“I’m Ember,” he said, holding out his hands.“May I have your pronouns?” Greeter asked, taking Ember’s hand.“Uh, sure,” Ember said as G...at choked on his pipe. “He him?”“Thanks!” Greeter said, smiling broadly as he stepped back and away, then turned and sprinted into the darkness.Ember blinked. [] reached down to scratch the back of []’s neck. Then [] yelped. “What the fuck!?”Goat held his pipe in one hand, the tip caught between two of his fingers. He reached out and bopped Ember on []’s head.. In fact, without Debbie nothing really seemed to matter anymore. I did enough in the classroom to get by, but started spending hours in the gym working out. Most of my senior year passed in a blur of sex, working out, and sports. At this point in my life, I had lost all interest in attending college so right after graduation I joined the Marines. Now, I was back in town . . . and so was Debbie. For two years in the Marines, and for my senior year before that I kept telling myself how much I. Yes, it was a quiet day, and I was bored to death.By lunch time, I was about ready to climb a wall, so I stopped by Henry Thompson’s place and told him that I was taking Sunday afternoon off. My wife, daughter, and I were going on a picnic. Then I had to explain what a picnic was. Oh, well, the picnic was all set up before I got home by means of the mind-to-mind link with Julia. We had our replicators, so we did not need a lot of food fixing. In fact, all we had to do was to hitch my mule that. "He's pretty cute," said Gina.I nodded. "Changing the subject, what are you planning on doing aftergraduation?" "I'll probably get just married," stated Gina with a sigh. I vaguely remembered something about her marrying a guy who worked forher father's construction company. I think she already had three kidswhen I saw her at the ten year reunion. "I'm actually thinking about the army," said Judy. "Jean talked to arecruiter over the summer, and he told her that if we passed the test wecould go.