by Kait Nolan
Me
***
That was so bizarre. She’d almost believe he lived nearby with the way he brought up the drive-in theaters. Maybe he was still playing the role. That had to be what it was. Wow, he was good.
How many emails did she get for her subscription? She should have checked that. This might be like a quarter kiddie ride where once her money ran out, he stopped emailing her. It wouldn’t be as convincing if she couldn’t hold her “new boyfriend’s” interest for longer than a day. Even if he wasn’t her boyfriend, she didn’t want anyone reading through these. This was one secret she was taking to the grave. Especially since she was enjoying this. This couldn’t be anything more than a few emails. No feelings were involved. They couldn’t be.
She liked Berg.
Who hadn’t shown a lot of interest in her.
But this wasn’t real. She had to keep telling herself that. This guy, this Chris, was only interested in her life because he was being paid to be. This was so confusing. Take a step back, Roxie. Take a step back. He’s just being nice to you.
From: Roxie
Sent: Monday, October 5, 2015 10:55 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Wish you were here
I should probably get some sleep. Tomorrow I’m supposed to meet with half a dozen team leaders individually to discuss how they can show greater awareness for workplace diversity. My list of key points look like elementary school playground rules. I should be allowed to put their nose in a corner if they violate them. Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.
Roxie
See! That was more a friend-to-friend email. There was nothing intimate or suggestive there. She laid down, plugged her phone into the charger, and turned off the light. And now she’d go to sleep and not think about either man. She’d just sleep.
Her email notification on her phone chimed. She bolted up and grabbed her phone.
From: Chris Knight
Sent: Monday, October 5, 2015 11:03 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Wish you were here
Bed bugs? What kind of ship do you think I’m running? No bed bugs. Good night. And don’t forget to tell all those suits that there’s no biting allowed and you have to let girls play on the jungle gym too. (I had a problem with that.) (The girls thing, not the biting.) (I have more of a problem now with both of those actually. I should sign up for a discussion with you.)
Night,
Me
Roxie exhaled in a loud huff. So much for the friend-to-friend tone. Setting the phone aside again, she forced herself to take deep breaths and clear her mind. “Tomorrow is another day. And I don’t need a man. Not even a bit.”
There was a loud thunk on the other side of the wall, followed by silence. It sounded like Berg had settled in for the night.
And she didn’t care. Not one little bit.
Chapter Four
He was sitting on the front stoop with his legs stretched out in front of him when she got home from work. It was going to be hard to let the vomit story fade to a distant memory if he was right there.
“Hey!” she said, approaching him.
Berg pushed to his feet. “I’m supposed to be able to run uphill with these new bionic legs, but I thought I’d start off on the sidewalks with the hills around here. Maybe you could come with me. Sort of wind down from work.” He had his chin tucked and Berg was looking at her through a lock of hair. It was the same stance and look of a kid coming to ask at the door if their friend could come out and play.
“Is it okay if I change out of my work clothes and set down my bag?”
He almost smiled. At least half his mouth tipped up. “Sure.” He followed her into her place. “Whoa, you already unpacked. I guess you’ve decided you’re staying, huh?”
She shot him a look over her shoulder. “Are you crazy? I hate moving. They can bury me in the backyard. I’m not moving again anytime soon.”
She went into her room and closed the door as he inspected her place. She probably didn’t want to know what he thought of her all-sunflowers-all-the-time decorating. At least it wasn’t kittens or roses or something super fussy or feminine.
Standing in front of her closet, a sense of horror settled in. What should she wear? It had to imply that she was interested, but only if he was interested—all without looking like she was trying too hard. Ugh. What had he been wearing? She closed her eyes. Khaki shorts and a shirt that said, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” Well, that didn’t help. Guys could wear whatever they wanted. Were these shorts too short? Maybe. What did yoga capris say? That she didn’t care how she looked or that she was sporty? What would Berg like to see her wear?
She pulled out her phone and texted a question to the top number.
Me: Casual walk? What should I wear that is sexy without being obviously sexy?
And send. She scrolled up through the conversation.
“Oh damn!” Hannah and she had exchanged phone numbers earlier and texted once, but the last conversation she’d had was with her fake boyfriend “Chris” when he’d asked how her day on the playground was going. Groaning, she saved the number as “Chris” so she wouldn’t make that mistake again. Idiot. Hopefully, he wouldn’t respond to that text. She listened for movement in the other room. Nothing. Maybe Berg had given her up for dead and left. No one needed this much time to change clothes.
She pulled off her “I’m in charge here, don’t mess with me” power suit that she wore on days when she had to deal with all the male team leaders. Her heels were next. Being five foot four should not be this painful. If only they had more tall genes in her family. She felt like a dwarf next to Berg.
Her phone buzzed.
“Damn. Damn. Damn.” He’d texted back.
Chris: What are you wearing now?
She looked down at her matching purple bra and panty set that was decorated with hearts. Could she be more girly?
Me: Just my underwear.
Not even a second later, his reply came back.
Chris: Wear that!
Me: Ha ha! Real funny.
Chris: Okay. Go for something comfortable that shows off your legs.
She pulled on a pair of cut-off sweatpants that weren’t super short, but they did show off her legs.
Me: Shirt? I May Be Short But I’m Fierce or Supergirl symbol?
Chris: Tough choice. The fierce one. More you.
That was odd that he’d realized that. Maybe it was the waterslide story. She grabbed the shirt and then stared at her shoes.
Me: Sandals or sneakers?
Chris: How far are you going?
Me: That doesn’t matter. I painted my toenails. They’re cute. But he might make fun of them or think I don’t ever exercise if I wear sandals.
Chris: What? He won’t make fun of you.
Me: Not to my face. When he talks to his friends later.
Chris: He won’t. Wear the sandals.
Me: If he does we’re over. No more fake dates.
Chris: He won’t. He’ll think you’re sweet.
Me: Thanks for the fashion advice.
Chris: No prob. Anytime.
She’d strapped on her sandals and was pulling her hair into a ponytail when one last text came through.
Chris: Tell me how it goes.
That was nice of him. Maybe they could be fake friends without it being weird. She walked out to find Berg putting his phone away. At least he hadn’t been bored while he was waiting for her.
“Sorry that took so long.” She sounded almost out of breath. Get a grip, Roxie.
“No prob.” His gaze skimmed her body, settling on her toes that were lime green with sunflowers on them. “You look…uhh…good. Nice toenails.”
“You too.” She winced. “I mean not on the toenails thing…on the looking good thing. The toenails thing would be strange even if you did…” She groaned. “Okay, back up, forget I said any
thing and let’s go.”
He fought a smile and gestured for her to go ahead of him.
After they’d made it down the shallow front steps and were walking side-by-side, she said, “If I ever say something offensive, I don’t mean to and you can tell me to shut-up.” Roxie chewed on her lower lip and tried to match his pace. Even with his prosthetic legs, his stride was longer than hers and he set a Marine’s pace. If they were together, she’d hold his hand to slow him down.
“Roxie?”
“Yes?”
“What happened to the guy who lost his left leg and his left arm?”
“What?” That was a weird question.
“He was alright.”
She blinked and then smiled and gave him a tilted head look. “Really?”
Berg grinned back. “It’s not a big deal. My prosthetist told me that one last week when I went in for a check on my new legs. Right after I’d told him to stop pulling my leg. I’m not going to freak over the subject.”
She punched his shoulder. “Okay, then, slow down because your bionic legs are faster than my short squatty ones. I didn’t know this was going to be a sprint.”
With a sheepish glance, he slowed down. “So, tell me about your day.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, but tell me if I talk too much.”
“You don’t talk too much.”
With a sigh, she stuck her hands into her pockets so she wouldn’t make a big deal of this and grab one of his. They were friends. No biggie. But he had asked her to go for a walk. She could work from there.
~*~
It was like when he’d had to dig a hole in the desert and the sand kept falling in with each shovel load out of it. As she chattered on, he listened with the thought, “Tell her!” playing over and over on a loudspeaker in the back of his mind. She was going to kill him when she found out she’d asked him what to wear on a walk with him. He was so dead. And why had he asked her to tell him how it went? That was such an asshole move. It had seemed brilliant at the time. He’d finally know how she felt. This thing was going to collapse entirely on him. How had it gone so wrong?
“So, what do you do when you’re not going on walks with crazy short women?”
He stopped and turned to her. “What?”
“All I know about you is that you like to read, have capers in your fridge, and you might speak multiple languages.”
He grinned. “The capers thing didn’t end up being the window to my soul you’d expected?”
“Do you even like capers?”
“They’re okay. My cousin was doing a cooking class and she had to make someone a fancy meal. The capers were buried in the sauce over the chicken. I’ve been the proud owner of capers ever since.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I have no idea. Do capers go bad?”
She shrugged.
They crossed the street and, without speaking, turned to go back—though he could have walked for hours talking with her. He shifted around her to walk on the sidewalk beside the street so she wasn’t next to traffic. Their quiet neighborhood didn’t get a lot of traffic but he wasn’t taking any chances with her safety.
She nodded at his shirt. “Are you still working as a Marine? Or is that a bad thing to ask?”
Berg grimaced. “I was honorably discharged. I couldn’t do what I was doing before and it was a long recovery anyway.”
“What do you do now? Not that it’s any of my business…”
“Right now? I’m sort of in-between things. I was doing some work for the FBI.”
Her eyes widened. Everyone had that response.
“It’s not as exciting as it sounds. I was listening to wiretaps because I’m fluent in a few languages and translating them for the FBI. It was hours of typing stupid conversations about nothing. They haven’t needed me for a while so I was looking into going back to college and getting a degree.”
“Were the wiretaps on criminals?”
“I wasn’t given any background but I’m assuming so. It wasn’t always obvious from the phone calls, but sometimes they used codes to conduct business so I had to translate everything between certain parties. I have a cousin who works for the FBI. He got me clearance and hooked me up.”
“You have a lot of cousins.”
“I have a lot of family. My grandmother on one side of the family had eleven children. My other grandmother had seven. My parents stopped after two kids. I have an older sister who lives in Florida. When mom’s side all gets together, it’s madness because everyone managed to marry someone from a completely different culture. We’ve got Russian, Greek, Japanese, Filipino, uhh…German, and Italian. Oh, and I’ve got an uncle from up in British Columbia on my dad’s side, and Grandma is from Mexico. My mom thought exposing me to all of the family’s cultures was a good idea, so I spent nearly every summer growing up with a different aunt and uncle.”
“I think that’s the most you’ve ever said to me.” Her wide smile said she didn’t mind. “What languages are you fluent in?”
“Spanish and Russian. I did some immersion classes in Russian in school to gain fluency. I know enough Greek to hold my own in a conversation with my ya-ya. She still shakes her fist at me and tells me I’m forgetting my heritage. I know a lot of the crude words in Japanese and German because I was a teenager when I landed with them.”
“I took German in high school.”
“Oh yeah? As long as you only want to talk dirty, we should be good.”
Her cheeks went pink but she laughed and shot him an amused look. This could work. Maybe he hadn’t screwed everything up.
~*~
The buzzing in her pocket started in the middle of a work story and it took her a moment to realize it was her phone.
“Sorry,” she said, cutting off and pulling out her cell. Chris? She glanced over at Berg as she rejected the call.
He’d shifted to look straight ahead but she suspected he saw the name associated with the call. It was hard to tell from his frown what he thought about it.
“It was no one.”
He shrugged.
Why was she feeling guilty? She hadn’t even answered the phone for crying out loud. And, if she had, it was a fake relationship.
“Is that guy at work still bothering you?” Berg asked after nearly a full minute had gone by.
“Oh, that wasn’t him. And he hasn’t been by my desk since last Friday. I hope it’s over. It’s funny how attraction works, isn’t it? Because there’s nothing necessarily wrong with William…that’s the IT manager who keeps hitting on me. In fact, he’s dated his way through all the new hires. And maybe that’s partly why I wasn’t interested—though I wasn’t at all—right from the first time we met. My inner radar had him pegged as bad news on every level. I even suspect he’s stealing office supplies. I keep having to approve his requisitions for permanent markers in crazy quantities. I don’t know if he’s using them to get high or what. And while the hit the company is taking in markers isn’t breaking the bank—it’s the principle of the thing. A guy who steals markers probably won’t care that your dog needed back surgery or that your landlord pawed through your underwear drawer or…” She gestured down at Berg’s legs.
“What?” His expression was both perplexed and alarmed. “My legs? I thought my legs didn’t bother you.”
“No, not your legs. The fact that you’re walking on the part of the sidewalk exposed to traffic because you’re a gentleman and you care if I get hit by a runaway ice cream truck. The William Judsons of the world don’t care about stuff like that.”
“His name is William Judson?”
“Yes.”
“Hell, even his name is pretentious. You should definitely not go out with someone named William Judson. I think the name alone is enough to convict him for stealing office supplies.”
“I know, right?” She swung her arms at her sides. “What about Berg Cyrano? What does that name say?”
“Sounds like a shady character up to no good.”
Roxie laughed. “You think so? Well, that’s awesome. That ought to keep life interesting.”
“Do you run?”
She raised her eyebrows. “First you mention you’re up to no good and then you ask if I run? Should I be alarmed?”
They were almost back to their duplex.
“A friend of mine has an “in” with a company where they make running blades. I was thinking of getting back into running.”
“And you want me to run with you? Nuh uh. No way.”
He frowned at her.
“Berg! I’m practically running right now to keep up with you. Look how short my legs are!”
“There’s nothing wrong with your legs.” Was that an appreciative look at her legs or an assessment of their overall health? Either way, it shut her up for a second until they arrived at the front steps.
“All I’m saying is that unless we’re talking a treadmill side-by-side, you should find a running partner who won’t look like a Chihuahua trying to keep up with a greyhound.”
Then, they were at their doors. This is where they went their separate ways. He went into his place, and she went into hers. Separately. Apart.
Say something to prolong this thing!
“I could also ride beside you on a bike…like on Rocky. I could do that.”
Well, not your best, but it bought you a few more seconds.
He turned to face her. “Thanks for…” Berg gestured out at the way they’d come. It was amazing how he managed to avoid saying anything more than necessary.
“Thanks for letting me talk your ear off. It was fun.”