Jamie Brodie 01 - Cited to Death

I'd be on you in a heartbeat. But you have had too much to drink, at least to be making that kind of decision. I think you'd regret it in the morning. And I don't want to do anything with you that you're going to regret."
    "Oh, fuck that. Why don't you let me decide what I might or might not regret?" I moved closer to him and slid my hands under his t-shirt. "Come on. Stay."
    So he did.

Monday June 4
    Pete left around 5:00 the next morning. During a break in the action, we’d had a discussion about just exactly what it was we thought we were doing by sleeping together. I’d voted for a best-friends-with-benefits relationship. Pete wanted more but was willing to try it my way for now. He didn’t understand why I didn’t want to date. I tried to explain that if we dated, then the potential was there to break up. If we weren’t dating, we couldn’t break up. It made sense to me at the time. Pete had just shaken his head, but he’d agreed.
    I’d slept better than I had in weeks. When I woke up, the sun was coming up, and the birds were singing. I tried to decide whether I regretted last night. In the sense that I didn't want to lead Pete on, yes. But I’d explained myself to him, so I didn’t think I was giving him any false hope.
    But if Pete regretted it, then I regretted that.
    But physically? I didn't regret it at all. After four years, I'd forgotten how good it was to be with him.
    From the standpoint of my asthma, I was feeling better, although not yet back to normal. My peak flow was only back up to 86%. The air quality in the city was still not great. I decided to leave for work early, to beat the traffic and avoid as much auto exhaust as possible, and go for a swim. The North Pool on campus opened for recreational swimming at 6:00 am. I was there by 6:30.
    There were a limited number of people who regularly swam this early in the morning, and I knew them all. I waved hello to a couple of familiar faces as I walked onto the pool deck, then got into the water. I swam for 45 minutes, long enough for a good workout, then climbed out and retrieved my towel. As I did, I saw a face that I didn’t recognize. An attractive woman, a few years older than me, shaking her hair out of her swim cap. She saw me looking at her and smiled. “Hi.”
    “Hi. Sorry if I was staring. It’s just that I haven’t seen you here before.”
    She laughed. “Yeah, this is a little early for me. I’m usually here on my lunch hour. But today I have a lunch meeting, so…” She tipped her head and regarded me, looking at me like…was she flirting with me?
    Time to go. I turned for the men’s showers. “Cool. Nice to…um…” We hadn’t met, so I couldn’t say nice to meet you. “Hope you enjoyed it.”
    She raised her chin, flipped her hair back and her towel over her shoulder, and gave me a little smirk. “Oh, I did.” She sauntered off.
    Good grief.
    In spite of two hot showers, I was still feeling a little short of breath. When I got to the office, I took a puff from my rescue inhaler. Usually the dusty library smell didn't bother me, but today it was. My airways were hypersensitive to everything right now.
    I had forgotten until I opened the door to my office that I didn’t have a computer. Damn. I needed to get my head back in the game. I hadn’t heard back from Detective Blake yet. I moved my keyboard and mouse to the side, opened my laptop, and got to work.
    The first thing I did was to email Dr. Oliver. I told him that I would like to take him up on his offer of more information about his research, and I wondered if I could arrange a tour of his lab. I also mentioned that I had a friend who was interested in giving to a foundation that funded stem cell research and asked if I could bring said friend along.
    He answered very quickly. Yes, he'd be happy to give me a tour of the lab, and yes, by all means, bring my friend. Would Wednesday morning at 9:00 work?
    I sent Pete a quick text. "Stem cell lab Wed 9 am. Oliver says fine to bring you. OK?"
    He answered quickly. "Fine. Will pick u up 8:30."
    I rolled my eyes at Pete’s text-speak spelling, then turned back to the computer and answered Dr. Oliver. "9:00 is fine; we'll see you then. Thank you."
    Then I turned to my real work.
    About an hour later, IT Andy was at my door.
    “Hey, Dr. B. Sorry for the delay. I finally got free to work on your computer.”
    I’d forgotten to tell IT that I’d turned the computer over to the police. “Oh, hey. Actually, I