and crawled around the ancient pyramids near there. Veronica and I enrolled in a stuck-up private school. Mom became a part-time teacher’s aide. After a few years though, they wanted him to do more work. And Rice wasn’t making him happy either. They only gave him one graduate class a year, and he only got one PhD candidate to supervise. He went up for full-professor early, but didn’t get it. Since he’d published more than anyone else in the department, he thought they’d have to promote him, but they didn’t. He would have gotten it the following year, but he was done. The investment firm offered him a full-time position making four times his professor’s s
alary, and he took it. Things really changed then. Mom quit her job. We bought a McMansion in RiverOaks with a 25-meter pool. We employed a full-time maid who was very nice, but didn’t speak much English. My Spanish improved quite a bit though. My junior year, Dad took me to visit Yale, Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Stanford, but then it all came crashing down.
The investment firm was boosting their numbers by spinning bad investments into other companies. I remember the day everything collapsed vividly. It was a beautiful spring day. I had swim practice after school, so I didn’t get home until after 5pm. Unusually Dad was already home. He had the household in an uproar. Everyone was running around packing up small stuff and cleaning. Apparently when the Feds came in with their warrants for the books, Dad snuck out the back and had called our real estate agent on the way home. We were listing the house immediately. The photographers and stagers were coming the next day. We were moving back into our old house that fortunately was between renters at the moment. As soon as the pictures were taken, he let Rosita go with an extra month’s pay. We settled in to the old house. Veronica and I continued to attend Regent’s, because our tuition was paid. Mom made discrete inquiries for a position in the fall, and Dad polished up his CV and several virtually finished academic papers and sent them out for review.
At first, it looked like we would be okay. As a numbers guy, Dad wasn’t named in the first wave of indictments. Even when he was brought in for questioning, we initially thought he would be insulated from indictment, but the public was furious. Thousands of people lost millions of dollars—their whole life savings. The DA wanted blood and indicted all of upper-management. As the head of the research division, Dad was on the list. Even though he really had no idea what was going on, the DA didn’t believe that he could be that oblivious and planned to vigorously pursue his case. His quick thinking in liquidating his assets and putting some in Mom’s name—who knew he would be smart enough to put both houses in her name—made him look guilty. We had managed to sell the McMansion before the local real estate crash from the scandal fall-out. Mom and Dad had only managed to the get the money out that they had put in, but lots of people ended up stuck underwater on their mortgage and had to declare bankruptcy. Plus Dad had money in educational trusts for Veronica and me not to mention some CD’s in Mom’s name. It all looked a little circumspect, but completely legal. Perhaps the DA was a little right. Dad must have suspected some wrong doing, but turned a blind eye. So even though Dad didn’t actually do anything wrong other than not dig too deeply into the inner workings of the company, his attorney recommended a plea deal, and mostly to get the whole episode behind him, he took it.
Waves and Light: Opposites Attract Series Page 1