Sunset simply stood with her eyes closed and let the warm water hit her face before letting it run down her body. A hot shower was usually something she found immensely relaxing. … This was her third shower this Saturday, and it hadn’t helped. Her shoulders still felt stiff like a board after a first week that turned out to be nothing like she had expected it to be.
Sighing, she turned off the water, stepped out of the shower and began toweling herself off, hoping Relaxation Plan B would be here soon and be more helpful.
Hearing the jingle of her cellphone, she wrapped the towel around her body and stepped out into the living section of her studio apartment where the phone was buzzing on the stand next to the sofa. Not recognizing the number, she nonetheless swiped to accept the call and put it on speaker to have her hands free for drying off her hair.
“Hey, Sparky. How’s it going?” There was a silence at the other end of the line after Sunset’s initial greeting. “Twilight, you there?”
“How’d you know it was me?” Twilight Sparkle’s voice echoed tinny from the other end. “I’ve never called you from this number.”
Sunset grinned. “Sparky, you’re the only person I know with a Greater Canterlot Area Code who still uses a landline.”
The answer was somewhat petulant. “They finally gave me my own office. Of course I’m gonna use the phone that came with it instead of adding to my cellphone charges. Unlike you, I’m still working on a student budget here.”
“And by office, I assume, you mean that converted broom closet you showed me last time I was on campus? Why are you hanging around the university on a Saturday, anyway?”
“I’ve got an important experiment for my thesis running that I need to check on periodically. This was the only time slot I could get as a post graduate student.”
“So instead of going out and having fun on the weekend, you hang around an empty lab, oscillating between writing down numbers every couple hours and total boredom in between. You must be loving this.”
“You know it!” To Sunset’s ears, Twilight sounded way too chipper for someone getting shafted like that. “It’s a really fascinating experiment, too. But enough about me. School started this week, right? I wanted to check in with you. How was your first week?”
Done with drying her hair, Sunset sighed dramatically and plopped down onto her sofa. “Awful. I had this grand idea in my head of making an instant connection with my students, but their dead eyes when I go through a lesson make me feel like I’ve walked into a zombie apocalypse.”
“Hmm,” Twilight hummed sympathetically, “history is not the easiest subject to make interesting. You know, I never understood why you went into the humanities. You’re such a good experimental scientist. I wish you’d come and gotten a degree in physics with me. We could be working on getting our doctorates together right now.”
Sunset had a momentary flash of sharing an apartment with Twilight while a cute blonde with dreams of becoming an actress moved in across the hall, bringing chaos but also romance into their lives. “Yeah, imagine. I could be in the converted broom closet next door right now,” she said wryly, deciding not to share that particular daydream. “Hard pass. Besides, the social sciences are still sciences. It works the same way.”
“How? Hard sciences have definitive answers for the questions they pose.”
“Well, so do the social sciences,” Sunset replied, frowning. “Like, take a philosophical question. Is there life after death?”
“How does that have a scientific answer?”
“Because it does! There either is life after death or there isn’t. We don’t know the answer, we don’t have the means to test either hypothesis, but there is a definitive answer. It’s like dark matter. We think it might be there, even though we can’t prove it right now. But it’s either out there somewhere or it isn’t.”
“… Huh, I’ve never thought about it like that. Still, without a way to devise experiments, it’s gotta be hard to use the Sunsetific Method.”
“The what?” There was a knock at the door, and grabbing her phone, Sunset got up to answer it. “Sparky, did you make me an adjective?”
“Sure, remember what you used to say? ‘Reading books is fine for some people, but I learn best by going out into the field and actually doing something.’ You can’t really do that with history.”
Can’t I? While mulling that over in her mind, she opened the door absent-mindedly. There stood Flash Sentry in a white shirt and skinny black tie. He opened his mouth to speak, then clapped it back shut as he let his eyes wander appreciatively across Sunset’s body which was still only covered by a bath towel.
Seeing that Sunset was on the phone, he held up his hands silently. In the right was an inexpensive, though not exactly cheap, bottle of red wine. His left held up his phone which displayed a message from Sunset earlier in the day: “EBC! U free?”
Her Plan B had arrived, Emergency Booty Call. Sunset beckoned him to come inside with a nod of her head, to which he grinned and made his way towards the kitchenette in search of a corkscrew.
“Sunset, are you still there?”
“Yes. Sorry, Sparky. My accountant just dropped in,” Sunset replied, closing the door. It wasn’t exactly a lie. Flash was indeed an accountant these days.
“You have an accountant? Also, you’re giving me guff about being in the lab on a Saturday while you’re at home doing what? Taxes?”
“Oh, Sparky. I intend to do more than just taxes today,” Sunset replied slyly while watching Flash pour two glasses. “But hey, thanks.”
“Thanks for what?”
“For the perspective. Maybe I’ve been going about this the wrong way. It’s time to put the Sunset back into science. Anyway, good luck with your experiment. Gotta go, those taxes aren’t gonna do themselves.” She hung up just in time to accept a glass of wine from Flash.
“So, rough first week, I take it?” he asked.
Sunset actually laughed out loud at that, finally feeling some of the tension leave her shoulders. “You have no idea. My first day, this one girl straight up asked me if I had a boyfriend in front of the whole class.”
Flash chuckled. “Well, what did you tell her?”
“The truth,” Sunset replied innocently. Then she clinked her glass against Flash’s and gave him a wink. “She wasn’t asking about friends with benefits, after all.”