Nerd Girl (12 page)

“Yeah, I agree,” Kyle added. “She’s pretty hardcore. I mean, I know people are different outside of work and all, but I have a hard time visualizing her going out and having fun.” He grimaced. “The truth is, she sort of intimidates me,” he admitted.

“Really?” Mia asked, surprised. “I think she’s actually quite personable. Maybe you just have to get to know her; get past the professional facade.”

Kyle looked unconvinced. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Well, I didn’t join her team to become her best friend,” I added. “She seems really good at what she does. She’s well-respected and I think I can learn a lot from her.”

“Fair enough,” said Kyle.

Matt pounded his beer bottle down on the table, startling me. “Enough!” he decreed. “No more Megasoft talk. It is officially the weekend.” Matt worked for a startup company in Pioneer Square. I’m sure he frequently got sick of all the MS talk.

“Here, here!” Kyle nodded and Mia and I repeated the chorus, clinking our drinks together in agreement.

Over the next hour, I learned that Kyle was a music buff. He went to Coachella this past spring with Matt and some of their other buddies. I always wanted to go, so I asked more questions, curious about their trip. I listened attentively as he told stories about the great music, the sweltering heat that week, and some of the crazy people that always seemed to attend those sorts of large events. I watched his boyish smile and admired his obvious passion for the music. Kyle played both the guitar and piano, but never took it farther than performing at parties in college.

I almost wished I had gotten to know Kyle first, before I met Ryan; he was that really cool guy that a lot of girls could totally fall in love with. He was tall with a lean, athletic body. His hair was light brown, almost auburn, and fell slightly over his warm, soulful green eyes. He was attractive, intelligent, funny, and charismatic. I don’t think Kyle had any idea, though, and that just made him more adorable. He was humble and a little shy, too. I knew he was from Indiana and moved out here for school; anyone could tell he never lost his wholesome Midwestern values. At work, I’d seen him carry his laptop in a messenger bag over his head and one shoulder. He was a jeans, Converse, and vintage rock band t-shirt sort of guy, and his t-shirts always had cool themes on them or showed his love of music. Today his shirt featured The Pixies.

Any girl would be so lucky to have his attentions focused on them. I should be so lucky. I racked my brain for someone I could think of that I could set him up with. What was wrong with me? Normally, I would be all over it. Kyle and I were the same age and we seemed to have a lot in common. I found his boyish charm endearing. Not to mention, he was incredibly easy on the eyes. Right now, he looked downright hot with his aviator sunglasses and mussed hair. I could so easily have fallen for Kyle. But I knew exactly what was preventing me from going there.

Argh! How was I ever going to get Ryan out of my head? And exactly when did he reach into my heart? I knew that I couldn’t stay passive about him anymore. Once we both recuperated from today’s surprising event, I wondered who would make the first move.

I had never had much courage about these sorts of things. I always let the guy take the initiative. I knew Anna would tell me to just go for it and not let him get away this time. She would tell me to listen and act on my intuition because usually it was spot on. Right now, my intuition told me that there was something worth pursuing with Ryan. I had been given another opportunity to find out what he might mean to me. I didn’t want to have any more regrets.

“Anyone want to go out somewhere else?” Kyle asked, interrupting my internal train of thought. “It’s still early.” He smiled, trying to coax one or all of us to move onto another location.

Matt and Mia declined and said they were going to turn in.

He looked to me with a hopeful expression. “What about you, Julia?”

“I’ve had too much to drink,” I groaned. “It’s been a long week. Can I take a rain check?” I asked apologetically.

“Man, you guys are wimps,” he said and shook his head in jest.

I pulled out my phone to dial a taxi. I was going to have to leave my car here tonight. Their wine servings were generous and three glasses was too much for me. As I started dialing the phone, Kyle took it away from me.

“Julia, don’t do that,” he said, turning my phone off. “I’ll drive you home.”

“Are you sure?” I asked hesitantly. I wasn’t sure where he lived and I didn’t want to be an inconvenience. I was also a little nervous to sit in his car with him alone.

“Yeah, totally, it’s on the way,” he insisted. “You live in Queen Anne, right? I’m in Capital Hill.”

“Okay,” I shrugged my shoulders and agreed to go with him.

I followed him to his car and we said our goodbyes to Matt and Mia. Mia looked pleased that Kyle was being a gentleman and willing to drive me home. Kyle drove a relatively new Toyota Forerunner. For some reason, this car suited him perfectly. It was comfortable yet rugged, strong-lined, dependable, and sporty. Probably just like him. Conversation in the car was comfortable. I was worried for no reason. Kyle was just such an easy person to be with.

He pulled up to the curb in front of my condo and turned to face me. “I really meant what I said at the restaurant. If you need help with the scorecard, just let me know.” His eyes looked hopeful again. “I don’t mind giving up a day over the weekend to help you.”

I looked at him and smiled thoughtfully. He just bravely showed me his cards. I paused before responding to what I found to be a delicate situation. I really liked Kyle, but I knew that we could never be more than just friends. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I also wanted to be careful about not leading him on. I needed to work with him in my new job and any misunderstandings could make things awkward.

Finally, I said, “Thanks, Kyle. I really appreciate the ride. I’ll let you know if I need some help come Monday, but I think I’ll be okay,” I said quietly. Less was probably better here. Holding his gaze, I gave him an apologetic smile.

He looked down and then returned a sad smile back, knowing that he was just delicately rebuffed. “Okay. Goodbye, Julia. See you soon.”

I stumbled into my condo a little before midnight. I kicked off my shoes and drank a glass of water, wondering how I was going to get back my car tomorrow. I could call Anna and tell her all about today’s events, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be grilled by her. I plopped down onto my sofa and pulled my laptop out of my backpack to look up bus schedules.

Before I searched bus schedules, I decided to check my email. A small part of me wondered or hoped that Ryan may have sent me something. I scanned my inbox, but saw nothing from him. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed.

Hmm, I wondered what would come up if I did a search on him. I went to Bing and typed in “Ryan McGraw+Megasoft.”

There was a long list of search results.
Wow.
The first item was his public Facebook profile. It was a close-up of his face, wearing sunglasses, smiling that glorious dimpled grin of his. As I clicked further into his profile, it showed that we had three mutual friends. I looked to confirm that they were all from MS. I clicked his friends list. I saw several more MS names, including Catherine’s. That was no surprise, since they did work together in the past. There were a bunch of people from the Bay Area. His education status showed UW and Stanford. His last update was over a year ago. Obviously, he didn’t spend much time on Facebook.

I was sort of glad to see he didn’t use Facebook much. There’s a distinction, in my opinion, of those who used Facebook too much and those who used it just as a means of staying in touch. I never understood those who used it like therapy and posted something on it daily or multiple times a day. They tried to think of the wittiest remark that would get them the most “likes” as possible. Not that there was anything wrong with that, because I was curious enough to see what they had going on in their life and sometimes the stuff that was posted was really interesting. However, it gets really annoying when someone tells me that they have laundry to do or they just cleaned their garage. I don’t really need to know those details of their life. They might as well tell me that they just clipped their toenails or picked a wedgie out of their ass, for as much value as their comments were worth.

I digress. I liked that Ryan was private from this aspect and he didn’t feel the need to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. He didn’t need the daily affirmation that someone “liked” him.

I looked at his LinkedIn profile next. It was a public profile, but when I clicked on it, it revealed only some basic information about his position and career at MS. I guessed people like him, in executive positions, weren’t facing a shortage of any job offers. I supposed there was very little need for him to maintain a profile on LinkedIn. I, on the other hand, had updated mine a month ago.

The search results also returned several stories from various technology trade magazines and online blog sites. There were a ton of these and his name was referenced in several of them. I clicked on a YouTube link. Jackpot. His gorgeous blue eyes were staring back at me in several short videos. In one clip, he was discussing the cloud revolution and how it would change how we used and marketed software. There was a town hall meeting forum for something, and another one looked like a speech at a conference of some sort. I watched one of the videos where he discussed the cloud. He had the same conversational tone that he used when he delivered his speech at the All Hands meeting earlier today. He looked focused and relaxed, but commanding and confident. I watched his lips move and his Adam’s apple bob up and down and thought about how nice it would be to run my tongue over it.

Oh God. I’ve got it bad. I’ve turned into a stalker. I was completely mesmerized by the wealth of information available on the web. It was like a dessert buffet. I just wanted to taste everything in front of me. I checked our corporate intranet next. If this much information was available about him on the web, I was certain to find just as much information in our internal corporate websites.

I searched on our main MS internal homepage
.
Again, there were a bunch of search results for his various speeches, interviews, presentations and awards. I clicked on what looked to be an org chart. No surprises there. He was obviously at partner level status. Only the senior and most elite executives got partner level status at MS. From the little that I knew, partner level executives had a different compensation model and earned higher salaries and bonuses as a result …
much
higher salaries.

I was blown away by how much Ryan had done at such a young age. I wondered if MS was where he saw his future or if it was just a stepping stone to something else? Regardless, his mind was an intellectual asset that would be in demand no matter what he decided to do.

If we were to ever get involved, I pondered the HR implications. As my coworkers had discussed the other day, there were a lot of people who met, dated, and married someone they had met at MS. However, I also knew that an official rule got broken when two people within the same reporting structure got involved. Ryan and I were in different organizations and I wasn’t in his line of command. If we were to date, HR wouldn’t be able to do anything. But that didn’t mean it was okay, did it?

It was common knowledge that the minions of MS, like me, just didn’t associate or date the executive staff. If people were ever to find out, the gossip mill would be out of control and it would be potentially detrimental to both of our careers. He obviously had more to lose than me. Is that why he held back that night at Betty’s?

Thinking back to that night, I had trouble rationalizing the two Ryans I had witnessed. At Betty’s, he was laid back, easy to talk to, personable, humble, adorable and sexy. He was someone I could totally see myself going out with. In both these videos and the meeting this afternoon, he was a commanding person with a strong executive presence. He seemed untouchable and in a completely different league than me; the image of corporate confidence and ambition. I wasn’t sure I could relate to this person. Would someone like this ever be interested in someone like me? We were on two different playing fields of the universe. What would Mia, Kyle, or Vivek say if they ever found out about us? That assumed there was an
us
to even explore.

I found myself wondering who the real Ryan McGraw was when I noticed my IM icon blinking in the bottom task bar of my screen. My heart skipped a beat and I took a deep breath. I clicked on it.

It was Ryan.