Double Digit (4 page)

“Is that going to be weird?”

“Why would it be?”

“I don’t know, just having him here, staying at the dorm when he’s like a ‘real guy’ with a ‘real job.’”

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“The air quotes. It drives me crazy. It’s like a conversation crutch where you want to use a word or a phrase but think it might be dopey so you put quotes around it to make it seem like those are someone else’s words so you’re not blamed for using them. He is a real guy with a real job. See what I mean?”

Ella laughed and proceeded to finish our entire conversation entirely in air quotes. “Okay, fine. I’m sure your ‘boyfriend’ will ‘blend in’ perfectly with the ‘scene’ here.”

W
HEN JOHN BUZZED UP TO MY
dorm after those endless two weeks, I was suddenly shy to see him. What if we had nothing to talk about? What if the attraction was gone because my tan had faded? I stomped around my room, hoping that the sound of my boots would calm me. When I opened the door and saw him standing there in khakis, a gray cashmere sweater, and the slightest five o’clock shadow, I got so nervous that I couldn’t stop talking. “Hey, come in. I mean, you can’t stand out there, right? Let me get the door. Is that your bag? I’ve never seen you with luggage. How was the train?”

“Digit? Seriously? It’s me.” He pulled me into his arms and kissed me. I closed my eyes, and we were back in California and everything made sense. And just like I remembered, the kiss made me a little dizzy.

“Right, sorry. I freaked out for a second. I’m okay now.” I rested my head on his chest and tried to gather my thoughts and steady my breath. It was so weird. I’d wanted him here so badly, but now that he was here, he just seemed so out of place. It’s like when you’re a little kid and you see your teacher at the supermarket. She’s the same person, but out of context you’re like:
Why don’t you have chalk in your hand?

“Hey, I’m nervous too.”

What was it about his also being nervous that made this so much better? I started to relax and kissed him again. “Okay, let’s just be nervous, then. Want a tour?”

He laughed as he let me go and started to look around my room. “Hang on, where is all the crazy? No bumper stickers?” I missed them too. There was no way to replicate the way I’d covered the walls of my room at home. Plus I promised my mom I’d make a little effort at dorm-room chic.

“It’d take me all year to cover these walls, and I’m trying to ease Tiki into the wackier side of Digit.”

He walked over to where Adam Ranks’s evergreen hung over Tiki’s bed. “He’s still missing, right? The story’s kind of dying in the news—have you noticed that?”

Huh.
“I haven’t read anything about him since I’ve been here. It’s like I forgot about the newspaper. This place is its own little world. Weird.”

“We’ll have to air you out a little. There’s an Italian restaurant in Boston I want to try. I have a cab waiting. And then we can do some college stuff.” He unzipped his bag and pretended to rifle around in it. “I know I put my toga in here somewhere . . .”

“Very funny. Let’s go.”

The first person we saw as we stepped into the hallway was Bass, wearing a black T-shirt that said
I HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE RACCOONS ARE MOCKING ME
and carrying a guitar case. “Hey, Digit.”

I froze. “Hey. We were . . . um, this is . . .”

John reached out a hand. “I’m John.”

“Bass. I’m the RA.” Suddenly everyone was relaxed but me.

“Yeah, he’s the RA.” I was trying to regain my composure. I mean, was I the first girl to ever walk out of a dorm room with a guy? I felt like
I
was standing there in a towel. “John’s my friend.”

They both looked at me like I’d said something as dumb as, well, what I’d just said. John said, “Yep, I’m off to get my buddy here some dinner.”

“Okay, you two have fun.” Amused eyes, little smile. “But come by the coffeehouse later—my band’s playing at ten. Tiki and your Three Stooges said they were coming.”

When he was out of earshot, I gave John a serious shove. “Stop making fun of me.”

“It’s just too easy.” He took my hand. “It’s okay to have a boyfriend. You’re all grown-up.” I felt twelve.

“I know. I just . . . I didn’t know if it was okay that you were staying here. And I didn’t want him to think we were . . . I mean, we are. But I . . .”

John was beyond amused.

About four minutes into the cab ride, everything felt normal again. We were laughing about the unidentifiable smell in my dorm, and John said he couldn’t wait to see the bathrooms. I started to tell him the story about meeting Bass half-naked but thought better of it. It’s not even really a story, just an embarrassing moment that I probably wouldn’t want to hear about if things were reversed.

At dinner he filled me in on everything at the FBI Terror Task Force. All the trainees were working long hours. He and his new friends Spencer and George were pretty much expected to be at the senior agents’ beck and call around the clock. The three of them had joined a gym and regularly snuck out of the office to work out during dead time. He ran through a long list of places he wanted to take me for spring break, if we could ever make it cool with my parents. There was a village near Nepal he wanted me to see and a hotel outside the Brazilian rain forest that was actually built in a tree. We shared a salad and pasta and osso buco (must remember to look up what animal that is). Delicious.

John showed me photos of his new West Village apartment on his phone. It had a beautiful balcony and a view of the pastry shop across the street. There were a few pictures of the inside, but they were mostly of the old sycamore trees that line the street, taken from the balcony. One was of a sycamore tree perfectly centered between the pastry shop’s two window boxes, orange pansies evenly distributed. These photos were edited just for me, and it occurred to me that there is nothing nicer than when someone has taken the time to know you.

“Send me that one, for my phone. It’s perfect.”

“Sure. It’s probably good to have backup in case your reliable oak tree photo doesn’t work. How is all that since you’ve been here?”

At first I thought he was teasing me. I mean, it’s not hard to mock a girl whose brain has an unreliable Off switch. But the look on his face was more serious, and I could tell he really wanted to know. Believe me when I tell you, there are not a lot of people I’d have this conversation with. Maybe three.

“It’s okay. I was a little overwhelmed when I first got here, so I felt a little on edge. A couple of times I thought I was going to slip into the overcomputing place. There was this towel with an irregular stripe, and Tiki tried to hang this poster that was . . . I don’t even want to talk about it. But since classes have started, I feel like my brain has so much data to process that it kind of naturally shuts off when I’m done. I haven’t had to pull out the oak tree photo to quiet my mind since I’ve been here. It’s kind of like when Danny was little and we had to let him run around for an hour before dinner so he could sit still and eat. I wonder if there’s really nothing wrong with me, but that my brain just needed more exercise.”

“There’s nothing at all wrong with you.”

“Thanks.” I fiddled with my napkin, completely nervous again. When I looked back up, John was staring at me.

“I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad there’s a place like this for you. Even if I miss you all the time. It’s just right that you’re here. You need it.”

“Yep, the hamster needs her wheel.” I’m embarrassed to report that he kissed me right there in the restaurant and that we sat so close to each other in the booth that we could have fit eight other people around us. It was a perfectly romantic date for two perfectly normal people. That was all I wanted.

The pit in my stomach returned as soon as the cab brought us back to campus. “So, really? Are you really ready to do this?”

“C’mon, Digit, I want to meet Tiki and the hackers and see you in your new natural habitat.” He was totally relaxed and thought this was hysterical.

“Fine. Bass’s band is playing at the coffeehouse; Tiki and those guys are definitely there. We’ll go for an hour.” I moved like I was taking the recycling out, in a hurry to get a necessary but annoying task out of the way. “C’mon.”

When we walked into the coffeehouse, the band was so loud that I immediately stopped worrying that my friends and John would have nothing to talk about. They were a cover band with two guys on guitar, a keyboardist, and a drummer. Seeing Bass like that, totally in his element, I couldn’t remember what he was like without a guitar in his hands.

Clarke, Ella, and Scott were crowded around a small cocktail table by the stage, alternately arguing about something and bobbing their heads to the music. The whole scene was like a silent movie, with arms waving and mouths moving but no words at all. Just really loud background music.

Tiki and Howard were at the bar. John and Tiki exchanged waves and
hello
s. John and Howard shook hands. John had his arm around me and seemed to be taking it all in like an anthropologist. I was just starting to relax when the band quit for a break. Silence.

“So, hey, you’re the older spy guy I keep getting compared to.” That was typical Howard, a little humorous and a little hostile.

“Yes. That’s me. How are you measuring up?”

“Pretty good, not bad.” Howard gave Tiki a little smirk. Ick.

Tiki likes to cut to the chase. “So is it weird to be back at college? Is this what Princeton was like? I mean, you should still be at college—you’re only twenty-one, right? Do you feel like you missed out by finishing school so fast?”

“I don’t even know what I missed out on. That’s why I’m going to make Digit take me to every party on campus.” He squeezed my hand.

“Oh my God, Digit. I love him.” She wasn’t even trying to direct this just at me. “He’s handsome and sweet and in law enforcement. Hot!”

Howard was fidgety, like his skin was one size too small. “Wish your hero had been around two weeks ago for the big break-in.”

John was looking directly at me when that comment registered. His face fell. “What break-in? Where?”

“Oh, has your girl been keeping things from you? It was big news during the first week of school.”
Shut up, Howard.

“What was? What happened?”

I started pinning my hair behind my ears, as if the mere fact of getting it to stay there was going to make this lie of omission okay. “Yeah. Didn’t I tell you about that? There was a break-in at one of the dorms during the day. Campus security was called and the guys sped off.”

“Which dorm?” He was talking only to me now.

Howard must have sensed I was in trouble and was going to keep twisting the knife.

“
One
of the dorms, Digit? It was
their
dorm,
their
hall. No one knew what he wanted—it’s not like people keep lots of valuables around here. But he broke the lock to their room and took nothing, not even their laptops.”

“Did you get a description? Why didn’t you tell me? Where were you?”

“No. Because I knew you’d freak out. At an orientation breakfast.”

John just shook his head. I couldn’t tell if he was scared or pissed or both. He leaned in toward me and I was hoping for a kiss, but I got “We have to leave now.” It was the exact same robot voice he’d used when he was about to save my life by throwing me out of a cab.

“Sure. Okay. Guys, we’re gonna go. We’ll just . . . we’ll see you tomorrow.”

We walked in silence back to my dorm. John was holding my hand but not like a boyfriend holds your hand, more like how your mom holds your hand to keep you from running out into traffic.

When we got to my room, he closed the door and locked it. He checked the locks on my windows. “What else haven’t you told me?” His eyes were more hurt than angry.

I sat down on my bed and took a deep breath. “I didn’t think it was important?”

“You didn’t? Six months ago a huge terror organization was trying to kill you. And almost did. And you don’t think it’s worth mentioning a breaking-and-entering incident at your dorm? In your room?”

“I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Upset me? What about when they got you? Was I going to be upset then? What was I going to do then, Digit?”

He sat down next to me and put his head in his hands. He kept talking without looking at me. “This isn’t a game. You were in real danger; we both were. And sure, I was falling for you, but more than that I was just doing my job, relying on my training. That’s the only reason we survived. And now when I think about you, with a gun to your head, I just freeze. I’m so far away now, and I’m getting so paranoid that even if I were here, I don’t know if I’d be clearheaded enough to protect you again.”

I tried to think of something to say to make him feel safer. Which is funny because I was the one theoretically in danger. I had nothing.

He got really quiet and lay down on my extra-long, extra-narrow dorm bed.

“Um, can I . . . ?”

John scooted over and opened his arms to me. I lay down and had to shift around a bit to fit against him. His heart was beating faster than usual, and his jaw felt tense against the top of my head. Feeling his stress, I realized how much I’d been in denial about everything that had happened. And, ahem, this wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined our romantic reunion night.

“I’m sorry. I just try not to think about all that stuff. It’s just easier to move on.” I turned onto my stomach so he’d have to look at me. “And, yeah, I was kind of freaked out about the break-in, but I guess I didn’t want to go there. You know it’s kind of like a pimple. If you keep messing with it and focusing on it and glopping all that goop on it, it seems to last forever and take over your life. But if you ignore it, it usually goes away on its own.”

John let out an annoyed breath.

“What?”

“Nothing. Well, that’s just a little childish. Ignoring your problems doesn’t make them go away.”
Oh, yes, he did.

The word
childish
echoed in my ears. I’ll admit now that maybe bringing up pimples in this situation wasn’t the quickest path to getting the romance back on track. I’ll have to check with
Cosmo
on that one. But
childish?
Really?