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  He slowly raised his head and eyes to look at her. His gaze danced around her face, but he never looked her in the eye, merely slid past her eyes on the way to examining other features. After about ten seconds his eyes dropped back to his slate.

  “There that wasn’t so bad was it?”

  Even at the angle his downward gaze presented she could tell a grin appeared on his face. He shook his head.

  “I want to look at you too. Look at me some more.”

  He looked up again and she studied him. He actually could be quite attractive she thought, if he could look you in the eye. She turned her head side to side, “What do you think?”

  “You’re very beautiful.”

  Surprised she said, “Aw, I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”

  He looked shocked, “No!” His eyes dropped back down and he almost whispered, “I’ve never said that to anyone!”

  Realizing how painfully shy Vaz was, Lisanne resolved to stop teasing him. “I was only kidding. We should meet here again next week. You can tell me what you think of the summary I wrote. I sent it to your AI.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine. Much better than anything I could write.”

  “So, you don’t want to meet with me next week?”

  Looking stricken, Vaz blurted, “Yes! Yes, I do.”

  Stifling a+0"

  Lisanne came to feel great joy that they’d been assigned to be a team. Vaz was weird; there was no doubt about that. But he was a genius at programming and would be going on to grad school in, of all things, physics. He may be weird, but weird in a sweet/brilliant sense and as time passed she’d found that she loved his bizarre, introspective sense of humor.

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