Somewhere in the Middle (3 page)

Roone stuck out his right hand. Eli grinned and shook it like a little
man, another
aww
moment.

Click!

Roone's face made it into the shot this time.

"Did you come to hear the Hercules story, too?" I asked, highly aware
of Eli's curious gaze, which ping-ponged between Roone and me.

Roone grinned. "Would've if I'd known there was going to be one. I'm
actually here with my dad." He pointed to a man hunched over the keyboard
of one of the public computers. I saw that Mr. Thorsen was as large as
Roone, with hair shorter but the same color.

Shorter... My gaze riveted to Roone. "You got a haircut," I blurted
before I could stop myself. No wonder I hadn't recognized him from the
back.

He self-consciously touched his hair, which was still a bit shaggy on
top but definitely shorter on the back and sides. "Yeah. I realized that
most of the guys at school go for a shorter...um...style." Roone cleared his
throat and glanced away.

Was he telling me he wanted to look like every other male I knew? I
wanted to laugh. That definitely wasn't going to happen.

"It's nice," I told him. I had to say something. I mean, I'd brought
it up.

"Thanks."

Eli tugged on the bottom of Roone's hoodie. "Will you be Everly's
boyfriend?"

I gasped.
"Eli!"
Where the hell had that come from?

"Daddy said you should get one."

I'd never been so embarrassed. "Geez, bro. He was kidding."

"No he wasn't."

I managed a weak laugh as I caught Roone's eye. "Sorry about that. My
dad tries to micromanage my love life." Desperate to get away, I put my
hand on Eli's shoulder and propelled him to the left, only to stop when I
got a better look at Roone's father. "Is he hunting and pecking?"

"Huh?"

I saw his confusion. "Looks like your dad is using two fingers to
type. That's called 'hunting and pecking.'" Where was this guy from,
outer space?

"Oh. Yeah. He's pretty slow."

I could tell Roone was filing away the idiom for future use. "Why
don't you help him?"

"I don't know how to, either."

My chin hit my chest. Alabama schools offered keyboarding in fourth
grade. "Then you should definitely take it next semester. Trust me when I
say it's a skill you'll use forever."

Roone nodded as if I'd given him life and death advice.

Noting that his dad was working from handwritten pages, I impulsively
walked over to him. "Hi."

He glanced up. Eyes as hazel as Roone's narrowed slightly when he
spotted his son just behind me.

"I'm Everly Sayers, a friend of Roone."

"Bo Thorsen." Mr. Thorsen and Roone exchanged a glance I couldn't
figure out, as in the dad didn't look happy, which made his grown son
squirm a little.

Baffled, I quickly moved things along. "Sorry to interrupt you, but I
noticed that you're struggling a little with the keyboard. Do you want me
to type that for you?"

That got his attention. "You know how?"

"Of course. Er, may I look?" I reached for his handwritten notes, not
actually picking up the papers until he nodded permission. Then I quickly
counted and glanced over them, noting that the ones toward the back
contained a lot of physics formulas he'd never be able to type on the
library's generic keyboard. "Physics. And way over my head." I laughed at
the irony. "Too bad Roone didn't get your science gene."

Thorsen frowned slightly. His gaze nailed his son again. Said son
cleared his throat and rubbed out a skid mark on the linoleum floor with
the toe of his Nike.

"Luckily, I can help you both." Baffled by their dynamic, I glanced
from Roone to his father. "So what do you think? I'm quick and accurate,
I work really cheap, and I have a special keyboard with all the symbols
you'll need on it."

"How cheap?"

"Is free cheap enough?"

"But I insist on paying you."

Hating that he was turning a friendly gesture into a job, I stalled.
"Why don't we work that out later?"

Thorsen thought for a second and then gave me a smile. "All right. Now
this is the only copy--"

"Then we should definitely make another. The library copier is over
there. It's ten cents a page."

Thorsen looked where I pointed, but didn't seem to see the Xerox
machine that was standing in plain sight. So I walked over to it, his
pages in my hand. Naturally he and Roone followed me. Eli beat them
there.

"Have you ever used this kind of copier before?" I asked.

Thorsen shook his head. "No. We, um, had another one where I worked
last."

"I know all about it," said Eli, stepping up. "The pages go here, and
you have to put them so you can't see the writing. Can I get the key?" He
jumped from one foot to the other in his eagerness to get the key used to
make multiple copies, with pay-up when finished.

I waited until he returned with it before I laid the pages face down
in the feeder, punched in the required settings, and hit the
GO
button. The machine began spitting out copies. Roone and his dad avidly
watched.

"You pay that librarian." I nodded toward the librarian who'd been
monitoring us from afar. "Do you have a deadline for these?" I scooped
the originals out of the tray and handed them to him. Then I got the
copies for myself.

"You should take these," Thorsen said, swapping his originals for my
copies. "They're clearer. I'm trying to get on at NASA in Huntsville, but
they have hundreds of applicants every day. Roone read on the internet
that they're always interested in new theories. Since I have one, I'm
going to present it in the form of a white paper that just might land me
a job."

"That is so cool!" I said, truly meaning it. I loved all things
cosmic. Just then, Dayna walked up with her boisterous brothers right
behind, their chosen books in hand. I stole a second to wish I had their
perpetual tans instead of my ivory skin and generous sprinkling of
freckles.

"Hi, Roone." Dayna's bright-eyed gaze flicked from him to me just as
Eli's had.

"Hi."

I could tell she was jumping to conclusions in spite of my earlier
disclaimers and quickly introduced them all. "This is Roone's dad. He's
here to use the computer." As is usually the case when strangers first
meet, things got quiet quick and felt a little strained. I tried to keep
conversation flowing. "I'm going to type a paper for him." When no one
said anything, I turned to Eli and said, "Did you get all the books you
wanted besides the car one?"

He nodded.

"Then we should check them out and go."

"Let me give you my phone number." Thorsen took a pen from his shirt
pocket and scribbled on the page I handed over. "Call me with any
questions. This is pretty technical stuff, and confidential, too."

"Got it. See you next week, Roone?"

"Sure."

Taking Eli's hand, I headed to the desk. Dayna and her brothers
followed us. A glance over my shoulder revealed that she was smirking. I
rolled my eyes, guessing I'd be in for another inquisition once we got
outside.

And boy was I.

"What a coincidence that the guy who walked you to your car on Friday
just happens to be at the library on Saturday."

"Isn't it?" I hurried Eli down the steps and toward the parking
lot.

"Did you notice how he never took his eyes off you?"

"I did not."

"I think you're right about the size thing. I'm guessing Roone's not
nearly as big as his clothes. So the question becomes why is he wearing
them?"

"No idea."

"His dad seemed nice enough. Do you think he likes you?"

"I just volunteered to type his thirty-page white paper. Of course he
likes me."

"I meant as a girl his son might be interested in."

I braked and whirled on her. "Why are you so hung up on me and
Roone?"

"Because no matter what you say, the two of you have clicked."

"So? People click every day."

"Oh yeah? Name one other guy at McAlister that you've clicked
with."

I couldn't help but get defensive. I'd never known Dayna to be so
persistent. "Sid Wharton."

"He's gay."

"So?"

"So he doesn't count. I'm talking about guys who are dateable." She
waited. "You can't do it, can you?"

I huffed my exasperation with Dayna's line of questioning and turned
my back on her. "Goodbye, guys. Eli and I are headed to Barnes and Noble
now."

She caught my shoulder. "Don't leave mad. I'm just seeing something
that I haven't seen before, and I don't want you to ignore it just
because you think you'll do better on a college campus. Not all high
school boys are jerks, Everly."

"I know that."

"So you'll keep an open mind about Roone?"

"Of course. You know I try to keep an open mind about everything."

Dayna couldn't deny that. "Excellent."

I couldn't stop thinking about Roone for the rest of Saturday. So much
of him intrigued me--his relationship with his dad, his quirky use of the
English language, and, yes, his size. Was he so self-conscious about his
body that he felt compelled to hide it under clothing that would've fit
Shrek? If so, I felt bad for him and slightly motivated to prove that
body shape didn't matter if the person was healthy. And he was definitely
healthy. Golden tan skin. Shiny hair. Pearly white teeth.

Oh God. Why was I obsessing over Roone? Was Dayna right? Had I really
and truly clicked with him? More important, had he clicked with me? So
far, the jury was out on that one. He hadn't treated me any differently
than he'd treated her. As for Eli asking him to be my boyfriend, I'd been
so embarrassed I hadn't checked out his reaction. Shock? Dismay? Both? I
definitely needed to talk to Dad about saying things my little brother
might repeat.

But I didn't do it that day. Instead, I began typing Bo Thorsen's
paper, which read like a doctoral dissertation or something. Technical.
Oddly worded, at times. Yet very interesting...what I understood of it,
anyway. His subject was wormholes or, as he called them, cosmic
bridges.

According to Thorsen, there were three planes of existence in the
universe very close together, but invisible to each other. The oldest was
called Første. The other two were Andre and Tredje, names that had no
significance to me. If any of these planes bumped each other, the result
was a big bang like the one that had resulted in Earth and set its
present evolutionary path. That was huge, of course, since the two planes
involved would pretty much be starting over from scratch. Luckily that
didn't happen very often, as in there were usually trillions of years
between these bumps.

But if two planes merely brushed each other, what he called a
kobling
or "link" was briefly formed between them. That passage
wasn't much use to either world since it appeared randomly and then took
mega amounts of negative matter to keep it open. Thorsen theorized that a
powerful psychic could not only predict when brushes would occur, but
hold the
kobling
open long enough to enable travel between planes.
The stuff of science fiction? Yeah, but interesting. So interesting. And
though most of what he'd written was admittedly way over my head, I
actually knew when one of his first formulas was missing a basic physics
symbol.

So I called him. He answered first ring. We briefly chit-chatted about
nothing. I somehow found the nerve to question the formula. He agreed I
should throw in the missing symbol. Was he surprised I'd picked up on the
problem? Definitely. I heard it in his voice. Was I glad I'd impressed
him with my knowledge of physics? Yes. Why? I could only hope it wasn't
because I was trying to impress the father of a guy I kinda, sorta, maybe
liked...
ish
.

The rest of the weekend flew by. Cory came in, which meant the males
outnumbered the females. The Sayers house immediately took on a masculine
persona that tomboy me liked. Funny, smart, and totally into astronomy
since the age of ten, when he attended space camp, Cory made our family
complete.

Since the weather was mild, he helped me cook out on Sunday, which
gave me an opportunity to ask a question that had been scorching my brain
since Saturday. But he asked me one before we ever got out the kitchen
door.

"I'm thinking about moving back home. Do you think Mom and Dad would
mind?"

"Of course not. They both miss you horribly. But why? I thought you
liked apartment life."

"I did at first, but now it's getting old. Roger has started smoking
and since the lease is in his name, I really can't complain about the
toxic fumes. Plus he's got a new girlfriend I can't stand. Her honking
laugh, alone, is enough to turn me off women forever, and she wears
enough perfume to pollute New York City."

Poor Cory.

"There are so many students driving to and from campus, I figure it'll
be a breeze to find a carpool that works. And moving back will save the
'rents a load of cash that I'd rather they spent on something worthwhile
like a new Celestron." He glanced at the tripod mounted onto our deck,
which had been there for years. The telescope we often attached to it was
pretty old, and we both knew a younger model would be much more
powerful.

"You'll be sharing a room with Eli."

"There is that." He playfully elbowed me. "Unless you want to let him
sleep with you."

"I love you, but it ain't happening." I eyed the tray of burgers that
Cory was about to grill. "Do you think college guys are more mature than
high school guys?"

"Well, they're older." He began scraping the remains of a former
barbecue from the cooking grid.

"But not necessarily wiser?"

"'Fraid not, Everloo." That's what he always called me.

"Dang."

My reaction made him give me his full attention. "Why?"