Nerd Girl (19 page)

“I just feel weird about sneaking around at the office,” I said with concern. “I feel like we’re doing something wrong.”

“Like you said, if you both just keep it to yourselves, no one else needs to know your business.”

“Yeah, but I think if people were ever to find out, one of us would have to leave or quit our job. Most likely me, since I’m more replaceable than him. I think it would be way too weird otherwise; people might think I have an unfair advantage.”

“You always worry about the rules, Julia. Screw the rules for once. He’s obviously into you and I know you’re into him, so what’s the big deal? If things go well, then changing jobs will seem like a minor sacrifice. If things go badly, no one will know, so it’s a moot point.”

I sighed. She was right. I was making it way more complicated than it needed to be. But according to Ryan, all great love stories were complicated, so maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. Oh man, I was
way
overthinking this.

“We’re going to have to limit our public outings, I think,” I muttered, distracted now by the thought of dating incognito.

“You looked really great last night, by the way. Was the pink dress new? I noticed he couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. You guys look super cute together.” She was apparently done with interoffice dating topic.

Anna stood in front of the three-sided mirror to view herself in full regalia. Her dress was ivory, simple, and strapless. It had a fitted bodice in crinkled silk chiffon with a full ballroom skirt in French tulle and a waist sash. I placed the veil on top of her head and stepped back.

She looked breathtaking. We were both silent, taking it all in.

I started tearing up. I clasped my hands together below my chin and started legit crying. “Oh, you just look so beautiful, Anna,” I gushed. “Ethan is going to lose it when he sees you. He’s the luckiest man in the world.”

Anna gazed at herself in amazement, as if she couldn’t believe that was really her standing in front of the mirror. I tried on my maid of honor dress next and Anna stayed in hers. I couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t even my dress, but it was hard to think of taking it off and putting it in a garment bag for two more weeks. My dress was made of pale pink silk taffeta cut in sleeveless, streamlined silhouette with a cinched waist. It was very pretty as far as bridesmaid dresses go—I could re-wear this to a nice cocktail party someday.

“So did anything happen after you guys left last night?” Anna asked.

“Well, you mean, did he kiss me or stay over?” I had a huge grin on my face.

“Julia Hayes! I’ve been with you for an hour already and you haven’t said anything to me about this yet? Spill the beans, girl!”

“Yes, we kissed.” I giggled. “But nothing more.”

“And … How was it? Is he a good kisser?”

“Oh my God! Good is an understatement.” I closed my eyes to remember the moment. “I felt that kiss …
everywhere
.” I emphasized each syllable of my last word.

“Ooh la la. Yay, Jules!” She jumped up and down, in baby jumps of course, as she was still in her gown. She was clapping her hands like an excited schoolgirl.

“Anna, I think I really like him,” I said with a concerned look on my face. “When I’m with him, the rest of the world doesn’t seem to exist. It’s like, literally, from the first moment I met him, there’s been this electrical current drawing us closer together.”

“And that’s bad because?”

“I just can’t help thinking that he’s holding something back. He didn’t want to come in last night. He said he wanted to take things slow.”

“What’s wrong with that? Maybe he was being a gentleman. You said he was recently taking a break from someone. I don’t blame him, but that doesn’t mean anything’s wrong,” she reassured me.

“Yeah, I guess so. You’re probably right.” I picked at some imaginary lint on my dress. “I think maybe this is too good to be true and I don’t trust it yet. You know me; I’m not one to be lucky in love,” I said sadly.

I couldn’t get the feeling out of my mind that there was something more to it. I feel like there was a reason why he didn’t ask for my contact information that night at Betty’s. I held back that same night because I just wasn’t ready. I wondered how recent this “break” was from his ex-girlfriend. Maybe he was having second thoughts and wasn’t quite ready to get back into another relationship. Or maybe I was a rebound. Or worse yet, maybe he’s still in love with his ex-girlfriend. No, I knew that wasn’t the case. The way he described their relationship, it sounded so passionless, so convenient. It’s possible that maybe he was underplaying his emotions for my benefit. And if he was, could I handle being disappointed again? Would he have the ability to hurt me right now after spending only one day together? It certainly didn’t feel like one day.

“So, are you going to see him again soon? Did you guys make any other plans?” Anna interrupted my thoughts.

“No, we haven’t. I guess I assumed we would. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“That dress looks great on you, by the way.”

We stood next to each other, looking at ourselves in front of the mirror. We both smiled at our images and then hugged.

“Julia,” Anna said wistfully. “It’s going to be you standing here someday, with
your
wedding dress on. Maybe it will even be with Ryan.”

I gave her that look again like she was nuts and heard my phone chime an incoming text. “Speak of the devil,” I said, but couldn’t hide my excitement. I showed Anna my phone so she could see it was from Ryan.

Ryan:
Had a great time with you yesterday

“He’s totally thinking of you!” Anna squealed and we both did a little happy dance.

Me:
Me too

Ryan:
How are the dress fittings going?

I took a picture of us in the mirror and sent it to him.

Ryan:
Beautiful

Ryan:
And the bride isn’t bad either ;-)

Anna giggled like she couldn’t be more pleased. “You should ask him to be your date at the wedding, Julia.”

“Oh, God, this again?” I exaggerated a pained expression. “Do you really think so?”

“Why not?
Carpe diem
!”

Yeah, she was right. Why the hell not?

Me:
Would you like to be my date for the wedding?

There was a long pause. Uh oh.

Ryan:
Can I get back to you on that?

Me:
Sure

Anna’s brow furrowed. “Well, he didn’t say no.”

“Great. Now I’ve put him in an awkward spot. It’s probably way too soon for this sort of invitation. He doesn’t want to meet the whole family already, for Christ’s sake. I should’ve thought of all that first.” I hit the phone to my forehead a few times.

There was another chime from my phone.

Ryan:
Are you doing anything tomorrow night after work?

Okay, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Me:
I was planning to go for a run

Ryan:
Can I join you?

Me:
Sure

Ryan:
Where do you run?

Me:
Greenlake tomorrow

Ryan:
What time
?

Me:
6:30? Meet me at crew house on south end

Ryan:
perfect

Me:
C u there

Ryan:
Have a good day at work tomorrow

Me:
You too

My second week on the job meant that I was drinking out of the fire hose full blast. I had several meetings laid out for the week where I planned to introduce myself to various people that Catherine said should be on my “meet and greet” list. This included Kyle, among several others, who would be able to educate me on all things Portals 8 launch related. If I wasn’t in a meeting or scheduling one, I spent the rest of my time drowning in the endless pit of documentation called SharePoint.

I couldn’t help thinking about Ryan; I was beyond eager to see him tonight. I even closed my door, put in headphones, and snuck a peek at one of the YouTube videos I came across when I had searched for him the other night.

I recalled the conversation my teammates and I had just last week about Ryan. Of course, I didn’t know then that they were talking about my Ryan.
My Ryan
. I liked the sound of that. It made me a little paranoid and jealous that there were probably many other women who had similar discussions about him. I mean, how many eligible men like him really existed here at MS? If women knew he was available, I bet there would be a line waiting outside his office. Then again, even if he wasn’t available, there would still probably be a line out the door.

Interoffice dating was a regular occurrence at MS, as it probably was in all companies, but I wasn’t sure how many of them involved a senior executive and an employee lower in the corporate hierarchy. I recalled past rumors about a few different executives who were supposedly diddling one of their employees. For each of these rumors, the man was always an up-and-coming executive in his late thirties or early forties, attractive, and charismatic. The female employee was always a younger, attractive Ivy League grad that was several levels lower than him and who was just starting her post-graduate career. Late afternoon meetings soon turned into closed door meetings, with the need to
stay late at the office
. A few months later, it was usually the post-grad that ended up moving jobs into another group. Other women in the org would whisper how she slept her way to the top and she was an idiot for letting the senior male take advantage of her. I was guilty of participating in some of those discussions. Not too long after, rumors would circulate about the GM getting a divorce. I wondered if HR had a scorecard that tracked all of this somewhere. Maybe senior executives cheating on their wives just went with the territory.

Maybe there was even a recent sexy Harvard graduate that already had her sights on Ryan. I wondered if Ryan had any idea how he was perceived by the female population around him. Judging by his awareness of his presence on the internet, he probably had no clue. I couldn’t help feeling a little smug, though. The hottest, most eligible MS executive bachelor was interested in me, at least as far as I could tell. But, if things didn’t work out between us, would I end up being another unofficial scorecard metric? Granted, he wasn’t a married man having an affair, but he
was
a powerful executive. If the rumor got out, it could jeopardize my career and possibly his as well. I could end up being one of those embarrassing rumors.

I convinced myself that it was different between us. He wasn’t taking advantage of me, nor was I in his reporting chain of command. But would the MS jury of public opinion think so, too? Could we even keep it a secret? I supposed I could live with limiting public outings and making sure there were no joint appearances around the office. I knew we weren’t at the point in our relationship where we needed to talk about any of this stuff in any level of detail, but I couldn’t help anticipating that these questions would soon need to be answered.

At 5:45, I decided to head out. As I drove away from campus, my thoughts wandered from potential career-limiting moves to Anna’s wedding. I wondered when or if Ryan would ever get back to me about it. I never should’ve asked him. Now it’s become this
thing
that’s out there and I can’t take it back. It was like asking someone to the prom and getting a
maybe
as your answer. The only reasonable conclusion for the
maybe
was because the person didn’t want to either reject you outright or they were waiting for someone else to ask them.

I let out a big sigh. I was so glad I was going for a run tonight. My brain was too full of information from the documentation overload and then thinking about the implications of getting involved with Ryan—all of it made my head spin. Not to mention I was wound up with nervous excitement at the idea of seeing him again. I needed an outlet for all my pent up energy.

I saw him as I walked to the crew house from the parking lot and watched him in the short moment I had before I knew he would notice me. He was wearing an old, gray Stanford t-shirt and black shorts. Even though his shirt was somewhat loose, I could still see how it molded to what appeared to be well-defined pecs and a lean torso and waist. The muscles on his legs were long and sinewy. It was clear he worked out; he had the body of an athlete.

I was wearing a relatively tight-fitting white tank top and black shorts with a white stripe on the side. I took extra care in making sure I picked out the appropriate running attire that said I was a serious runner, but I could look cute too. For the most part, I liked my body and took efforts to keep myself healthy and fit. I wore a C–cup and had moderate curves, but unfortunately I had little ass to speak of. I kept hoping running would bulk it up … alas …

Ryan turned and saw me as I crossed the street. He greeted me with a gorgeous double-dimpled smile and I melted at the sight of him. I walked up to him and we embraced, but he pulled away from me relatively quickly. After the hot and heavy kiss we shared less than two days ago, I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.