When Greg answered that a little bug had suddenly appeared, Rom relaxed, and a teasing note crept into his voice:
"Oh, so that's it. I thought something strange was going on in there. I never imagined a guy like you would be scared of bugs."
"Ahem..."
Greg cleared his throat, trying to cover his embarrassment:
"Never mind that. Anyway, what did you want to ask me-hiss-what exactly did you want to ask?"
Rom said, "Uh... are you really okay? I think I just heard you gasp again."
"You're imagining things. I'm fine, so hurry up and tell me what you need." There was a hint of urgency in Greg's voice.
Seeing how insistent he was, Rom stopped pressing and explained why he had come:
"Here's the thing. Colwin and I both think we've made pretty good progress today, so we wanted to ask you what we should do if we want to take things further with the girls we like tonight."
Greg gave Wendy a push and said quickly:
"If you want to take things further, stop going around as a group. You'd be better off going on separate dates tonight."
"And make sure the last thing you do tonight takes a fair amount of time. That way, once you've missed the cutoff for getting into the Magic Tower dorms, you'll have a perfectly legitimate excuse to spend the night somewhere else."
Rom sounded astonished. "What?! You can do that? Just what I'd expect from you. You really have a lot of experience!"
Greg said, "I don't, I haven't, don't make things up. This is all just common sense. You guys simply didn't know."
"Is that so?"
Outside the door, Rom calmed down a little, then said hesitantly:
"But will it really be okay? With so many of us hanging