Geektastic

by Mary Frame

  Taylor and Chad are both staring down at me with concern in their eyes.

  “Can we talk?” Taylor crosses her arms. Then uncrosses them. Then crosses them again. I almost laugh because it’s exactly what she did when we were in high school and she was nervous and had to talk in front of the whole class for a presentation in political science. I teased her mercilessly. She’s terrible at public speaking. And confrontation. Always has been. And yet, here she is, trying to talk to me despite my past rebuffs.

  Before I can respond to her question, Jude saves me.

  “Found it!” He stands, pretending to put something in his eye before nodding at Taylor. “I lost my contact and Annabel here was courteous enough to help me attempt to locate it. Hi, I’m Jude Parker. You may have heard of me.” He sticks out a hand.

  I get to my feet next to him, watching the act he’s perfected over the last six months. It’s like there’s two of him, the real Jude and this public persona he pulls out and shrugs on when he needs it, like a winter coat.

  “Hi, I’m Taylor. This is my . . . Chad. This is Chad.”

  Jude shakes both their hands and they make idle chitchat, Jude oozing charm and politeness, while I stand there in a daze, not really listening.

  Is this really happening?

  “It’s a real pleasure to meet you folks. Are y’all competing out there tonight?”

  “Oh, we just came for fun to watch and stuff, you know.” Taylor smiles at him. “Support a good cause.”

  “Well that’s mighty kind of you. Now if y’all will excuse us, I put my contact back in after it was swirling in something questionable on the floor and now it’s burning like the dickens and we should probably get to the ER. Nice meeting you folks.” And then he steps up behind me and I nearly melt into him. “You ready to go, darlin’?” he purrs into the shell of my ear.

  If I wasn’t such a hot mess, I might say something about the darlin’, since the real reason I detest the endearment is because it makes something twist and tighten in my chest.

  But he distracted them. He knew I didn’t want to talk to them and he made it all go away.

  A sudden well of emotion rises inside, but I ram it back down. This time, it doesn’t go down easy. It’s like the cave in my mind is stuffed with angry elephants, and the bats are ready to start them stampeding.

  I nod and make an awkward wave to Taylor and Chad and then we’re moving out. Taylor’s face is drawn. Chad enfolds her in his arms and her eyes shut but then they blink open and meet mine.

  My stomach is in turmoil, the drink I had at the bar curdling among all the tension and emotion I’ve worked so hard for so long to suppress.

  We walk in silence to my little Honda.

  Jude puts a gentle hand on my arm and asks, “Do you want me to drive?”

  I’ve been standing there, staring at the driver’s side door for probably longer than a minute. I can’t formulate a response and in the end I don’t have to.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get you home.”

  There’s nothing I want more. Except pizza, a gallon of ice cream, three hot dogs, and maybe some mind-numbing whiskey.

  It’s a testament to my mental instability that I hand him the keys without argument or question. Handing over control like it isn’t the only thing I’ve been hanging on to for the past four years.

  He opens the passenger door for me and then we’re driving in silence through the quiet, dark streets of Blue Falls.

  Memories swirl in my mind.

  In first grade, I found Taylor, pigtails and overalls, hiding in the library from the mean girls during lunch. I shared my snack pack with her.

  She was my first and best friend.

  I could tell her anything, like the time we were doing fitness testing in sophomore-year gym class. Brett Adams—one of the hottest guys in school—was holding my feet while I attempted as many sit-ups as I could muster in one minute and I farted on him, basically right in his face. I was so mortified I left school sick, but then Taylor came over that night with pizza and my favorite apple pie from the diner. She could always make a horrible experience seem not so bad.

  The regrets are enough to consume my entire being. I miss her. I miss our friendship. I try to reach for the anger that held the sorrow at bay in the past, that simmering righteous indignation toward both of them that kept me safe from feeling too sad.

  They lied. And it’s not my fault they ruined everything. All for what? A serotonin trip that doesn’t exist except in fantasyland?

  I blink and we’ve made it back to my apartment. Jude walks with me to the door after getting his laptop out of the back.

  Once we’re inside, he sets his computer on the small coffee table and I sit on the couch. It’s quiet and dark. Jude flicks on the light in the kitchen but the living room is still shadowed, only catching a glow from the next room. Fitz must be with Reese. The apartment is quiet and empty. Jude must’ve known, that’s why we came here instead of going to his place. And why he brought his computer. He’s always prepared.

  Jude emerges with a glass of water and I drink it. After a few long, quiet minutes, I glance over at him.

  He’s got his glasses on again, the glow from the laptop highlighting his face, the glare hiding his eyes, but I can still see his lips. He rubs his beard absentmindedly and sucks his full lower lip in between his teeth and something in my stomach heats and flips simultaneously.

  I remember the feel of those lips, how amazing he was at kissing, how turned on I was before he ruined it with sweet emotion.

  Damn his lips. And those glasses. That’s what lured me in the last time. He’s so geeky and yet so hot and it’s impossible to resist. He’s . . . geektastic.

  His fingers tap away at lightning speed. He’s already stuck the disc in and done something with it, and now he pops it out of the drive and puts it on the coffee table in front of us.

  I clear my throat. “Anything good on there?”

  His head lifts and our eyes connect. Bright and intense and serious. “It’s a small part of Grace’s program. It has her written all over it, her signature embedded into the code. And I can date it to less than a week ago. Somehow this David guy got ahold of it. I know him. David O’Flannigan.”

  He turns the laptop so I can see. The picture is from his student ID. He’s young, early twenties, medium-brown hair, smarmy smile . . . He looks vaguely familiar, but most people in Blue Falls do.

  I lift my eyes to meet Jude’s. “How do you know him?”

  “He comes to all my events.” He taps a few more keys and then smirks. “He’s majoring in computer science. And he’s stupidly prominent on social media.” He rubs his hands together. “This is going to be easy. Too easy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All I have to do is schedule something with the babies to lure him over and we can question him.”

  “Are you gonna torture intel out of him?”

  “Won’t be necessary. He enjoys blackmailing others, so he understands how it works. I know I can find enough to beat him at his own game. Starting with this.” He lifts the disc in the air.

  I smile at his enthusiasm. “Nice.”

  He goes back to tapping away. “Isn’t it, though?” he murmurs, his attention already moving on to whatever he’s doing on the computer.

  It’s quiet except for the hum of the fridge kicking on in the kitchen and the rapid click of his keyboard. In the faint light, his eyes are focused and steady. I want to know what he looks like under the beard. I wonder if he has a firm jaw.

  He has good structure in his face, thick lips, a patrician nose, high cheekbones.

  After a minute of squirming, I finally muster up my courage. “Jude?”

  His eyes lift from the screen.

  “Thank you.”

  He smiles, a small tilt of one side of his mouth. “No thanks necessary.” He glances around, as if realizing we’re sitting in a mostly dark room alone while he works and I sit here and drool over him. I wipe
my mouth to double-check.

  Okay, good. Inside. I’m drooling on the inside.

  I rub my hands on my dress. He’s so calm and put together and collected. Nothing seems to bother him. And, of course, he had to witness my meltdown. How can he be sitting there all blasé when he’s in the room alone with a complete psycho?

  Because he’s not like everyone else. You can tell him the truth, a little voice inside me whispers. It would be so nice to drop the mask and let all the truth out.

  “You must think I’m crazy.”

  “Not at all.”

  He knows what I’m talking about, doesn’t even faze him. “Are you going to ask why I went bonkers there for a hot second?”

  “I would never pry. You choose what you tell me. It’s not my right to know. It would be an honor if you trusted me enough to share, but I would never push you.” He leans toward me. “And I would never judge you, Annabel. We all have things in our past that make us feel shameful. You are more than the sum of your past experiences. I know that more than most.”

  I blink at him in the dim light, sincerity radiating from him like warm rays from spring sunshine.

  I remember how he was the other night at the furry thing, throwing himself into the situation with abandon, without judgment or condescension. He’s not the type to belittle. He didn’t scoff at me when I ninja crawled on a dirty bar floor. He helped Reese and Fitz even though they both have their own peccadillos. He takes care of Beast. He’s helping Grace not for himself, but because he actually cares. He would be someone so easy to talk to. To . . . feel for.

  I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to get any closer to him than I already am, but I can’t stop it. I can’t keep the elephants calm any longer. Maybe I can release the story and it will lose its ever-present hold on me. I won’t feel like such a fool, such an idiot for making a mistake and an even worse one for holding on to it for so long.

  I stand up and hold out my hand.

  He stares at it for a long moment before sliding his fingers into mine. He stands, leaving the laptop on the couch, and I lead him down the hall to my bedroom.

  The bedside lamp is small, but it gets the job done. I click it on and head over to my closet. Behind my work clothes and T-shirts, on the floor under my suitcase, there’s an old shoebox.

  I grab it and turn around.

  My room is smaller with Jude in it, as if his very presence fills up the whole space.

  He’s standing in front of my bulletin board of faraway places, his eyes taking in everything before moving to the pictures of Fitz and my parents on the dresser, and then he turns and our eyes meet.

  He sits on the bed.

  Standing in front of him, I open the box and hand him a picture. It’s Taylor and me before our first seventh-grade dance. I’m wearing a black dress from a thrift store. My hair is a wild mess and I stole some of Momma’s dark eyeliner. I look like something out of a gothic novel. Taylor’s wearing a bright sundress, no makeup, her hair perfectly curled. We’re leaning into each other and laughing.

  “Taylor was, she was . . . we were best friends.”

  I pull out another picture, this one from high school. Standing outside the school, Chad is between us in his dark blue football jersey. “Chad was our friend, too, but Taylor and I were friends first. Since first grade.”

  Jude takes the photo, his pointer finger stopping next to my smiling face.

  “In seventh grade, Chad moved here from Colorado. He saw Taylor and me playing Magic: the Gathering and immediately wanted in on the game.”

  Jude smiles. “I love that game.”

  Of course he does. I return his smile before continuing. “You have to understand, Blue Falls is a small town and the schools are tiny. I attended preschool through high school with roughly the same thirty kids. And Chad, he was this blond-haired, blue-eyed, athletic . . . treasure. All the girls thought he was the hottest, newest, shiniest thing. But he wanted to hang with us, the nerds, instead of the more popular girls. We were almost immediately inseparable. All through middle school and high school, we were like the three musketeers, except better.” I search my mind for a comparison. “We were Harry, Ron, and Hermione. We loved books and fandoms and each other.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed because here’s where it goes downhill and I need something sturdy for support.

  “Things started changing a little, for me, near the end of high school.”

  I don’t know where to focus so I stare down at my cowboy boots, the toes scuffed from use. I bought them five years ago with Taylor. We drove all the way to the Boot Barn in Shreveport to get them.

  “I developed this massive crush on Chad. It started the end of junior year of high school. We all went to the homecoming dance together and the last dance it was Chad and me. He held me close and we swayed under the cheap streamers to some sappy love song. It was no big deal, he was like a brother but then he made a comment like we fit so well together with my head just under his chin, and something sort of shifted inside me. I’m sure it was mostly hormones combined with all the confusion that comes from being a teenager. But after that night, I saw him differently. Maybe I was looking for what I wanted to see. But I really thought I loved him. I mean, I did love him. But I thought it was more than the friendship love that we all had for each other.”

  I search his face but there’s no judgment. His face is open and intent and engaged. It gives me the strength to continue.

  “And just like that, the entire dynamic of our friendship changed. At least, for me. I told Taylor, eventually, but I kept it to myself until college. I wanted him, but I was sure he didn’t feel the same way and I was so young and insecure. Taylor didn’t really encourage me, but she listened and she agreed I shouldn’t say anything to mess it up.

  “But then, one day, Chad kept asking me odd questions about Taylor. Like what was her favorite flower, her favorite place to eat dinner—he totally grilled me. I was sure something was going on with them, but when I confronted Taylor, she got defensive and told me that I’d just misunderstood. That Chad told her he wanted me, not her, and he was just using her as an excuse. And of course, I believed her. I had no reason to not trust her. She’d never been deceitful. Not ever.

  “Then one day a few weeks later, just before sophomore year, he said he wanted to talk to me alone and I thought this was it, it was happening. He was going to tell me how much he loved me. I got all dressed up. Put on extra makeup. Oh God.” I cover my face with a hand and am doubly embarrassed to find my fingers shaking. I’ve never told anyone this and now I’m telling Jude, of all people. “This is so embarrassing.”

  I pull my hand from my face and set it on the bed, and Jude’s hand covers mine. I can’t possibly meet his eyes, so I stare down at our hands, his long warm fingers strong and gently encouraging. The bedspread underneath us is a dark blue comforter I’ve had since college. I had it on my bed even then, the day everything changed. “He came over. He was alone. And before he could say anything, I spilled it all. I was so nervous. I went on and on about how much I loved him and wanted to be with him. How I was so happy he was finally in the same place, too.”

  I grimace and pull away, wrapping both arms around my stomach, like it will somehow stop the queasy memory from taking root. “Chad . . . he sat there and listened, stunned. He let me go on and on, did nothing to stop me from spewing all my emotional diarrhea all over him.” I swallow and glance over at Jude. He’s listening, his face serious and unreadable, his bright eyes somehow warm.

  “And then he said, in the kindest voice possible, that he was in love with Taylor. And she was in love with him. It was almost worse than if he had laughed or something. He was . . . so sympathetic. He felt bad for me. They’d been seeing each other for months. Months, nearly a year, since before I’d told Taylor about my own feelings, and they’d hid it from me. They’d lied to me. And Taylor, that was the worst part, because I had told her everything. She knew how I felt and she lied right to my face. And
here I was, spilling out my whole heart and letting it bleed all over the floor and all along, he and Taylor had been sneaking around behind my back.” I stop and laugh a little. “That’s not entirely right, like Chad and I were a couple and Taylor got between us and it wasn’t like that, but they were my best friends. Taylor was my best friend. We had no secrets. Or I thought we didn’t. She had been lying to me, so it felt that way. You know?”

  He nods but otherwise doesn’t interrupt.

  “He had asked me those questions because he and Taylor had been hiding, but they were gonna tell me. He wanted to take her out to celebrate because they hadn’t gone on a real date even though they’d been hooking up for like, ever. He thought I would be happy. He told me all that, so matter-of-fact, so much like Chad.” I laugh, but the sound holds no humor. “Chad is a nice guy. He’s like this cliché of someone in a high school movie. All-American football player, blond good looks, a gentle soul, but sometimes he can be so dense.”

  I have to take a moment to swallow after uttering such a monumental understatement.

  “But not this time. This time it was me. I felt so foolish. I was a dumb kid with a crush and they were having this whole serious adult relationship. I walked out of my own apartment that day, just left Chad behind. Taylor and I were roommates even, but I left and never went back. I went all the way to Austin. Transferred there for a year.”

  But I couldn’t afford to stay, and when I crawled back with my tail between my legs . . .

  “When I came back, I saw them. They were eating at the Finer Diner with another couple. Laughing. Having a grand ol’ time. It’s like I never existed. So I set out to make the feeling mutual. I’ve seen them since then, can’t avoid people in a town this small, but I’ve been able to avoid any kind of direct contact until . . .”

  “Until tonight.”

  I tilt my head. “Recently, it’s been harder.”

  “Well it just goes to show, you have excellent avoidance capabilities if you’ve been able to elude them in a town this small for four years.”