Nerd Girl (4 page)

Checking him out made me self-conscious about my own appearance; part of me desperately wanted to run to the bathroom and make sure I didn’t have anything in my teeth. I was glad I was wearing my best jeans, dark denim that flattered both my hips and ass, topped with a simple white V-neck t-shirt. I shrugged. It certainly wasn’t my most alluring attire, but I hadn’t planned on impressing anyone today.

Just as I was wondering if I still had some lipstick on, he hung up his phone. He walked the few feet over to the empty seat next to me and paused. “Well, it looks like I’ve been stood up. The person I was supposed to meet is working late.” He didn’t look too disappointed.

I gave him a sympathizing look nonetheless. “Join the club.”

He chuckled and looked down towards my toes. With my legs crossed, I was unconsciously swinging by foot back and forth and I had accidentally just bumped his calf. “Fancy, that,” he said with a smile. “Another coincidence.”

“What’s the other coincidence?” I asked. I stopped kicking my leg. It was a nervous habit of mine.

He smirked. “Well, the fact that I bumped into you here, after nearly killing you with my car the other day seems to be a rather big coincidence, don’t you think?”

I nodded, embarrassed I didn’t clue into something so obvious, and returned his smile with my own. “Ah yes, of course, the accident.”

“So I never got your name that day …” he trailed off curiously.

“Sorry about that. I was in a bit of a hurry.” I extended my hand to him. “I’m Julia.”

He took my hand. “I’m Ryan. It’s nice to meet you again.” He grinned.

The contact of our hands sent a current through my body. His hand was soft and warm, his handshake firm. Our eyes locked for several moments longer than normal for a standard greeting. His grey-blue eyes pulled me in and wouldn’t let me go. I felt my pulse speed and my breath hitch. As the moment passed beyond what was considered appropriate, we both seemed to be recognizing that a unique connection was being made. I looked down at our clasped hands and, much to my disappointment, he suddenly released my hand. We gave each other flustered grins. The bartender had just walked up to us, interrupting my longest handshake on record. My face felt warm.

Behind the counter, the bartender looked pointedly at Ryan. “Can I get you a drink, sir?”

“Yes. I’ll have a gin and tonic,” he said. His voice cracked mid-way through his order and he had to clear his throat. Our moment of contact had affected him, too, it seemed. He kept his focus on the bartender. Nodding towards my glass of wine, he said, “Can you please put her wine on my tab?” He looked back at me contritely. “It’s the least I can do after I hit you with my car. I should thank you for not suing me.” He grinned and I noticed a flash of dimples.

“Well, I wouldn’t have sued you. MS has pretty good disability accidental death and dismemberment insurance,” I said with a facetious smile. “And even if I wanted to go after you, I didn’t have your name.” I shrugged and gave him an innocent smile. “Thank you for my drink.” I was mentally doing a little happy dance. Even though he knew both of our dinner plans had been cancelled, he had ordered a drink to continue talking to me.
Score! Thanks for bailing, sis.

He chuckled at my response. “You know, it really is a huge coincidence that you’re here tonight. I was in 36 earlier, and I swear that I saw you in the cafeteria. Were you there today?”

“Um, no that wasn’t me.” Though, a part of me was pleased to know that I had been on his mind. I wondered if he frequently visited 36. Out of the 100+ buildings that made up the MS campus, he just happened to be in the building that I would be moving to for my new position. If he had business meetings there regularly, the thought of bumping into him in the future was a welcome thought, if not a bit distracting.

“Ever since the accident, I’ve been thinking about you, just hoping and wondering if you were okay. I was worried about some post-accident trauma or injury of some sort. When I hit you, I thought I had heard a thump and a crash.”

“You mean, other than my head?” I deadpanned.

His face turned pale and horror-stricken.

“I’m joking!” I laughed. “I’m just playing with you again.” Apparently, he didn’t think my friendly teasing was so funny. “The sound you heard was probably just my laptop.”

“Oh shit, sorry.” His face was full of genuine remorse, his eyes delightfully crinkled around the edges.

“It’s not horrible. It’s still functional, though I did have to tape the battery pack in the back of the machine to keep it in place. You actually did me a favor. I really needed to get a new machine anyways.” I realized I was babbling like an idiot, but couldn’t seem to make myself stop. I did that when I got nervous. I talked. A lot. “My manager had told me that he didn’t have budget to get me a new machine until the end of the fiscal year, but now I have an excuse to get a new one right away. Though come to think of it, my current manager probably won’t get me one now, since I just told him I’m moving to a new job.”
Shut up already, Julia!

“God, I’m so sorry. I think I should be the one paying for you to get a new laptop,” he said with self-reproach.

He seemed really upset about all of this. I was starting to feel bad for giving him such a guilty conscience. “Would you please stop saying you’re sorry? Really, there was no harm done,” I said to reassure him one more time. “No skinned knees, nothing.” I almost leaned over to pat his thigh in comfort and stopped myself just in time. Why did I feel the need to console him so much? I remembered feeling this way just before I took off from the scene of the accident.

The bartender brought Ryan his gin and tonic and he took it distractedly, narrowing his eyes and studying my body, moving his eyes up and down. I started to feel more self-conscious under his gaze. I knew he was just looking at me to see if I had any visible bodily injuries, but I couldn’t help thinking that he was actually checking me out at the same time. I noticed his eyes stopped appreciatively in all the right places. He finally chuckled and gave in. “All right, I believe you,” he acquiesced with a satisfied smirk.

We both took another sip of our drinks. There was an awkward silence as I fingered the rim of my wine glass. I finally got up the courage to turn my head and peeked over at him. I sucked in my breath, finding him watching me intently.

Leaning in towards me so I could hear him over the building volume of the busy restaurant, he asked casually, “So, you must’ve gotten to the interview on time, right? Since you said you’re moving to a new job.”

“Yes, I did,” I said, feeling a little stunned that he recalled that detail. “I can’t believe you remembered.” I gave him a shy smile, flattered and a little embarrassed. “This was supposed to be my celebratory drink and dinner tonight, but as you can see, that didn’t quite turn out.”

“Well, congratulations then,” he said with calm enthusiasm and held up his glass to toast me. “Cheers! To Julia and her new job.”

I held up my glass and clinked his. I couldn’t help returning his smile. It felt great to have someone to celebrate this momentous occasion with, even if it was someone who was essentially a stranger; a hot stranger, at that.

Right on cue, the hostess approached me and politely interrupted. “Your table is ready.”

“Oh, um, actually, my friend cancelled on me. I’m not going to need the table anymore. You can give it to someone else,” I said regretfully.

Ryan interrupted our exchange. He nodded towards the hostess and asked, “Can you hold on a moment?” He then looked back at me with a curious smile. “It’s not even 6:30. You haven’t had dinner yet; I haven’t had dinner yet. We’ve both been stood up. You have a new job to celebrate. Since I hit you with my car and I totally owe you more than just this drink, what do you say we keep the table and have dinner together?”

Well, that was unexpected. I stared at him and blinked a few times, not knowing what to do. I raised one eyebrow and without much thought, I very tentatively nodded. What a surprise gesture.

He beamed, revealing his adorable dimples and straight white teeth. He was obviously pleased at the prospect of having dinner with me, a complete stranger, but how did I feel about having dinner with him? It was too late to back out now, when an attractive, sexy man just asked me to dinner.
Don’t overthink this, Julia.
Recognizing my good fortune, I shrugged. “Sounds great,” I said confidently, nodding and laughing quietly to myself

He looked back at the hostess to confirm what she had already overheard. “We’ll keep the table.”

I liked the sound of
we
. I liked his confidence more.

Ryan motioned his hand in front of him, allowing me to walk before him. We followed the hostess to a private corner table near the back of the restaurant. Ryan held out my chair like a gentleman and then sat himself on the booth side of the table against the wall.

Betty’s was one of my favorite restaurants. It was a great neighborhood bistro on top of Queen Anne hill, located in the shadow of the Space Needle. I loved the ambience; it was warm, inviting, and casual, but also elegant with a good wine selection. The room was dimly lit from candles glowing at each table. Sitting in the back corner with Ryan felt very private and intimate.

And as if Ryan could read my mind, he said, “I love this place. Have you been here before?”

“Yes, many times. I love it here. The food is always great, especially the shoestring fries,” I gushed.

He nodded in agreement. “Ah, yes! We should order the fries then.”

“My friends and I come here often. I live down in lower Queen Anne, off Taylor and Ward. What about you?”

“I live in Queen Anne, too. I’m on the west side, facing side of the hill on 9
th
Avenue.”

I did another little happy dance in my head, realizing we lived probably less than a mile from each other. Visions of carpooling together ran through my head. “Do you have a view, by chance?” I asked. It seemed like everyone had a view of the water from that side of the hill.

“Yeah, I do. It was one of the big selling points when I bought my house a few years ago.”

“That must be so great. I’m jealous. I just have a little two bedroom condo with a view of a parking lot. If you look really hard, just beyond it, I have a lovely view of Hwy 99 with Lake Union in the distance,” I said, feigning excitement and rolling my eyes.

He laughed. “Hey, a condo around here isn’t cheap, even one with a view of Hwy 99. You must be doing something right.”

I was pleasantly surprised by how he just turned my innocent comment into flattery.

“By the way, how old are you, anyways?”

“I’m twenty-nine. Why?”

“Just curious; you look younger than twenty-nine.”

People had always told me that, so I wasn’t too surprised or offended. “Fair game, then,” I warned. “How old are you?”

“I asked for that,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m an old man compared to you. I’m thirty-seven.”

“But you look good.” I made a show of looking him up and down. “No gray hair or anything,” I teased. My elbow was on the table and my fingers were resting on my chin. I contemplated his age. “I’ve never dated anyone more than a few years older than me. He looked really good for thirty-seven, very good. He gave middle age a whole new something to look forward to.”

He raised his eyebrows and blushed. “Thanks,” he said shyly.

Oh my God!
Did I say that out loud?
I instantly blushed and quickly covered my mouth with one of my hands. “Did I just say that?”

He rewarded my verbal misstep with a boyish grin. Those dimples were going to be the end of me. He was adorable. For an extremely handsome thirty-seven-year-old man, he was acting like bashful little boy. Maybe he wasn’t used to compliments. I would’ve thought he’d have women falling all over him.

That’s good, I supposed. Maybe he wasn’t a player then. I glanced down at his left hand and there was neither a ring nor any trace that anything had been there.
Interesting.
I always wondered why an attractive man in his late thirties or early forties was still unattached. In addition to his looks, he seemed charming and intelligent. He was gainfully employed, owned his own home, and by all appearances, was a normal, sane person. So why didn’t he have a girlfriend? Or a wife, for that matter? Maybe he was in between relationships like me … He wouldn’t have asked me to dinner if he had a girlfriend, right?

As I pondered these thoughts, our waitress arrived and asked if we were ready to order. Since we were both regulars here, neither of us needed to look at the menu; he ordered the rib eye steak with shoestring fries and I ordered the pan-roasted chicken.

After our waitress left, Ryan gave me a full smile. “So who were you supposed to meet here, before he or she bailed on you?”

“My sister, Anna. She’s getting married next month. She had some appointment come up at the last minute regarding her reception dinner menu.” My previous irritation with her had been replaced with gratitude. I’ll have to remember to thank her when I see her on Sunday.

“Are the two of you close?”

I nodded and decided to elaborate. “We’re twins, actually. Fraternal twins, so we look similar, but we’re not identical,” I added. People always needed to confirm the difference between fraternal versus identical. Adding this detail became habit over the years.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise or maybe curiosity. “What’s it like being a twin?”

This was a common question, whenever people learned I had shared a womb with my sister. I gave him my usual answer. “Well, we’re pretty different. She’s the pretty one, I’m the smart one. She’s the social butterfly, I’m reserved and quiet. She’s definitely more daring and spontaneous, whereas I’m more structured and conservative.”

He appeared to be studying me and didn’t respond right away. I could tell he was thinking through his response and it made me feel a little nervous and vulnerable to be under his thoughtful inspection. He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you say she’s the pretty one?”

Well,
that
certainly wasn’t the response I normally got. I stammered in my attempt to answer him. “Um, w-well, you know … she got all the boys growing up, and still does. Though, she’s getting married, so now she’s off the market.”