Nerd Girl (5 page)

He scoffed. “Well, I don’t know her, and I only just met you, so I can’t completely judge here, but you don’t appear to be that reserved. Structured and conservative, I believe. You sort of have to be to work at MS. I think maybe you’re not giving yourself a fair shot against your sister. Maybe she’s just more outgoing than you are, so men might feel more comfortable approaching her, because you’re definitely pretty. You’re a knockout, actually.” He grinned broadly and made a point of looking me up and down with a goofy leer on his face. “The fact that you don’t seem to know this is what’s really sweet and refreshing about you.”

I gulped.
Wow
. I was momentarily speechless. My cheeks flushed and I sputtered a thank you. His words were flattering, and in an effort to hide my embarrassment, I felt the need to explain further. “You’re right about Anna. We actually chose to go to two different colleges and I think it was the best thing for me. We were terrified to split up, but it forced me to come out of my shell somewhat and it gave me some room to build my own confidence and become more independent. Not that I wasn’t before, but I recognized that I needed to find my own identity, without always falling into the familiar territory of being Anna’s twin sister. She really dominated our world more often than not, but I really am okay with it. I know it sounds disingenuous, but it’s the truth. She’s my twin sister. It’s just who we are. It’s not like we ever tried to hurt one another. We just truly accept each other as we are.”

Nodding, Ryan pondered my explanation. “Thanks for explaining that. I didn’t mean to judge. Like I said, I don’t know Anna. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t sell yourself so short,” he said unapologetically.

I was glad the room was dimly lit, because I felt the flush build on my face as I took in his compliment. I didn’t know how to respond to what he had just said. In an effort to divert the attention back to him, I asked, “So, I told you who stood me up tonight; what about you? Who stood you up?”

He paused before answering. “A good friend.”

I noticed he shifted in his seat. I decided not to pry further, seeing his obvious discomfort. “Do you have any siblings?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah, I have a sister a couple years younger than me. She’s a Product Manager at Amazon on the Kindle product.” He sounded proud of her.

“Are you guys close?” It was the same question he had asked me.

He nodded. “My mom, my sister, and I are a pretty tight. My mom still lives in Magnolia, which is where I grew up.” Ryan paused and I thought I saw a hint of a frown. “My Dad died a while back from a heart attack. He was a healthy man, or so we thought; it was totally a fluke heart attack. He just collapsed one day when he was jogging down the street, completely unexpectedly. He died on his way to the hospital.” He paused and appeared to be examining my expression, checking whether or not to continue on with what was obviously a heavy topic. He must’ve seen encouragement on my face, as he continued. “Anyways, he was a partner from a local law firm. My mom stayed home with us while we were growing up. When my dad died, my mom was a total mess. She didn’t even know how to write a check, let alone handle any of the finances. She had always just let him take care of everything. I was twenty-five years old at the time. Lauren, my sister, was a senior in college, and I was working down in San Francisco for an investment firm. My mom was a wreck. My parents had been together for thirty years. I moved back to Seattle to help them out. I was lucky that my company let me transfer.”

I thought of a man a few years younger than me taking on the responsibility of the world and keeping his family sane around him. My heart went out to him. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to comfort him, but I opted to hold my glass of wine between both of my hands instead.

Shaking his head, he chuckled to himself. “I can’t believe I just told you all that.”

“I don’t mind,” I replied honestly. “But wow, I’m really sorry about your dad and how sudden it all was. It must have been so hard for all of you.”

“Yeah, you can’t ever prepare for anything like that to happen.” He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“So you moved back home and became the man of the house, so to speak. That was really unselfish of you.” I was impressed with how much commitment he had to his family.

“My mom and my sister needed me. There was nothing more to it than that,” he said matter-of-factly. He didn’t need any kudos for his actions. I liked that. He did what he thought was right and didn’t expect anything in return. He was a selfless man, too. “What about you? Do you have family in the area, other than your sister?”

“I’m a local. Yet another thing we seem to have in common,” I said, smiling. “You already know about my sister. She’s also my best friend. We grew up in Bellevue. My parents are retired now. Growing up, my mom worked on and off as a real estate agent. She still does, actually. My father was a computer systems engineer at Boeing. We have a great relationship. It’s kind of boring, really.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. You have what most people strive for in a family. Sounds like a pretty happy childhood to me. You seemed to have turned out okay,” he teased.

I smirked. “So did you,” I reminded him.

The food arrived and I immediately helped myself to some fries.

“Yeah, sure, help yourself to my fries,” he said with exaggerated annoyance.

I laughed and then sheepishly put a fry in my mouth. “Thank you.” I giggled and blushed at my own brazen move. I couldn’t believe I just shared his food without asking him. I would never normally do something like that unless I’ve known a friend for years.

As we ate our meals, he asked if I liked my roasted chicken. I told him it was my favorite, then cut off a bite and fed it to him with my fork. He took it without hesitation.

“Mmm … pretty good.”

I became very aware that we were acting like an old couple, rather than having met just an hour ago. “So tell me more about your time in San Francisco,” I encouraged him.

“It was great, while it lasted. I mean, I was young and single for most of that time. The world was my oyster. The whole dot com craze was taking off back then. Everyone was making money. If you were in investment banking, the market was out of control. People were getting rich off the craziest dot com fads and ideas. It was a total thrill to be in the middle of it all. I don’t know if we’ll ever see anything like that again.”

“Did you miss it when you left?”

“Yeah, I did. But, I had other priorities that needed to be taken care of,” he said thoughtfully. “After a while, my mom got better and starting adjusting to a new life without my dad. My sister graduated. I had always wanted to go to grad school and get an MBA, so I applied to the Stanford business program. I got in, fortunately, and then found myself back in the Silicon Valley.”

“But you moved back to Seattle again after that?” I was really curious about Ryan’s life story. I kept peppering him with questions and he didn’t seem to mind. I found everything about him so interesting. He was both thoughtful and introspective about his answers.

“There were a lot of jobs in the Bay Area, but I really felt that I needed to be here for my mom. She missed my dad so much and I could tell it was hard to have me away again. MS offered me a Product Management job out of grad school, so I took it. I’ve been at MS ever since.”

“What group did you say you were in again?” I asked him.

“I’m in the US Sub in marketing. What about you?”

“I’m in CMG.”

He nodded recognizing the name of my new department, the Corporate Marketing Group, but didn’t inquire any further. We continued to talk comfortably through our dinner. I only told him half the truth about why I’d decided to change jobs. I couldn’t exactly tell him I took it to forget about my ex-boyfriend. He wanted to hear more about Anna and me and what growing up was like as twins. He seemed genuinely interested in hearing everything I volunteered to tell him about our unique relationship. He asked a lot of questions about my childhood and college years. We even discussed politics, which tended to be a subject I’d normally avoid when I didn’t know someone very well.

Through our conversation, I learned that he was well-read, well-informed on current world events, and had some strong but very respectful opinions about the state of our economy and the election. Fortunately, we voted along the same party lines. I bet he was on the debate team in high school. I loved listening to him talk and found his intelligence incredibly sexy. I found the stubble on his chin sexy, too, and my gaze lingered on it every time he brought his hand up to rub his chin. He did this regularly whenever I was speaking and it was his turn to listen.

His own stories told me a lot about the type of man he was. He put his family first, he was unselfish and responsible, he was extremely intelligent and ambitious, but he also seemed to keep his personal life separate from his professional life. I loved that even though we both worked at MS, we opted not to talk much about it. I was honored by the amount of personal information that he chose to reveal to me and was surprised at my own willingness to open up about my family and myself.

I found it so easy to talk to him, to be with him. Any shyness or awkwardness had worn off soon after we sat down for dinner. Questions and comments kept slipping out of my mouth before I realized what I’d said—there just didn’t seem to be a filter here with him. Maybe he felt or sensed the same thing. For someone I’d only just met, it was hard to believe how comfortable our conversation was and how fluidly we moved from one topic to another.

Then there was the obvious attraction between the two of us. I had felt it since the moment we shook hands earlier in the evening and I felt it the whole time we were talking. It was like there was this electrical current vacillating and humming between us. Through the night, there were some short lulls between our conversations, but they weren’t uncomfortable and there wasn’t an awkward need to fill the quiet space.

During those short lulls, we gave each other shy smiles, like we had each had some sort of secret that we didn’t want to share just yet. I had never experienced such comfort and ease with a man on a first date before. Not that this was a first date or anything. In fact, I’m not really sure what this was tonight. This evening was slowly turning into an unexpected and special gift. My confidence and ego had been shattered over these last few months and it felt so good to have a man look at me appreciatively and talk to me about something other than work. I was flattered by his genuine interest in my intellect, my stories, and just me.

I sensed one area of reservation on both our parts, though. I really didn’t want to talk about relationships with him; the last thing I wanted to bring up was Andrew. I purposely stayed away from any discussion topic that strayed in that territory and he seemed to do the same. I just didn’t feel ready to go there yet. Though I had my reasons for not discussing these sensitive subjects, I found myself very curious and wanting to understand more about his reasons for keeping silent on the same matter. Who was the friend that had cancelled on him tonight, anyway? The way he reacted, I guessed it was a female friend. Maybe I would never know.

A shared bottle of wine later, the restaurant was getting ready to close. We were the last people there on a Thursday night; it was nearly midnight and I could tell the wait staff was getting a little impatient with us. We had long since paid our bill, or rather, Ryan had paid our bill. He used the whole “I hit you with my car” defense on me, so I let him buy me dinner and all my drinks.

“Where did you park?” he asked casually.

“Just down the street in front of the bookstore.” I suddenly felt shy and awkward again.

“I’ll walk you there,” he said.

“You don’t have to.” Upper Queen Anne was a very safe and well-lit neighborhood; I wasn’t the least bit worried about walking to my car alone.

“I want to,” he insisted.

When we got up to leave the restaurant, he steered me towards the door with his hand lightly placed on my lower back. Instant goosebumps. As we walked down the sidewalk to my car, there was a chill in the midnight air. My blazer was in my car, so I folded my arms over my chest and shivered. Without hesitating, Ryan draped one arm around me and rubbed my arm under his hand to generate some warmth. Oddly, it felt completely natural; his hand on my arm felt warm and comforting and I almost felt like I was melting into him. I no longer felt chilled, but heated from my increasing pulse. As he brought my body in towards his side, I noticed his muscles were lean and strong. I snuggled into him as we walked. He smelled like soap and a visual of a mountain fresh spring ran through my mind, just like a corny commercial. I’m glad he was holding me tight, because I was starting to feel a little breathless and lightheaded. I’m not sure if it was the wine or his touch and proximity.

I pressed the unlock button with my key and the car beeped twice. He released me and then stood only a few inches from me. I turned to him and said quietly, “Thank you, Ryan. This was a really unexpected and lovely evening.”

“I had a really great time tonight with you, too. It was a very pleasant surprise,” he said almost to himself.

I smiled shyly and gazed into his eyes, which now looked dark midnight blue.

“I’m so glad I bumped into you.”

I giggled. I couldn’t help it.

He chuckled then, too, as he caught on to the double meaning. “Okay, that was lame. No pun intended,” he added, smiling down at me.

Just like the first time I met him, time seemed to stop. The movie paused. He looked at my lips and I involuntarily licked them in anticipation, my eyes locked on his. I could feel his sweet breath on my cheek. I wanted him to kiss me. So badly. His lips looked soft and inviting, but he was hesitating; thinking. I wished I could read his mind because I could see the wheels turning in his head. His eyes were on mine, his brows slightly furrowed; he looked so intense and deep in thought.

He finally broke eye contact and looked down. He placed his hands gently on each of my shoulders and bent down to gently kiss my forehead, then tucked his hands into his front jean pockets and took a step back. Whatever battle he’d been fighting in his head had been decided.