Boy Meets Nerd (5 page)

They walked toward the

pub. “Yeah, I remember. The whole thing was weird.”

Her sense of humor had

drawn him in first. Then her sweetness. She had a kind heart, loved children, and felt music in her soul like he did. They could talk for hours without running out of anything to say – something he hadn’t found with most other women. The girls he’d dated in college

were

immature

and

shallow. He needed someone who had her shit together, someone with a real career, and he wasn’t finding that around campus.

“It was fate.”

Darren

snorted.

“Sappy

bitch.”

“Shut up,” he said and

shoved him.

The pub door was already propped open. The smell of sweat and alcohol poured out into the night. The place was packed with college kids. Levi was only a year past graduation himself so he recognized a few faces. Darren pointed to a spot at the bar that had just opened up.

They pushed their way

through the crowd, dodging elbows and girls flipping their hair. He sat down on a bar stool next to Darren then waved to their buddy behind the counter. Patrick was a typical heartbreaker. His wide smile, clever wit, and jacked up body made women hang all over him, vying for bits of attention. And somehow he made every one of them feel important and beautiful.

The man had talent.

“Hey!” Patrick said as he approached. “You guys here for the band?”

Darren answered first. “No.

We’re just here to drown a man’s sorrows.” He put a hand on Levi’s shoulder, which Levi shook off.

“Sorrows, huh?” Patrick

considered him for a moment then nodded. “In that case, you need a shot.”

Six shots later, the room started to spin. The crowd was just a buzz behind him. He was vaguely aware that the band had started to play. He might’ve told people, loudly, his ten year old students played better. Sounds swirled together. It was hard to focus. Why was he drinking again? On the seventh shot, he didn’t care.

Levi stared at the number on the apartment door. Why was he stalling? His stomach was sick with nerves. Just two days ago he’d gotten drunk with Darren, trying to forget the looming sense of dread hanging over his head. It’d worked for a few hours but then had returned as soon as his sobriety had.

Just knock and get this
over with.

He lifted his hand and the door opened.

“What are you doing?”

Emerson asked, her face crumpled in disgust.

Embarrassment

swept

through him. He was acting like such a pussy. “I was about to knock on the door.”

“You’ve been standing in

the hallway for close to five minutes.” She opened the door wider for him to walk through. “I heard you come up the stairs.” Irritably, he stepped into the apartment. “I’m a little nervous, okay?” Why was he admitting that?

God, had he left his balls in the car?

“Don’t be. I have good

news.” She went straight to her desk chair and started typing on the computer.

Her three other monitors

were doing strange things. He opened his mouth to ask what it was then decided against it. She’d either scoff at his substandard intellect or give him a long speech that’d make him want to get drunk again. And he really didn’t want to deal with another hangover.

“Ugh,” she groaned then

clicked on the mouse hard several times

in

succession.

“Stupid

computer!”

“What happened?”

Sighing, she threw her hand toward one of the screens. “I had to sudo shutdown. It’s gonna be a sec.

I think I overloaded the system.” She turned and gave him a cursory glance. “Um. Make yourself at home. Or something.”

He

snorted.

“Thanks.

You’re

a

regular

Suzie

Homemaker.”

Gaze back on the screen, she waved a hand negligently.

“There’s drinks in the fridge.

Maybe. I don’t remember.”

Shaking his head, he took a long look at the condition of the apartment. It was worse than the last time he’d been there. Done putting on airs already? On the coffee table sat several empty or nearly-empty glasses. No coasters.

Unable to help himself, he stacked them up and brought them to the

kitchen.

The

sink

was

overflowing with dirty dishes so he set them on the counter. A dishwasher sat to the right. He opened it. Empty. Why hadn’t they just put their dirty dishes in after they’d used them? He’d expected girls to be cleaner than guys but apparently not these two.

“Stupid motherfucking, asslicking,

shitty

computer,”

she

mumbled from the other room. She was too immersed in her computer problem to notice what he was doing.

Chuckling, he started rinsing the dishes and loading them in the dishwasher. The girl definitely needed a keeper. He had nothing else to do and it sounded like it’d be a while before she’d be ready, so he figured he might as well help out. After the dishes were done and the machine started up, he took a look in the fridge.

A ketchup bottle, a few

pieces of bread, a half a stick of butter, and a little bit of milk. He opened the container and sniffed.

“Ugh.” After dumping it

down the drain, he walked to the living room where Emerson was still swearing under her breath.

“What have you been eating?

Ketchup sandwiches?”

“Huh?” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Oh. Uh. I don’t know. It’s been a while.”

He rolled his eyes. The girl needed a maid. Maybe a cook too.

He took the phone from his pocket and scrolled through his favorite take-out restaurants. “You like Chinese food?”

Her reply was to throw her hands in the air and start ranting.

“Ever since OSX Maverick, this machine has had a huge memory leak. I wish they’d just patch the damn thing already! If the kernel was open source, I'd patch it myself...” Then she mumbled under her

breath

something

about

switching everything to Linux tomorrow.

He stared for a moment.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” After dialing up the place down the street, he ordered a variety of his favorite dishes then plopped down onto the couch.

Something

hard

pressed

against his ass cheek, making him jump up in surprise. What the hell?

He looked down at the couch.

“Seriously, Em?”

The tone of his voice

must’ve

caught

her

attention

because she spun her chair around and looked where he pointed. A giant green dildo stuck straight out from between the cushions like some kind of perverted leprechaun, eager

to

impale

unsuspecting

visitors.

“That’s not mine.”

“Let me guess. You’re

holding it for a friend.” He grimaced.

“It’s clean. She just bought it.”

Staring

down

at

the

monstrous thing, he mumbled, “At least there’s that.” He heard a chuckle behind him. He turned to find Emerson with her palm over her mouth, clearly trying to hold back laughter.

“What?”

She lifted her hand. “Did you, uh…” Her eyes lit up with mischief.

“Get

raped

by

Frankendick there?”

He scowled at her. “No!”

Laughter broke free and she

didn’t bother to hide it. Holding her stomach with her hands, she laughed loud and long. And then he was laughing too. Not because he’d almost gotten butt-raped by her couch, but because the super-focused and stoic Emerson had completely lost it.

Her hair swept back from her face, revealing a dimple on one side of her smile he hadn’t noticed before. Rosy lips stood out against her pale skin. Her eyes crinkled at the corners – not at all like the serious girl he’d met at Starbucks a couple weeks ago. She was cute when she hid behind her glasses and talked nerdy. But when she laughed, she was stunning.

He must’ve been staring too

long because when she stopped laughing, she pulled her navy sweater closed around her chest and glared. “What?”

“Nothing.” He shook his

head. “You’re just pretty when you smile.”

She blinked and stared for a long moment then cleared her throat. “Uh, thanks. Anyway…” After swiveling the chair to face the computer

again,

she

started

punching keys.

Seeing

her

slightly

embarrassed was almost as fun as seeing her laugh. There was nothing sexier than a woman blushing, especially from a compliment.

Hope’s Facebook profile

popped up on the screen. He used to get flutters in his chest when he saw that picture – the random beach sunset. It was so cliché he’d have ignored it anywhere else, but now it equated to happiness. Guilt found its way into his head. He’d just told Emerson she was pretty, right as he was about to talk about Hope – the woman he was committed to. That was messed up. He vowed to wipe Em from his mind completely and focus on Hope.

Heidi. Whoever.

He sighed. This was so

frustrating.

Moving

in

behind

Emerson, he eyed the screen. “Did you find anything else?”

“Yes.”

He wiped his sweaty palms

on his jeans. “Okay. I’m ready.” Emerson looked back at

him. “Grab a chair. You should sit.”

“That good, huh?” His heart

pounded a nervous beat in his chest.

Maybe sitting down was best. He grabbed a stool from the breakfast bar then sat beside Em.

Once he was settled, she brought a few tabs up on the screen.

“I got into her email with the Trojan I planted. She had a flight confirmation email I was able to see.”

“Yeah. She booked a flight to California to visit her sister’s new baby.”

“With the flight number, I went to the TSA database and got her birth date.” She clicked a few more keys then studied something on the screen. “July tenth, nineteen ninety two.”

“So that makes her…” He

tried to subtract in his head but Em beat him to it.

“Twenty two.”

He nodded. “She would

never tell me her exact birthday but she said she’s twenty two so that’s a good sign.” He sounded like an idiot to his own ears. “Did you find out where she lives? Is she with someone?”

“I didn’t see any signs of a boyfriend or husband in her emails or anything.”

His initial excitement died.

“Nothing? Not even about me?” She gave him a regretful look. “No. But she doesn’t use her email much. I don’t see anything about her job. It’s mostly spam and Facebook notifications. Maybe she has another one she uses more.” It wasn’t unreasonable to have two email addresses. And if she was used to keeping them separate, maybe she didn’t think to tell him. That didn’t seem like such a big deal.

“You said she lives in

Pennsylvania so I hacked into the state DOT site. There’s no Heidi Jacobs with that birthday in the state of Pennsylvania. According to her flight information, she flew out of Chicago. Has she mentioned ever living near there? I mean, people travel pretty far to get to big airports because it’s cheaper so she could be anywhere around there.

Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana…”

“No. She always said she regretted never leaving home to go out and explore other places like her sister did. She even lives in the same town where she grew up.” Another lie? He’d thought it was adorable that she was a homebody.

That she was devoted to her parents and even taught at the grammar school she’d gone to. Was any of that true? It was beginning to look like he didn’t know Hope as well as he’d thought.

“Okay.” Emerson tapped

her fingers on the keyboard. “I need you to think. Does she talk about places she’s been, like field trips to museums, or…a favorite store or something?”

They never talked about that sort of thing, now that he thought about it. She didn’t tell him much about her day-to-day life. When she did go out with friends, she didn’t name places. It was always vague.

Every piece of information she ever gave him was vague. How had he not noticed that before?

“Oh!” There was one thing.

“She talks about going to this buffet place a lot. It’s her grandpa’s favorite. Uhh.” He rubbed his forehead, willing his memory to work. “Bucky’s…Bucky’s BBQ…”

“Bucky’s BBQ Buffet?”

“Yes! That!”

“Oh my god.” She turned

back to the computer and slumped in her seat. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“What?”

She chuckled humorlessly.

“What are the chances? I know where your girl lives.”

“You do? Where?”

“In the lovely state of O-hi-Oh.” Sitting up straighter, she typed on her keyboard. “And now that we know that, I can find all kinds of things.”

“How do you know she

lives in Ohio?”

“Bucky’s BBQ Buffet is a famous Ohio food chain.” After typing the name into the Google browser, she pointed to the screen.

A cartoon cow did a dance to a country

song.

“Barbeque

and

bluegrass too,” she sang along with the jingle.

He shook his head slowly.

“Do you know
everything
?”

“Far from it. But I know good ol’ Bucky’s ‘cause it’s the favorite place for Ohioans to eat.

Including my family.”

“So you grew up…”

“In a god awful podunk

town in the middle of Ohio.” Emerson went on about the small town life as a teenager but his mind drifted to Hope. He had a state. Pennsylvania’s neighbor. He hadn’t expected that. Why lie about a state? It wasn’t as if she’d given him a town he could stalk her to.

That she didn’t trust him with the smallest of truths was a painful pill to swallow.

“Are you okay?”

Em’s voice shook him from his daze.

“Huh?” He shrugged. “I’m

fine.” But even he knew he didn’t sound fine.

Emerson sighed and her

chair squeaked as she turned to face him. “I know it seems bad but… It could be way worse. We know three things that are promising.

She’s a girl. She’s the age she told you. And it looks like she’s a teacher. Ohio isn’t that far from Pennsylvania. Maybe she lives on the border and was being cautious about the details.”

Yeah, he could rationalize all day but the fact was she lied.

Now he wasn’t sure what to believe about her anymore. How much she liked him – was that a lie too? A pit of anxiety formed in his gut. His hopes and dreams for the future were on shaky ground.

He wasn’t giving up yet –

Heidi meant too much to him – but they had a lot of talking to do. But when? When should he confront her? He wanted to see her face when he questioned her. He could learn more by looking her in the eye than by months of texting. He needed to see her in order to know if she was the girl he was falling for or not.

“Can you find where she

lives?” he asked Emerson. To hell with privacy. He was driving to Ohio to find his girl.

“I can get you more than that if you’re willing to wait a few days.”

“That’s fine.” What was he going to say to Heidi while he waited? It was hard to act natural when all he wanted to do was demand answers. But it would be worth it in the end if he could hold out just a little longer. He hoped.

Someone banged on the

door, making Em jump out of her seat. “Who’s that?”

“Oh.” He moved toward the

door, fishing through his wallet for money. “That’s the Chinese food.”

“Chinese food?”

She hadn’t even noticed

he’d ordered it? That made him chuckle. One track mind. “I ordered it while you were cussing out Apple products.” He opened the door and paid for the food. Then he placed the bag on the coffee table and pulled out the boxes one at a time.

“I was hungry and your

fridge was empty.” A small lie but he wanted her to eat without feeling guilty. “I can’t eat all of this. Help me out.”

She looked over the options