I Heart Geeks (14 page)

Mira tried to fight the blush that loved frequenting her cheeks. “Don’t you have a husband?”

“Doesn’t make me blind.”

“He seems to get along well with Lisa,” Mira said as another swell of laughter reached them. It wasn’t all that surprising really. Of the three women, Lisa probably had the most in common with him, simply by virtue of their career choices. Kelsey was an English lit. teacher, and Mira was far from a brainiac, especially when it came to STEM subjects.

“He didn’t come here for Lisa,” Kelsey pointed out kindly.

“No, he came here because he doesn’t know anyone else in town. The spazzy geek two doors down was his only option.” She pulled out a box of cookies in case someone wanted dessert. They hadn’t even gotten started on making the things they needed for the store.

“Oh, come now. He probably saw a beautiful girl he wanted to get to know better. Who,” Kelsey said pointedly when Mira was about to speak, “is passionate about something. That’s not a bad thing.”

“Maybe.” There wasn’t much use arguing with Kelsey. “And then he found Lisa, the smart, athletic, gorgeous blonde who’s managed to talk to him about something other than Joss Whedon.”

Kelsey’s hand landed on hers. “He seemed to like
Doctor Horrible
.”

“Well, who doesn’t,” Mira teased.

“Okay, fair enough. But I’m telling you, you shouldn’t give up just like that. Lisa’d back off if she knew you liked him.”

“I don’t,” Mira protested. “Sure, he’s good looking, but I don’t even know him. If he and Lisa want to get together, more power to them. I have my hands full with this party, anyway.” Not that she’d mind having her hands full with some
one
instead of something.

Kelsey’s lips twisted to the side as she shot Mira her disbelieving mom look. A second later she scooped up the cookies and headed back to the living room. Mira exhaled, pasted on a fresh smile, and followed.

“So what’s with the box?” Jordan asked as she settled back on one of her overstuffed chairs.

Mira was distracted for a moment by the impact of his gaze.

“A vampire-slaying kit,” Lisa told him.

“If we ever get around to making one,” Mira joked, then mentally kicked herself. There was a ton of work to do, but it wasn’t like she wanted him to leave. Though she didn’t exactly want to do all of the work on her own after everyone had gone, either.

“What does that entail?” Jordan asked.

“Wooden stakes, an axe, some holy water.” Lisa managed to make even that list sound flirty. She’d tried giving Mira some tips once on a night out, but that had been almost more disastrous than Mira’s own awkwardness.

“A cross, of course,” Kelsey added.

“Garlic?” Jordan’s eyebrows curved almost perfectly over his glasses.

“Not in the Buffy-verse,” Mira said apologetically.

“You guys are going to make all that?”

“That’s the plan,” Kelsey confirmed, shifting to leadership mode. “Actually, we should really get started.”

“Oh, well I should get out of your guys’ way,” Jordan said. “I mean, I’d be happy to help, but I’m not all that crafty.”

Kelsey squinted, pretending to size him up. “I bet you could handle making buttons, while we do the hard stuff.”

The three of them shared a laugh, already enviably comfortable around each other. Mira shook herself mentally and pushed out of her chair. “Right, sorry. Let me find us some scissors.”

Jordan had to admit, the night had gone better than he’d thought it would. The food had been great, Mira’s friends were funny, and they were all really creative. They’d made buttons, the slaying kit, a couple unique tee shirts, and materials for challenges they had planned, all in a few hours.

Mira herself was intelligent and nice, when she was talking to anyone but him. Maybe she hadn’t appreciated him barging in on their night. Or, maybe she was just shy. He hoped it was the latter. She did apologize a lot, but that was kind of cute.

Point was, he’d had fun tonight. It would be good to have some people to hang out with while he got his bearings, even if this didn’t turn into any lasting friendships. At the very least, it looked like he had plans for the twenty-third.

Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
had been unexpected and insightful. He’d even finally learned what an antihero was, which would make his high school English teachers happy. Plus, parts of the special feature with fan auditions for the Evil League of Evil had been hilarious. So maybe they were on to something, with this Whedon guy. He might even check out some of those other shows on Netflix.

“Can I help you find your next read?” Mira asked, walking toward the man standing by their “Blind Date with a Book” display.

He let the wrapped book in his hands drop back to the table. “Just figured I’d try your”—he turned toward her—“matchmaking services.”

“Oh hi, Jordan.” She brightened her professional smile despite the light flutter in her stomach.

His head tilted when he recognized her. “Mira. Is this your store?”

“Yep.” So much for the possibility that he’d come to see her. “This is it. Are you looking for a mysterious read?”

“I guess, yeah.” He glanced back at the display. “I was just passing by, saw your sign. Thought it could be a fairly failsafe option for a date.”

“I doubt you have problems finding dates.”
There you go, Mira. Be even more of a spaz.
“A good book, now, that can be hard to find.”

“Well, maybe you could help me pick something out.” His lips tugged up at the corners, feeding that ridiculous flutter.

“Of course. What are you in the mood for?”

“You know, I’m not sure.”

“Okay, well, we have some staff recommendations.” She pulled the ring of colorful, handwritten flash cards toward them. “Or, you could take a risk, pick a book at random from one of these. All of the descriptions are honest, so it won’t say thriller and really be a romance or anything like that.”

He nodded, flipping absently through the flash cards. Mira’s eyes lingered on the blunt lines of his jaw, picking out the hint of a dimple. And man, did those glasses look good on him!

“Hey, Mira?”

She blinked herself off the entirely inappropriate train of thought to face Charlie, her newest hire. “What’s up?”

“Could you help me with this return?” Charlie glanced over her shoulder toward an all-too-familiar older woman, who had a tendency to treat the store like her own private library.

“I’ll be right there.” Mira looked back to Jordan. “Excuse me a sec? I’m sorry.”

“Of course, no problem.” He flashed her a perfectly polite, and entirely indifferent, smile.

Mira turned away, puffing her breath out in the few steps toward the cash register, before pulling her lips into a fresh smile for Mrs. Castini. “How can I help you today?” she asked, starting their weekly dance.

Not long after, the store’s bell chimed, and she caught a glimpse of Jordan leaving, book—and date—free.

The bookstore’s bell chimed cheerfully as Jordan stepped back inside, but Mira wasn’t out front. He chose one end of the store and strode up the aisle toward the back. It wouldn’t take much time to see if she was elsewhere in the store, and worst-case scenario he’d take the pastries he’d gotten, pick a mystery “blind date” book, and head home, even if that did mean spending the afternoon alone.

Happily, he found her a few aisles over, beside a trolley piled with books. He debated for half a second before making his way to her side. “Hey.”

Her head snapped toward him. “Hey, uh, hi. Sorry, I thought you’d left.”

He held up the white paper bag. “Thought I might have a better chance of convincing you to take a break if I came with pastries.”

Her lips parted before she exhaled with a small smile. “That’s, wow, that’s very nice of you. But I really can’t take a break right now, I’m sorry.”

Either she was genuinely disappointed or Jordan was about to cross the line to creepiness, but he really didn’t want to go back to his empty apartment. “Well, maybe I could help?” Offering had worked last time, at least.

“You want to help me stock shelves?”

“Sure. It’s authors’ last names, right? I think I remember the alphabet.”

Mira chuckled, looking down as her cheeks turned pink. “Okay, um, thanks.” She took another book and turned toward the shelf.

Jordan smiled, setting the pastries on an unoccupied part of the trolley, and picked up a couple books, then turned them to see the spines.

“So did you always want to be an engineer?” Mira asked a few seconds later. “Were you on the robotics team in high school and all that?”

“Well, no, actually, not at all.”

“Oh.” She glanced briefly up at him before picking up more books and moving a few steps away. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s just, I mostly played sports in high school. That kept me pretty busy, and I didn’t think about the long-term much. Then a friend got me to go to a robotics competition, one time senior year, and I just realized how cool it was. I mean, building your own robot that actually functions, that can do anything, you know? So I decided I wanted to do that, and that meant studying engineering. And well, here I am now, a full-fledged geek.”

“I don’t think you can say that if you’re not part of at least three fandoms.” She shot him a smile over her shoulder.

“Oh yeah? Must have missed that rule in my copy of the geek handbook.”

“Sorry, but it’s true. Three fandoms or at least one obsession with an alternate reality RPG.”

The snappy witticism distracted him momentarily from the books, and he could outright feel his cheeks tighten into a grin. “So what about you? What brought you into bookstore management?”

Mira stepped around him in the aisle to reach for more books. He wasn’t actually doing that great a job helping her, but she didn’t seem to mind. Jordan picked up another book anyway.

“I was never really good at anything besides reading, so I’ve worked in bookstores and libraries for pretty much every job I ever had, except one generally disastrous attempt at being an office assistant. Plus, someone has to help keep indie bookstores alive.”

“Alive? What do you mean?”

Mira stopped working to actually look at him. “You know, with independent bookstores closing, going bankrupt, all over the country, actually probably the world. I mean, if titans like Borders can’t stay open, where does that leave us?” She turned away, refocusing on her work, but Jordan just watched her talk. “Between digital publishing, online distributors, and publishers wanting to make more money while readers want to pay less, we’re all barely hanging on. Even when we can offer the same prices as, say, Amazon, the fact that they offer free shipping means most people will order a book directly to their door rather than going to the effort of coming into a store. It’s why we now stock certain movies, and comic books, of course. The simple pleasure of holding a well-crafted, beautifully bound book is considered by most a thing of the past.” She turned back to him then seemed to remember that she was supposed to be shy. “Sorry.”

“You apologize a lot.”

She broke eye contact, looking down yet again. “Yeah, sorry.”

“No, that’s—you don’t have to apologize.” He grabbed another book to break the awkwardness. “I didn’t know that, about bookstores being in such dire straits. I wonder if there’s a gimmick of some kind, something that would draw people here without seeming like a marketing scheme.”

“You mean, besides hosting parties like next weekend’s, and basically stalking authors online to convince them to do events here, or at the very least come sign some books?”

It was amazing, the way she switched between timidity and self-assurance. “Right, of course. I meant…something different, I guess.” And how her confidence made him tongue-tied.

“I’m happy to hear ideas if you have some,” she said earnestly, her smile rounding her cheeks.

“Maybe a mascot?”

“Like…a talking book?”

“Huh, no. Maybe not. That could get a little creepy.” A reading robot could be cool, though, and a fun project too.

Mira laughed outright, picking up the final few books on the cart. “This is why they pay me the exceedingly mediocre bucks.”

“Well.” Jordan grabbed the bag he’d brought, silently mulling over the feasibility of his idea. “Even more reason for you to take a break.”

“Man, I love your eyes,” Lisa murmured staring at Mira, checking her handiwork.

“They’re too far apart,” Mira said, trying not to move.

Lisa sat back, letting Mira see more than her friend’s nose. “You’re kidding, right? They’re slightly wide-set, but that’s part of makes you so gorgeous. And it’s totally in.”

“Whatever you say.” Mira had no illusions about her looks. Her face was too round, her eyes too far apart, her hair way too unmanageable, and she was crazy short, and a bit plump. It wasn’t a great combination. “So, are you done trying to work a miracle on me? There’s only so much even you can do,” Mira teased. Lisa was amazing with makeup, especially when it came to cosplay.

“Come here,” she said, leaning forward and picking up another brush. A couple swipes over Mira’s eyebrows, and she was officially proclaimed done.

“Great, thank you.” Mira looked in the mirror, a tiny, secret part of her hoping she’d been transformed into someone pretty. She blinked away the disappointment. “You’re amazing, as you know. But we’re running low on time, and I still have to figure out what to do with my hair.”

In the reflection, Lisa’s eyebrows lowered. “I thought you already did it.”

Mira sighed. “I don’t know about leaving it down.”

“Well, you should, because it looks fabulous. And Inara wears hers like that all the time. With your dress on, you’ll look perfect.”

“You think so?” Mira twisted toward the outfit on her bed. She’d splurged recently to have the dress made, exactly like one of Inara’s. It was sleeveless and a shimmery purple, with a golden accent spilling from a slit in the front and a deep vee neckline that showcased her bust, which was arguably Mira’s best physical asset. The coolest part of the dress was the cut of the skirt, which hid the jiggly part of her stomach, even with the golden belt. A golden cuff and a matching necklace-and-earring set completed the look.