Geek God (Forever Geek Trilogy #1) (3 page)

So here’s what I know about him based on those texts. He only drinks tea, not coffee. And he only drinks Red Rose, not Tetley. Something about toxins or something. The church only stocks Tetley tea bags, so he was forced to suffer. His mother’s rosary beads click louder than his Aunt Lorraine’s. Apparently, he and his brothers made a game out of it. His ex-girlfriend’s husband is his first cousin and is terrible at cribbage. If a nun catches you playing cribbage in church, she will take your cards and your crib board and stare at you as if you’re the Devil for the rest of the night. His brothers (he’s the seventh son of a seventh son, and I think that’s supposed to mean something to me) teased him all night about our texting. He has no problem taking a picture of a body in a casket and sending it to a woman who admitted she’s never seen a corpse before, and then telling her ghost stories until four in the morning.

I am going to marry Evan Sharp. I’m just putting it out there so that should it ever happen, you can tell people, she said it would happen. Here are some other text gems from him.

-You shouldn’t answer my texts. You’re just encouraging me.-

What, you ask, was I encouraging?

-That’s more than I’m going to say in a text.-

Argh. Men. Anyway, other text gems.

-Eddie has a picture of you on his phone. I’d watch out for him, by the way. He showed it to my brother Andrew. He said you reminded him of Anne Hathaway. I think you’re more like Zooey Deschanel.-

Either is good, right? I’m cool with either of those. But I happen to know that he thinks Zooey is a geek’s wet dream. His words. Not mine.

And then there was this one that just came in on my phone, maybe thirty seconds ago.

-Hope you slept well. Thanks for keeping me company last night. Miss your voice.-

What? He misses my voice? Why is he more flirtatious via text than in person? Gah. This man is screwing with my head.

Still, I should text him back.

-Thanks for my first sleep-deprived teaching session of my career. You’re the first man to wear me out from texting.-

You know what I hate? That I’m now sitting here waiting for the ping of the phone. When I know full well that if he moves an inch in one direction or another, he could lose what tenuous connection he has with the modern world.

Ping!

-Heh.-

What? Is that it?

Ping!

-Glad to know I was your first.-

I’m blushing over a totally innocent text. God, when is he coming back to town?

F
our hundred and thirty-six text messages. That’s the total messages sent between us this week. Not even a week. Since Monday. It was a week ago today I first spotted Evan on campus, and tonight he’s coming over for supper to explain the various quotes he sent me. Is it terrible I’m thinking more about which option will keep him around the house than I am about cost or efficiency?

I’ve also talked to him for a total of eighty-eight minutes. Cell phones are awesome tools for those of us obsessed with quantifiable data.

Supper is a meal fit for a man who has spent most of the week eating turkey, ham, roast, and potatoes (in all their forms: baked, boiled, scalloped, mashed, deep fried and salad). Any moment now, Evan will show up bearing a Chinese feast for two. I haven’t changed out of my teaching tweeds because I think he might have a little hot for teacher thing going on. Although I’ve made some minor adjustments.

My blouse is unbuttoned a little more than usual, and I’m wearing my big boob bra, which normally only gets pulled out for low cut dresses. I also tend to wear short heels, or flats. Right now I’m wearing the only pair of stilettos I own. I’ve also changed into stockings with a noticeable seam up the back, trailing up to the ruffle of my pencil skirt. It’s about as sexy as tweed can get.

This is the test, my friends. It’s one thing to flirt with me for days on the phone. As my friend Nick said to me the one time he’d seen me wearing this outfit (minus the breast enhancing bra and slutty nylons), “Christ, Jill. If I’d had profs who looked like you, I wouldn’t have dropped out of MUN.” (Don’t feel bad for him. He studied real estate and now makes a fortune selling up-modelled old St. John’s houses to people like me.)

I have to confess, I’ve also done my best to get a Zooey Deschanel hairstyle on the go. Yes. I am pulling out all the stops. When Evan leaves here tonight, I am going to know one way or the other if this is platonic flirting, or substantive flirting.

“Careful, something’s leaking,” he says as I take a bag from him when I answer the door. “Smells like almond guy ding.”

I wait a second until he’s in the hallway and I figure I have his full attention before slowly walking down the hall. The click of my shoes down the hardwood sounds ridiculous to me. What am I doing?

Before I disappear into the kitchen, I take a quick look behind me. He’s still standing in the doorway. I know he’s watching.

“Are you coming?”

I know! I know. Over the top, maybe. I sound stupid to my own ears. But there’s a new look on his face. One I haven’t seen yet. Fierce and masculine. This man might think he’s a geek, but he’s alone in that assessment.

In my mind, he enters the kitchen, slides his arms around me, and says, “Enough of this playing around. Supper can wait.” The reality is, he walks in, sets a bag on the table and pulls out a wrapped gift.

“I got a surprise for you.”

This version works too. Until he holds it out of my reach. “After supper. I’m starving.”

No point begging. I have bigger plans. “You unpack the food. I’ll grab the plates.”

This skirt has a secret. If I stretch real high, it lifts a little. Which is why I’m getting the fancy plates that hang out on the top shelf. I just hope he’s looking and not already face and eyes into the pork low mein.

“Let me get that,” he says before I get a chance to work it.

I’d be upset except I think he just tried to look down my shirt while I moved out of the way.

Supper is a pretty tame affair. Mainly talking about what he proposes to do to the house. It sounds like a lot of work. Taking off the clapboard, putting on a new layer of insulation, and replacing the oil furnace with a heat pump. And that’s just the first option. There are so many extras. He can build me a solar heating unit out of soft drink cans, even replace my single pane glass windows with double or triple panes without destroying my wooden windows. Hell, he can line my roof with solar panels and cut my electrical bill. I want him to do it all. Preferably with little clothing on. I think construction work and nakedness might be a safety hazard. But I also have to pay attention to money. Damn money.

Part of making a point about following your heart in career choices to your financially settled and money-obsessed parents is maintaining a willingness to live a lifestyle different from how you grew up.

“Can we start with the first option and then see how it goes? I’d love to do all the other things, but I’m not sure if I can afford it all right now.”

“Sure we can. And if you start saving all your cans instead of recycling them, it won’t cost much for the can solar set-up. I’ll ask the guys tonight to start saving some for you.”

“Oh. What’s up tonight?” Please let that have sounded casual. Just because my head is screaming: What? You’re not staying?

“Dungeons & Dragons.”

You know when your face reacts before you have a chance to get your shit together? That’s what’s happening right now. I think my eyes might have even bulged. I want to sound cool, but I can’t help myself.

“Adults play D&D?”

“Plenty of us do. What do you think happens to the kids who played it in their parents’ basements when they grow up?”

“They grow up?” My cousin played that game when he was a teenager. He and a group of his nerdy friends all hanging around a table rolling dice and talking about orcs and not letting girls play. Nerds. Geeks. Whatever. I wondered now if he still played.

“And how is it any different than still playing video games?”

“It’s totally different.”

“It’s not. It’s way more social than hanging out home alone with just a TV and console. I’m hanging out with people, talking, eating, drinking and having fun.”

What’s curious in this discussion is that he’s not getting angry or embarrassed. He seems to have no problem with admitting that he does this.

“How does it work?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your game. How does it work?”

I don’t know if I’m asking because I want to know, or if I’m just trying to keep him here a bit longer. One thing is certain. It’s clear that he’s not interested in me that way. If going and playing a geek game with his geek friends seems better than hanging out with a woman who’d done her damnedest to look as sexy as she can, then I’ve already lost this battle.

He might look like God’s gift to women, but clearly there’s a very good reason why he’s single.

What if he’s gay? Maybe Dungeons & Dragons is code for an all-male orgy.

I don’t think so, though, because he’s talking about characters and dice and encounters, and I’m not even following half of it.

“You could come watch us play sometime, if you like. Maybe I could get our DM to make up an NPC for you to play.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about. And I’m not sure I want to.

Shaking my head, I politely bow out.

“Do you have to leave right away?”

He looks at the clock on my stove. It’s just after eight.

“Shortly. We don’t start till nine. We play at my friend Sam’s. His wife just had twins so he’s basically housebound in the evening. So we wait till the babies are in bed and then play.”

“And his wife doesn’t mind?”

“Mind? She’s our DM.”

The look I give him must show my confusion.

“Dungeon Master. That’s the person who runs the game. She’s basically the controller of our universe.”

“How can she do that with twins?”

“She’s done this so long, she could do it with her eyes closed. Hey, you might know her. She works at the university library. Does something with archives.”

The pieces are falling together. Archivist. Twins. And what he’s leaving out is tall, blonde and gorgeous.

“Melanie Fitzgerald plays this?”

“Ooops. Have I let her secret out? Maybe she keeps it hidden, the same way you don’t tell your friends about your video games. You women and your secrets. Guys don’t hide their hobbies. I couldn’t care less who knows what games I play. Or shows I watch.”

“Yea, well, when you look like you do, you can get away with it. No one would think you were a geek, and if anything, you just make nerd pursuits look cool.”

Dear mouth. Please stop speaking before the brain has given you clearance to communicate.

“I’m flattered. You wouldn’t say that if you saw my high school pictures. Unlike yours, I’m certain.”

“That depends on the grade. I did have a very brief goth flirtation.”

“Goth can be hot.”

Sweet Caesar. I’m getting hot, that’s for sure.

“I’d like to see those pictures.”

“I think my mother burned them. Or maybe had them Photoshopped.”

He’s handing me the present he brought. “Doesn’t matter, really. Seeing you in person is better than any picture.”

My breath catches in my throat. He’s so close right now, his hand holding the gift out to me.

Now that I see it up close, I realize what I thought was brightly coloured gift wrap is actually a silk scarf. It’s a beautiful blend of ivory, yellow, pink and red.

“This is beautiful,” I say as I slowly untie it. The gift is a board game. Ticket to Ride. A game I’d talked about wanting to play during one of our texts. I’d confessed to playing the iPad version and he’d convinced me the real game was better.

“I bought the scarf new, because the game is used. So many of my friends have it that I won’t miss my own copy.”

It looks pristine. Is this guy for real? Sure, the mixed signals are a bit hard to deal with, but he certainly knows how to impress.

“Thanks a lot. Maybe we can play it sometime.”

“Tomorrow? I’d blow off the game tonight but we’re in the middle of a huge battle and I don’t want to let the party down.”

Ugh. How can I get upset at a guy who respects his friends? Unlike me, because I’m already mentally thinking up a good reason to cancel my normal Friday evening supper and drinks with Ingrid. Instead, a bit of good friendship slips in.

“Can I text you later? I normally have a Friday supper thing. But I’ll see.”

“No, don’t cancel your plans. Besides, if you get home later and I’m around, I can come over.”

Booty call? Or game call? Ugh. This man.

“You need some help cleaning up before I go?”

“Ha. As if. There’s still plenty of food left over. I’m going to have seconds in about twenty minutes. Unless you want to take some with you?” Normally, I try hiding my voracious appetite but I don’t think he’s likely to judge.

“No, you enjoy it. Game nights are always a junk fest, so I’ll be good.”

He tilts his head towards the hall.

“I gotta go.”

I’m not gonna lie. I’m disappointed. I want him to stay. There’s something about him that I like. Maybe it’s the easy way I can talk to him. Or perhaps it’s because I’m trying to figure out what this thing is between us. Either way, I don’t want to be alone. Still, I walk him to the door.

“What time do you normally stop playing?”

“Late. At least midnight.”

Our eyes meet.

“I might still be awake then.”

That’s code for you can come over if you like.

“I’ll text when I’m done to see if that’s true.”

Is that code for anything?

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems as if my hallway has gotten much narrower. He seems to fill the space. I step a little closer. The internationally recognized invitation to kiss. Message received, it seems.

Okay. So it’s not a grab me in his arms, sweep me off my feet kind of kiss. Instead, it’s a peck on the forehead. And a whispered, “Talk to you soon.”

And he’s gone.

He’s gone and I’m still confused. What does a forehead kiss mean? Friends kiss on the cheek. Lovers kiss on the mouth. What the hell does a forehead kiss mean?