Loving Lindsey (An American Dream Love Story Book 2)

by Josephine Parker

  Lindsey pulled her legs into her body and curled up beneath her one unpacked blanket. A bright, horrible light was shining through the window, but she was unwilling to get up and close the blinds. “Screw you, daylight,” she mumbled as she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her head deeper below the covers. She willed Sunday to turn back to Saturday when the morning light meant a new adventure. Now it meant loading everything she owned back onto a truck and admitting defeat.

  A door opened and closed somewhere in the building. Lindsey jerked upright and looked at her front door. She prayed she would hear footsteps coming up the stairs followed by a knock, but nothing happened. Was he down there? She wiped her eyes then looked at the hardwood floor as if she could see him in the apartment below. Instead, she saw the bright green case of her cell phone buried in a pile of wadded-up tissue. She reached out and grabbed it. 9 am. She snapped the phone shut and listened again for any movement from below.

  Maybe she could go down and knock on his door. Maybe if she just explained and fought for herself, she might convince him to change his mind. This was an epic misunderstanding, if only—no. She winced as she remembered his final, biting words: you’re out. She felt what was once a vivid dream begin to slip from the edges of her vision as she buried herself again under the blanket. She opened her phone and hit the favorites button, where her mom’s picture popped up in the first position.

  Lindsey sniffed. Was it wrong to still need her mom? It had just been the two of them for a decade. The day after Lindsey left for college, her dad packed up and left. No wonder he encouraged her to matriculate so young; he wanted her to leave so he could do the same. Six months later, when Lindsey gave up and came home, she saw her mom, devastated and lonely, waiting with open arms to get through their dual heartbreaks together. Lindsey knew she would do the same now. They had each other, after all; that’s all either one of them needed. The last two days flew by so quickly, she didn’t think a lot about how her sudden departure would affect her mom. She must be so lonely.

  Lindsey decided to hit dial and listened to the phone begin to ring. Immediately, it clicked over to voice mail. “Hello, this is Pam. Please, leave a—” Lindsey hung up and wiped her eyes with the corner of her sleeve. She imagined her mom out working in the garden, as usual. Lindsey wished she was there, helping, or bringing out iced-tea. Worcester was only an hour away. She could be there before the sun went down.

  Lindsey looked slowly around the stark corners of her apartment and sniffed. Everything was not lost. After all, her boxes were already packed. That was one good thing, right? She just had to rehire movers and head home. She liked her basement more than this stupid old building anyway.

  Lindsey threw water on her face, brushed her teeth, and threw one essential bag over her shoulder. Her car was just five blocks away, and soon, she was maneuvering out of the city and on to I-90. As she did, she tried her mom again. No answer.

  Lindsey wiped her nose and looked up. “Shoot!” she said, moving into the right lane. Her exit had passed in a blur. That’s okay, she could hit the 395 at Auburn and circle back.

  Twenty minutes later, her car pulled below the shady, giant tree that careened out of their suburban front lawn. She exhaled as she saw her mom’s old Subaru parked in the driveway. This is where she belonged. After having a long talk, Lindsey wanted to curl up in the basement on her old, plaid couch, under her pictures of Einstein and Madonna and sleep until the pain was gone. She would go back to Boston for her stuff later, when she was sure Zach—or Professor Wheeler, wouldn’t be around.

  The front door swung open. “Mom?” Lindsey called out, dropping her bag in the foyer. “Mom?” She wasn’t in the kitchen. Lindsey walked to the back door and looked out; she wasn’t in the garden, either. In fact, there were holes in the chicken-wire where bunnies had gotten through and eaten the tops of the vegetables. That was strange.

  Lindsey turned and heard a faint thumping noise emanating from the basement. She must be down there vacuuming with the music on or something, she guessed as she opened the basement door. As she did, the pounding of the music intensified and she could see a red light bouncing across the basement floor and up the steps toward her.

  A frown crossed Lindsey’s face. She grabbed the stair-rail and made her way down the steps. As she entered the basement, her mouth dropped open. Across the room, where her bed used to be, stood a stripper pole, and her mom was on it.

  Pam’s breasts were barely contained in the cups of a red, burlesque style corset, but she shook them happily as she spun around the pole, a trail of feathers flying in her wake. On the couch before her, Lindsey could see the back of a man’s balding head bobbing with the music. “Yeah, baby,” he yelled, twirling a single black nylon in the air like a lasso. Lindsey fell back against the wall with a thud.

  “Lindsey? Lindsey, honey…” her mom said, unwrapping her leg from the pole. “Oh my God, honey, what are you doing here?”

  Lindsey tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone dry. With some effort, she walked forward and spun around in a circle, stunned. “What am I doing? Mom…what are you doing?” Lindsey asked. “And where is all my stuff?” Not only was her bed gone, but so were her tables and posters. In their place was a new bar and stereo with a karaoke machine. The windows were covered in red gauze, and in the center of the old shag carpeting was a dance floor made of flashing, multi colored lights.

  Her mom threw on a shawl and skipped over the dance floor to the clip of her stiletto heels. “This was all supposed to be a surprise. Surprise, honey!” Her mom splayed her fingers out in a pair of jazz hands, then dropped them as she read Lindsey’s face. “Alright, busted. What can I say? You surprised me. I was going to tell you, I—wait...” her mom said, pulling a remote control out of her bust and muting the stereo. “What are you doing here, Lindsey? Is something wrong?”

  All Lindsey could do was shake her head. If she spoke, she would cry.

  The man on the couch took advantage of the silence. He popped up and walked over, wiping his hands on the sides of his boxer shorts along the way. He had more hair on his chest than on his head, and he wore nothing else but a pair of argyle socks pulled half way up his calves. “Hi there, Lindsey. Lindsey, right? Your mom’s told me so much about you.”

  Lindsey looked down at his beefy, outstretched hand and sniffed.

  “Hon,” her mom sang gently, “this is Bruce.”

  Lindsey looked from her mom to the man. “Bruce?” It was all Lindsey could manage.

  “So happy to meet you,” he grinned, retracting his hand awkwardly and placing both hands on his hips. “Pam is so proud of you. You’re all she’s talked about for weeks.”

  “Weeks?”

  Pam sighed. “Go sit down, Bruce,” she said, “I’ll be back soon.” She took Lindsey by both arms and pulled her close into a long, forceful hug. Lindsey felt the scratch of the corset against her and tried to pull away, but Pam reeled her back in, pulling her close.

  “Mom, seriously, this hug is way too long.”

  “Well, alright,” Pam pulled away, but didn’t let go of Lindsey’s arms. “Let’s get to it, then. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  Lindsey frowned. “I…no. I’m not okay, Mom. Every thing’s ruined and…and…,” she wiped her eyes. “What happened to my basement?”

  “Well, look,” Pam shrugged. “You’ve moved on, honey, and so have I.”

  Lindsey looked around. She could barely remember what the basement looked like before. “But…it’s only been two days.”

  “True, but…well, honey…I’ve been waiting a while.”

  Lindsey sniffed. “Whadya mean?”

  “Well, sweetheart, when your dad left, you were my number one priority. And I love you, don’t get me wrong, I just…it’s time to do me.”

  “Do you?” Lindsey said, peering over her shoulder at Bruce, who waved at her from the sofa. “Ewww, Mom. Gross.”

  “Ha-ha,” Pam said. “You listen now, you can do anything you
want. You don’t need to be stuck in some dingy basement with your mom forever. It’s time. Whatever’s happening, you go put on your big-girl panties and deal with it.”

  Lindsey looked down at the thong her mother wore. “Wow,” she said flatly. “You’re going to lecture me about panty size? That’s funny.”

  “She’s got you there, Pam!” Bruce called out from the sofa, uninvited.

  Lindsey scanned the room. “I’m mortified, truly,” she said, frowning. “And where did you even get all of this stuff?”

  “Amazon!” yelled Bruce. “And Vicky’s!” his eyes softened. “Isn’t Pam a beauty?”

  Lindsey watched as her mom’s face bloomed into a smile. She bent her head and threw Bruce a wink. “You just wait, lover, I’ll be with you in two shakes.” To emphasize her words, she gyrated her hips.

  “Woo-hoo!” yelled Bruce.

  “Oh, my God,” Lindsey pulled her hand over her face. “I’m in a nightmare. This is officially a nightmare.”

  Pam pulled Lindsey into another hug. “Listen, honey,” she said gently in Lindsey’s ear. “I’m not dead. And neither are you. Go live your life.”

  Panic surged through Lindsey like a wave of cold water. Go live her life? What life? Her dream of a college degree, and now, her only safe place in the world, were both gone. The emptiness of her options engulfed her. Her mom was talking but Lindsey couldn’t understand the words. “Huh?” she muttered.

  A buzzing rattled her spine. She didn’t know if she should ask her mom if she’d lost a sex-toy, or take herself to the emergency room. The buzz radiated up one leg. As if from a distance, Lindsey realized it was her cell phone buzzing from inside her pocket. As she pulled it out, she saw a text from Zach Wheeler illuminating the screen.

  “I expect you in the lab at 9am. The Project continues. Don’t be late.”

  Lindsey blinked and read the text three more times. She felt a surge of electricity radiate through her chest. It felt like panic and lust, and something else. She mumbled something to her mom as she ran up the stairs and out to her car without stopping. She sped back toward Boston, and back toward Zach as fast as her car would take her.

  Chapter 10: Zach

  Zach turned the final lock on the server room door and made his way back into his office, his heart racing so fast he couldn’t sit down. He looked down at his phone again. Had she received his text? He clenched the still dark screen in his fist and threw himself onto his bed to run through his strategy one more time. He had reconfigured the server. Changed all his passwords. All of everyone’s passwords. He did a sensitive data transfer. He changed his personal security protocols. Even Lindsey couldn’t get through…he hoped.

  Pushing himself up onto one arm, he looked out across the lab. It was deserted, as usual, on a Sunday afternoon, and the stark, empty terminals bounced with screen savers, their choppy light creating patterns across the cold, linoleum floor. Far across the room blinked a single green light, expectantly waiting for Lindsey’s arrival.

  Zach frowned and jumped up, pushing up his already pushed up sleeves, then grabbed an empty cart and rolled it down to Lindsey’s cube. His fingers plucked all of her equipment from its tethers and loaded it onto the cart in a pile, then pushed it all back toward his office. Just outside his window sat an empty cube. She had been set up there this morning, but earlier, he decided he wanted her as far from him as possible. But, on second thought, if she was closer, he could keep an eye on her. He wanted her close. Very, very close. And he knew he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her, no matter where she was sitting.

  As he plugged in her monitor, a pale blue light bathed the corners of the cube, reminding Zach of the soft sheen of Lindsey’s pale skin in the moonlight. He imagined her sitting here, her brown eyes looking up at him, her skin glowing, her breasts bare like they had been in his hands and beneath the tender caress of his tongue. ‘I can’t believe this is happening’, she had whispered. He looked out again at where she would be sitting Monday morning and felt his limbs tingle. Shake it off, Wheeler, he chided himself. Focus. She can’t be trusted.

  Zach got up and walked back to his own desk, forcing himself to focus on something else. He dialed his brother for the third time that day. The call went straight to voice mail, as usual. Zach tapped both hands against the desk, then swiped his mouse, lighting up his monitors. On one, he typed into the U.S. Marshall server and found Sam’s system. It would be so easy to get the information he wanted. He tapped his fingers against the mouse and debated with himself. The end never justified the means. Hacking was tantamount to stealing, but, he needed information. And, if Sam had just picked up the phone, he would have done a data search for Zach anyway, right? Then breaking into his brother’s database didn’t really count as hacking…right?

  Zach cursed at himself then plunged ahead. He created a duster to cover his trail and applied a decoding program to Sam’s system. The screen began to whir as firewalls dropped and his brother’s password was decoded. On a second screen, he pulled up the university's current donor list, and on a third monitor, pictures of the President’s Tea he’d found in the school’s on-line paper. He circled the faces of the donors and compared them to the guests. None of them matched. If he could just find out who these new donors were and who they were working for, he’d feel a lot better about the dean’s sudden demand for a demo program.

  His system blinked as the activity on monitor one spun to a stop. Access Denied, a pop-up read. He tried again. Access Denied: network alert: port scan attack is logged.

  His teeth ground together. “Dammit, Sam,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought you never listened to me.” Zach recognized the alert; he had created the program that delivered it. Sam had finally gotten around to protecting his system. Zach could dig more, undo the program with a virus and install a trojan, but that really would be hacking. He hit shut down all and watched as all his monitors popped and went black.

  In the sudden darkness of his office, he looked down at his phone. Still no response from Lindsey. He listened in the shadows at the distant chirping of his servers, drumming unevenly like the beating of his heart. He looked out again at her empty cube. Tomorrow he would be faced with her, all of his attraction and fear pooling into the small space between their two desks.

  To assuage his anxiety, he hit a button and his office was awash with light as all his monitors lit up, then filled with social media sites of all kinds. On one keyboard he entered code, then /LindseyMonahan/ then search. Still nothing. Lindsey had absolutely no social media presence. There were no pictures, no feeds, no blogs, no tweets, no posts, no info. She was a ghost, just like him.

  He tapped at a desktop file and opened her university application for the tenth time. She had filled out only the required fields, nothing more. Scrolling down to the very bottom of the last page, he saw one piece of information he had never noticed before. There was one name listed under references: Kate Piper. His heart leaped.

  Zach opened up his social media program again and searched for Kate Piper. Multiple files jumped forward, arranged in tiles that ran across all five screens. Kate Piper: PR expert, Crisis Manager and Partner at KinCo Industries. Zach typed ‘show images’, and a slew of photos flooded the screen. A dazzling brunette smiled from the pictures, many next to a handsome man. She was dipping in his arms, he was pushing back a tendril of her hair, adoringly. Then, in the background of one, Zach found what he was looking for. There, her small frame almost hidden in a crowd, was Lindsey. He cut around her, cropped the image and enlarged it. Even through the distortion of the pixels her eyes and perfect heart-shaped face seemed to look directly at him. A smile lingered on her lips as if she had just been laughing, or as if she was going to whisper through the photo and tell him something. He drew in a breath. He hadn’t imagined it—she was as beautiful as he remembered.

  Zach reached out to touch her face, then snapped his hand back. “Don’t be a fool,” he told himself out loud. “Separate. You need her talent. You
don’t need her.” He squeezed his eyes shut and fell back in the chair, the words I do need her running like a contrary loop through his mind.

  His phone suddenly vibrated and jumped across the surface of his desk. He lunged forward and snatched it up.

  “I’ll be there,” read a text from Lindsey.

  Zach’s heart raced as he read the text again, when another popped up. “And I’m sorry,” it read.

  Zach clenched the phone and looked again at her photo. Maybe she was just a wonderful girl he met in a bar―she just happened to be one of the world’s best coders. The two things didn’t have to be mutually exclusive, right? He felt all the muscles in his body tense in hope that that was true, but then felt something snap deep in his chest. He had just put his life’s work at risk by inviting a world-class hacker into his sanctuary. He prayed this wasn’t a mistake, then swallowed hard and willed himself to bury his desire.

  Chapter 11: Lindsey

  Students zoomed passed Lindsey as she stepped to the side to check her map, once again. She frowned as the direction went vertical and then horizontal, then landed definitively with a street view and a pin. One minute to your destination, it read. Her mouth went dry as her eyes followed the curving path ahead, over the yellowing of the trees and into the sky above where she saw the looming stone turrets of building 313. This was it.

  As the trees cleared she saw two giant wooden doors above a wide, deep set of stairs, on which students lounged happily in the sun. She maneuvered through the bodies and up the steps toward the entrance, trying to calm the pulse ringing in her ears. As she stepped into the cool air of the foyer, she found a black directory that hung against the far wall. She read it, then turned right, where the golden wooden corridor gave way to a stark, industrial hallway. At the end, hidden over an adjacent door, was a small sign that read “Data Science Lab.”

  “You can do this, Lindsey, you can do this.” She chanted to herself. “Your diploma is on the other side. Zach is on the other side.” She gripped the cold handle of the door. “You can do this,” she told herself again, and with a final deep breath, pushed the door open.