Free Only Uni by Camy Tang Page A

out? Miss Hong Kong was at least thirty pounds lighter and five years younger. Plus, Spenser was always talking with women in the hallways.
    “Uh . . . you mean on a date?”
    Spenser’s smile grew a little strained. “Sure. Why not?”
    Oh no, had Trish been flirting with him? She’d been trying so hard the past few days to not look . It had taken a while for her to get used to the new Trish — the non-animated, proper, and rather boring good girl version. Maybe she’d unconsciously been spewing pheromones, hence this surreal moment.
    Rats! Six-feet-of-gorgeous had asked her out! She had been working so hard to keep rule number one, but then he had to go ahead and drop this bomb in her lap. This was too much temptation for a girl to bear.
    Because she had to say no.
    “You’re serious?” She chewed her inner lip. Was she crazy? What was she doing? She couldn’t refuse the very man she’d been ga-ga over for the past two weeks!
    “Yeah, I’m serious.” His brow wrinkled and his tone buzzed with annoyance. “Why? What’s wrong?”
    “I’m flattered, but . . .”
    “But . . . ?” Spenser’s mouth tightened.
    Trish stood. She hated needing to look up at him so far. “Well, no offense but . . . you’re not Christian.”
    Okay, that hadn’t come out sounding very good. Had she really said that?
    He grew very still. Very, very still. He didn’t even blink. Trish couldn’t quite decipher his expression, and that scared her a bit.
    “I, uh . . . I want to date only Christian guys. You see, God is my top priority, and I want to date someone with the same priority.” Trish gnawed the inside of her cheek, her eyes darting everywhere but at him, while she reached up to fiddle with all three of the earrings on her right side. “It’s like a San Francisco 49ers fan dating an Oakland Raiders fan. Or a Giants fan dating an A’s fan. Well actually, God’s more of a priority for me than a football or baseball team, but you get the picture, right?” She lifted pleading eyes to him.
    Was she crazy? The past two weeks had been horrible. A zillion times a day, she had to drag her eyes away from his dimpled smile and the adorable way his hair waved down over his forehead. It was soooo hard to ignore his muscular grace when he sat on the edge of her desk to discuss something.
    “Ahem. Yeah, sure.” His face seemed rather neutral. Was that good or bad? “So if a Christian guy asks you out?”
    “Well, um . . . I’m trying to commit myself whole-heartedly to God.”
    “And that means?”
    “I want to become a better person and leave it to God to give me the right man, because on my own, boys make me do all kinds of crazy thi — Um, anyway, I came up with three rules.”
    “Three rules?” His eyebrows hit his waving hair.
    “If I can follow them, eventually God can change my heart so I’ll have undivided devotion to Him.”
    “So what are your three rules?” His mouth worked in and out. Almost as if he were trying not to laugh.
    Trish crossed her arms and glared at him. “You’re making fun of me.”
    He opened his eyes wide and held up his hands. “No, I promise I’m not.”
    She didn’t trust that glint in his eye. “Okay, rule number one — no looking at guys or encouraging them. No drooling, no roving eye, no scoping them out as boyfriend material.”
    “Hmm.” He looked like a clinical psychologist. Or rather, what she imagined a clinical psychologist would look like when confronted with, say, a patient who claimed that aliens had taken over her brain.
    “What do you mean, ‘Hmm’?”
    He shrugged. “Nothing. What’s rule number two?”
    “Tell others about Christ. Be bold and on fire to spread the Word.” Oops, maybe she shouldn’t have said that with such relish in front of a non-believer, to whom she was supposed to be witnessing at some point.
    “Ah.” More head nodding. “Number three?”
    “Persevere and rely on God in hardship. God will give me strength through trials, and I