Talk Nerdy to Me (2 page)

"I
see. Well, come to think of it, I wouldn't mind a game of pool."

He
smiled with relief. "Great! We can ride over on my motorcycle. I always
carry an extra helmet."

"Thanks,
but I'll meet you there. It's an easy walk. So you go ahead. I'll be there in
twenty minutes."

He
wished she'd come out right now, but she probably wanted to fix her face. Women
always wanted to fix their face, and that had to go double for models. After an
explosion it would be even more critical. "Okay, but if you're not there
in thirty minutes, a truck full of paramedics will arrive on your
doorstep."

She
laughed. "All right, all right, I've got it!" Then she stuck her hand
through the opening again. "Eve Dupree."

Eve. That was it.
He
took off his glove, reached down, and shook her hand. "Charlie
Shepherd." She had a soft hand, a firm grip, and warm skin. Not everyone
had a really good handshake, the kind that made you think the person was worth
knowing. Eve did. Shaking hands through the bottom of a garage door without
being able to see her felt sort of kinky and sexy, like making love with masks
on. Not that he'd ever done that.

"Well,
Charlie Shepherd, I'll see you in twenty minutes at the Rack and Balls."

"But not a minute
later."

"I'll
be there." She pulled her hand back inside. "And bring your A
game."

"You
bet." Charlie's A game was pretty good. He didn't expect to need to
perform at that level, but you never knew. A fashion model who exploded stuff
in her garage might be closer to a James Bond heroine than he thought. She
might be a pool shark.

As
Charlie stood up and walked back to his bike, Eve scooted toward the opening in
the garage door. Turning on her side, she pushed her prescription goggles tight
against her face so she could get a good look at the guy she'd just agreed to
play pool with, a guy with an electrical engineering degree. She couldn't
decide which was more exciting, the chance to play pool or the chance to play
pool with an electrical engineer.

Much
as she hated to admit it, she could really use an engineer right now. But she
had to evaluate this guy's character before saying anything about her project.
She wasn't spilling the beans to just anybody who happened along.

Then she caught her first
glimpse of Charlie's jeans-covered ass framed in black motorcycle chaps and
character became a secondary issue. Her reaction to seeing that great butt was
a shock. Ever since she'd run screaming from Lyle's proposal in September, her
libido had been in time-out.

No
longer, apparently. Maybe Charlie's white-knight rescue attempt had started the
sap flowing through her dormant sexual equipment. Whatever the cause, she found
herself getting turned on by those excellent buns. Then there was the added
attraction of his black leather jacket. Nothing made a guy's shoulders look
broader or his hips leaner than a black motorcycle jacket. She'd fallen for the
Fonz as a kid and had never gotten over that crush.

But
Fonzie hadn't been much of a student. Charlie was a brainy guy decked out in a
Fonzie outfit. Eve couldn't imagine a better combination than that.
Fortunately, Charlie didn't have Fonzie hair, either. Brown and un-gelled, it
looked thick enough for a girl to bury her fingers in and wavy enough to make
that experience sensual.

She
wondered if he had a girlfriend. Not likely. A guy who had a girlfriend
wouldn't be so quick to invite a woman to play pool with him.

Okay,
so she was interested. Still, she might have a hard time flirting with him
unless she told him what she was inventing in her garage. He obviously wanted
to know about that.

When
he turned around so he could sling one of his long legs over his macho
motorcycle, she pushed back from the door. No point in taking a chance that
he'd glance down and see her face wedged in the opening as she checked him out.
Besides, she needed to get going if she expected to make herself presentable so
she could arrive at the Rack and Balls before Charlie sent the paramedics to
her door.

Getting
to her feet, she assessed the damage in the garage. The rotary engine on her
workbench was trashed, as was a chunk of the bench itself. The veggie fuel was
way more volatile than she'd expected. Maybe she'd added too much broccoli.

She'd
hit the deck fast enough to avoid flying metal, but she'd singed her hair. That
wouldn't be popular when she went into the city tomorrow to shoot the
toothpaste ad, but they could airbrush the frizzy parts. She probably should
have waited to test her newest version of the fuel, but now that she had space
for her experiments, she hated putting things off. Thanks to her impatience,
she'd have to buy a new engine.

At
least the hovercraft was okay. She glanced at the purple disc-shaped object
that took up more than half the garage. Thank goodness no metal fragments had
lodged in the fiberglass hull of the hovercraft. The day she'd found the flying
saucer mock-up on eBay had been a glorious one, indeed. She'd never get that
lucky again, and she loved how her purple paint job made the hovercraft stand
out.

But
there would be no more progress on the project tonight, so she might as well
find out how Charlie Shepherd handled a cue stick and whether he had a decent
screw shot. You could tell a lot about a guy from the way he played pool.

Charlie
fought the urge to wait outside the Rack and Balls for Eve to show up. But
hanging around outside the tavern wouldn't get her there any faster and it
would make him look dorky. So he pushed open the heavy oak door and walked in.
If she didn't arrive in fifteen minutes, he'd retrace his path to her house, in
case she'd collapsed on the way.

The
interior of the Rack and Balls smelled comfortingly familiar—a combination of
cedar smoke from the log-burning fireplace in the corner, the aroma of clam
chowder on the stove in the back, and the acrid scent of beer on tap at the
bar.

A
huge set of elk antlers hung on the wall behind the bar. On one side a basketball
autographed by Michael Jordan hung suspended by a piece of basketball netting,
and on the other side hung a football signed by every member of Middlesex
High's 1992 state championship team.

The antlers and sports
memorabilia were one socially acceptable explanation for the tavern's name. The
pool table that took center stage was another. Either explanation could be
used when kids were around.

But
everyone in town knew that the tavern's owner, Archie Townsend, appreciated
stacked women and good sex, so he'd most likely named the Rack and Balls with
no thought to sports or pool equipment. A burly guy with a thick black beard,
Archie had tried monogamy and had found it too confining.

He
was behind the bar washing glasses when Charlie walked in. "Hey, Charlie,
how're they hanging?"

"Just
fine, Archie." Charlie took off his jacket and chaps and left them on a
peg by the door before taking a seat on one of the vinyl-cushioned bar stools.

"Sam Adams?"

"Not yet,
thanks."

Archie
gazed at him with the kind of scrutiny that time and mutual affection allowed.
"Expecting somebody?" "Uh ... yeah."

"A
woman, judging from the look in your eye." Archie flipped his towel over
his shoulder and leaned against the scarred oak bar. "Not Mariah, I
hope."

"No."
Charlie noticed he felt no twinge of regret when Mariah was mentioned. It had
taken a few months, but he was definitely over her.

"That's good. She
wasn't right for you."

Charlie
didn't think so, either, mostly because Mariah had labeled his proposed
relocation to Nevada a stupid idea. "Maybe I wasn't right for her. Did you
ever think of it that way, Archie?"

"Well,
no, on account of any woman would be lucky to hook up with you." Archie
used the towel to polish a section of the bar. "If I had a daughter, I'd
advise her to chase your ass all the way to Hoover Dam."

Charlie
laughed. "Thanks for the vote of confidence." Good old Archie. He'd
come to mean even more to Charlie now that his dad was gone. Hard to believe
it had been fourteen months since the funeral. Fortunately, his mom had perked
up in the past couple of months. Helping Aunt Myrtle in the bakery was taking
her mind off widowhood.

"You get that
interview set up yet?" Archie asked.

"I
heard from them this morning. I fly out to Vegas a week from next
Wednesday." Thanks to Aunt Myrtle and the bakery, Charlie didn't feel so
guilty about the new job prospect.

"Good."
Archie nodded. "That's good. I was afraid you'd hang around here forever,
thinking you could bring the ML and P into the new millennium."

"I tried."

"God
knows you tried. Those old fossils in charge have shit for brains."

Privately,
Charlie thought so too but he'd never say so out loud. No point in creating bad
feelings. "Ah, you can't blame them. They still think of me as Rose and
Henry's nerdy little kid, the one who flooded the cafeteria with his science
experiment. Nobody's a hero in his own hometown."

"Like
I said, shit for brains. Anyway, their loss." "I might not get the
job."

"You'll get it." Archie flipped the towel
back over his shoulder. "So who's the lucky lady who's causing you to
delay your Sam Adams purchase?"

Charlie glanced at his watch. Three minutes to go.
"This isn't exactly a date."

"She's meeting you
here, right?"

"Right."

"Then
voila,
it's a date. Two people happen to run into each other
somewhere, that's not a date. Two people
agree
to run into each other somewhere at
a stated time, then it's a date. And from the way you keep looking at your
watch, you absolutely have a stated time."

"Archie, that's faulty logic. Two people could
have a business meeting at a stated time. That's not a date."

"Is this a business
meeting?"

"Not
exactly." Charlie had already decided not to tell anybody about the
explosion, provided Eve showed up and he didn't have to call 911.

Archie smiled.
"Then it's a date."

"Not exactly."

Archie blew out a breath. "You sound like a
rental car commercial. Are you going to tell me who it is or what?"
"Eve Dupree."

"Eve Dupree." Archie squinted as if
trying to place the name. "Isn't she the New York model who moved here last
fall?"

"Yeah. So now you
can see why it's not exactly a date." "Why can I see that?"

"Hey, I'm an engineering geek. You don't catch
successful New York models going out with—"

"That's what you
say. She just walked in the door."

Adrenaline
shot through Charlie's system, but he turned the bar stool seat slowly because
he wanted to play this cool. He was aware of Archie watching the proceedings
with great delight. Naturally, the seat creaked
like the hinges in a horror flick.

"I'm
here," she said. "Right on time."

"That's—"
He had to stop and clear his throat. "That's good." He'd prepared
himself to be knocked out by her glamorous beauty. He'd figured on makeup and
some designer outfit.

Instead
she stood there in a bulky green jacket and fuzzy white earmuffs. Her mop of
brown wavy hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she had on a pair of
large-framed glasses. If she had on makeup, he couldn't see any evidence of it.
She might be wearing a little bit of lipstick.

She'd
obviously taken no pains with her appearance, so why couldn't he stop looking
at her? Critically speaking, her nose was a little too prominent and her
forehead a tad bit high. But something kept his attention riveted on her face.

It was her mouth, he decided at last. Her mouth
was
wide
and her lips full in a way that made him think of kissing and . . . yeah, to be
completely honest, oral sex.

But
surely other women had great mouths and he hadn't been this fixated. Maybe it
was her eyes. Even partly obscured by the lenses of her glasses, they were very
blue. And besides being beautiful, they shone with a kind of creative
intelligence that he found extremely seductive. No telling what was going on
in her head, and he loved that. Predictable women drove him nuts. Give him a
creative woman anytime.