Nerds Are Freaks Too (8 page)

Only to come skidding to a stop. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s
uncle.”

Normally she would have shaken her head and hollered “get a
room” to the young couple trying to suck each other’s lips off. But this time,
all she could do was stagger over to the nearest building to catch her
bearings.

Standing on tiptoe, her arms wrapped around his neck, Vicky
kissed the living daylights out of Leo. And he looked like he was enjoying it.
So much so, he needed to keep himself upright by holding onto the door of the
yellow taxi idling next to them.

Roxanne’s heart sank.
I guess one woman is as good as
another.

Turning away swiftly, she latched onto a suitable backup
plan. She pulled out her cell phone and in quick order, sent Constantine a
text.

She knew she was taking the low road, but she figured she
deserved some kind of solace. If she found it in the arms of another man, so
what? Didn’t her grandmother always tell her a woman should have a spare?

Roxanne walked quickly back toward the train stop. Her tummy
rumbled loudly. She’d never been able to handle a broken heart on an empty
stomach.

She glanced down at her watch. If she hustled, she could
make the next train and catch Gino’s before they closed the kitchen down for
the night. Grease and tomato sauce could heal any broken heart. With only five
minutes before the train arrived, Roxanne picked up her pace. As she ascended
the stairs at the train stop, her purse vibrated.

Constantine
: What’s up, Hot Rox? Curiosity finally
killed the cat?

Despite feeling swamped with regret over Leo, she smiled at
Constantine’s use of the pet name. He’d started using it right after they’d had
online sex. She punched in a reply with trembling fingers.

Roxanne
: I really like you and I want to take the
next step—and that’s hard to do if our attraction to one another can’t stand
the light of day.

Constantine
: I don’t have any doubts, but since I
know
you
do, we could meet someplace public. How about dinner? Are you
free tomorrow night?

Roxanne sagged in relief. Considering her luck this evening,
she’d almost expected him to blow her off.

Roxanne
: Sounds good to me. Can you meet me at
Riodan’s on N. Dearborn?

Constantine
: Isn’t Riodan’s a bar? Wouldn’t you like
our first date to be someplace more romantic?

Roxanne
: Any suggestions?

Constantine
: The Geneva in the Dorset Hotel.

Roxanne’s eyes widened. Ever since she’d relocated to
Chicago to attend Northwestern University, she’d fantasized about eating at The
Geneva, one of the finest restaurants in the city. Given five forks by the
Chicago
Daily Times
, The Geneva was inaccessible to the average Joe. You needed to
save up several weeks’ salary to afford one of the restaurant’s a la carte
dinners.

Leo had offered to take her, but she’d turned him down.
She’d wanted her first time dining at The Geneva to be with a lover or
significant other. And now it would be.

Roxanne
: The Geneva sounds great! See you there
tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.?

Constantine
: Already counting the minutes.

So was she. She was also ready to lay to rest her incessant
thoughts of Leo—once and for all.

Chapter Five

“Hey, cool breeze. How did things go the other night?”

Leo had too much respect to laugh in Salvatore’s face. The
old guy tried his best to be hip. Unfortunately, he was still forty years
behind the times. Leo slowed his jumping to measured hops to lessen the loud
thwacking of the corded jump rope before he spoke. “Everything went like
clockwork.”

A slow grin lifted the corners of Salvatore’s thin lips. “I
told you I knew women. So, when’s the engagement?”

“No engagement and no wedding. She only wants to be
friends.”

Still smarting from Roxanne’s rejection, and more than a
little confused after their run-in at the sex store, Leo looked away from
Salvatore’s slack-jawed surprise. “What do you mean she only wants to be
friends? You just said everything went like clockwork.”

Suddenly losing his appetite for a good, punishing workout,
Leo stopped jumping completely. “She was like putty in my hands.”
Literally
,
Leo mused remembering her body moving over him as he spanked her. “But she
stopped me before we could do anything else. Instead of admitting she wanted
me, she pulled the friendship card and decided to find someone more compatible
online.”

Salvatore looked as if he was about to croak. “Online? Like
from Amazon?”

Leo started looping the rope around his hand. “No. She
signed up on a matchmaking service.” Not really the truth, but a man of
Salvatore’s age couldn’t handle the truth.

Salvatore scratched the back of his head, pushing his wool
paperboy hat forward over his brow. “I know this is none of my business, but
doesn’t that seem a little whacked?”

Leo grinned. “Not really. I know dozens of people who’ve
found love online. And some of them ended up happily married.”

Salvatore looked dubious. “Any of them
still
married?”

“Every single one.”

“I don’t know your Roxanne as well as you, but something
about a computer matching her up with a total stranger doesn’t sit well with an
old-fashioned codger like me.”

“Didn’t you tell me your great aunt fixed you up with Pier?”

Salvatore’s face softened. Pier Cipriani had been the love
of his life. The pair had been married for more than forty years before she
passed away three years ago. “Ah yeah, but that’s different.”

Leo walked over to the nearest wall and hung the rope on a
hook. “If I remember correctly, the two of you exchanged letters for six
months, sight unseen. And five days after she stepped off the train from New
York, you were married.”

Salvatore nodded absently, his thoughts most likely
somewhere in the past. Leo envied him. Salvatore Cipriani had married his best
friend.

“I still don’t trust what you young people call technology,”
Salvatore said, sitting down on a nearby bench. “She could meet some stalker,
or even worse, a murderer. Aren’t you the least bit concerned she’s meeting
other men? Ones she can’t even pick out of a police lineup?”

Leo sat down next to Salvatore and placed his hand over the
old man’s in an attempt to comfort him. Leo loved him as much as his own
father.

“You kids and your silly pride,” Salvatore grunted. “Don’t
come crying to me when you end up the best man at her wedding.”

“It might be too late. I think she’s already met someone.”

Salvatore balled his fingers and began to swear in Italian.
By the time he was done, his cheeks were flushed from exasperation. “I know
there’s no talking you into something, but for my peace of mind, if you’re not
going to pursue her, make sure she meets this guy as soon as possible. All this
man-of-mystery stuff is crazy and better left for the movies or some soap
opera.”

“How can I warn her when she won’t even answer my calls?” Leo
palmed the back of his neck. “I don’t want to see her with anyone else…I’m in
love with her.”

“How about you tell her what you just told me?”

“Tell her what?”

“That you love her. It’s different than just telling her you
want to be her
lover
. And the sooner the better. I want grandchildren I
can stuff with baklava and take to the zoo.”

“You already have sixteen grandchildren, and one on the
way.” Salvatore started chuckling. Soon they were both laughing together. “Do
you even know how to make Baklava?” Leo asked.

“No.” Salvatore coughed a little as he chuckled. “But for
you, the Greek son I never had, I’ll learn.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Salvatore pushed himself up from the bench. “And I’ll hold
you to squaring things with your Roxanne. If you don’t, there won’t be a need
to learn how to make baklava.”

* * * * *

Twenty-four hours came sooner than Roxanne had hoped. She
was a bundle of nerves as she ran the brush through her hair for the hundredth
time, more from sheer anxiety than actual vanity. Her dark hair floated around
her shoulders thanks to an insanely hot Dominican blow-out, and her nails now
sparkled like blood-red rubies with a fresh application of her favorite nail
color, Sex Kitten. Her makeup was photo-shoot perfect and her brown skin glowed
from the peppermint-sugar scrub she’d applied in the shower. It was shown off
to advantage in the off-white, vintage negligee she’d paid too much for.
Despite the exorbitant cost, Roxanne knew she’d made a good choice. The
sweetheart neckline made her girls look even perkier, while the ivory silk
falling in soft folds to the floor accentuated her curves to bombshell
proportions.

If looks could kill, she could commit premeditated murder
before the sun came up, or at least bring a man to his knees.

But will it be the right man?

“Stop doing this to yourself!” Frustrated and tired of
warring with her conscience, Roxanne stomped out of the bathroom and into the
sumptuous hotel room. Before taking a shower, she’d worked up a fine sweat
achieving the room’s romantic atmosphere.

A dozen vanilla-scented candles were placed strategically
around the room and Sade’s latest CD played on the iPod stereo. As a final
touch, she’d ordered a bucket of champagne, which sat perched on a table near
the window.

Roxanne glanced at the clock near the bed. Constantine would
be here any minute.

Upset over finding her mind preoccupied by Leo all night
long, she’d taken drastic steps. Deciding to skip dinner, she’d instructed The
Geneva’s maître d’ to send Constantine to the front desk, where he’d receive a
key and further instructions to meet her upstairs.

“If everything goes according to plan, I’ll have a new lover
before the night’s through.”

Roxanne frowned. Why had her plan sounded so much easier on
paper?

With each tick of the clock hand, Roxanne grew more anxious.
Before long she started to pace. Better to wear the carpet thin than her
nerves. “Constantine’s not exactly a stranger,” she rationalized. “And this
isn’t technically a one-night stand since we’ve already had sex. Sort of.”

Still, no matter how much she tried to rationalize it,
Roxanne knew she was only fooling herself. This plan was ridiculous. She wanted
Leo.

A self-described emotional eater, she picked up a bag of
complementary pretzels and tore into them. Almost immediately, the salty snack
eased her frazzled nerves—which lasted exactly half the bag.

No matter how she sliced and diced the situation, there was
only one way to assuage her conscience.

“Leonidas Papadopoulos, you’ve ruined me for anyone else!”
Roxanne crumpled the bag in one hand as she reached for the dress and boots she
had on earlier. If she hurried, she could be long gone before Constantine paid
his taxi driver.

Once dressed, Roxanne picked up a piece of the hotel’s
complimentary stationary and scribbled a quick note of apology. After leaving
it on one of the bed pillows, she slipped on her trench coat, grabbed her purse
and headed for the door.

Her room was located all the way down the very long hall
from the stairwell. Located at the north end of the hall, the stairs would have
given her the best exit to avoid any kind of potential confrontation. But even
if she made it unnoticed, she still had to navigate twelve floors—in four-inch
heels.

Tugging on her earlobe, Roxanne weighed her options. “I’ll
just take my chances with the elevator.”

She rummaged through her purse and pulled out a pair of
large, dark sunglasses. Sliding them on, she popped the collar of her trench
coat. Satisfied with her makeshift disguise, she poked her head into the
hallway. Greeted with an empty corridor, she breathed a sigh of relief. With
her belongings in one hand, her other clutching the lapels of her coat, Roxanne
stepped into the hallway.

Going from zero to sixty in point-four seconds, she hustled
toward the elevators. Skidding to a halt, she punched the down button, barely
giving any notice to the ornate, scrolling floral artwork etched into the brass
doors.

“Just my luck,” Roxanne hissed. One of the elevators was on
the way down from the twenty-second floor, the other coming up from the lobby.
If Constantine happened to be on the ascending elevator, Roxanne figured she
had a fifty-fifty chance of making a clean getaway.

“Come on, come on,” she encouraged, willing the descending
elevator to move faster. Her guardian angels must have heard her, because both
elevators stopped—one floor above and one floor below.

Seconds stretched into an eternity while both elevators
lingered on their respective floors. She leaned forward and listened—muffled
laughter and the rumble of luggage drifting from above; silence below.

To make sure the descending elevator stopped on her floor,
Roxanne pressed the down button again. As she dropped her hand, the top button
lit up and the light above the ascending elevator went dark.

Roxanne shuffled backward, her stomach dropping faster than
the Raging Bull at Six Flags Chicago.

Roxanne knew she couldn’t make it to the stairs if her life
depended on it. And the ice machine room was near her suite, also too far.
She’d made use of it earlier to chill the bottle of champagne now resting at
the bottom of her overnight bag.

The elevator bell dinged, snatching her chances of a quick
escape like an open umbrella in a wind gust.

Inching farther away, Roxanne could see the elevator
operator when the doors parted—and a partial view of another man’s body. Just a
shoulder, arm and leg, impeccably dressed in a black suit, the cuff of a white
dress shirt peeking from the jacket. She didn’t dare crane her neck to see his
face.