Talk Nerdy to Me (28 page)

"Other
people?" His mother sounded insulted. "We're not 'other people.' Didn't
we just take an oath of silence on a bag of raisins?"

"Sorry."
Charlie looked sheepish. "I figured Eve had already thought of that angle
and discarded it."

"I
didn't think of it," Eve said. "Sometimes you miss the most obvious
things." Maybe she didn't use cooking oil, but other people did. She
should have considered it, but she'd allowed her single-track mind to take over
on this one.

"We
would be happy to give you our used cooking oil," Rose said. "If you
want it, that is."

"I
definitely do. I have to admit I've been struggling with my veggie fuel. I
still want to make it work, but used cooking oil might speed up the development
phase, which might mean I could test the hovercraft that much sooner."

"Then let
us send you home with a supply," Myrtle said. "And you should both
take off right now, so you can get to work."

Rose glanced
at her. "Myrtle, it's almost two in the morning. You can't expect them to
work at this late hour."

"Ah." Myrtle waved a
dismissive hand. "At their age, they can stay up all night."

Eve bit her hp
to keep from laughing. She hoped, at least in Charlie's case, that was true.

Chapter
Sixteen

Rick
's
cell phone woke him from a dream about purple spaceships and little green men.
Sitting up in the bedroom he'd had as a kid, he turned
on
the
Power Rangers lamp
on
the
nightstand and grabbed his phone. It wasn
't
a
programmed ring,
so it
could be anybody, even
Eunice trying
to
coax him back for another
round.

Then
he checked the number and immediately answered. God, when
did
the man sleep?

"I've
done some checking," Peterson said
in
his
soft, smooth voice. "My sources tell me that Myrtle Bannister could hock
everything she owns and it wouldn
't
raise
enough
to
pay your debt
to
me."

Rick
's
vocal
cords tightened. "I know." His voice was
too
high,
too
clearly
telegraphing fear. He cleared his throat. "I could see that immediately.
That's why I have a different plan."

"Oh, really? Then
maybe you
'd
better tell me about
it."

He
didn
't
want
to
be
specific. A man like Peterson couldn't be trusted with the names
of
innocent
people like Eve Dupree. So he
described
the plan in general terms.

"You're making this
up, aren't you?" Peterson said.

"No,
I swear I'm not!" Rick began to sweat. When he rubbed his hand over his
chest, green paint came off.

"Then
give me a name. Who's building this crazy thing?"

Reluctantly, Rick told him.

"Sounds
very unlikely, Mr. Bannister. Very unlikely. Can you prove any of this to
me?"

"I'll
get pictures," Rick said. He'd need to do that anyway. He just hadn't
wanted to carry his camera along the first time, when he'd had to break down
the back door. But now he had a key.

"Perhaps I'll go with
you while you do that."

"Go
with me?" Rick struggled to breathe. "But you're in California!"

"Coincidentally,
I had some business in New York. Look out the window, Mr. Bannister."

Rick
stumbled to the window of his second-floor bedroom. In the street below idled
a black Lincoln Towncar. Rick felt as if he might pass out.

"Ready
to take a little ride to Ms. Dupree's house?" Peterson said, his voice
gentle.

"You
don't need to go," Rick said as spots danced before his eyes.
"Really. I'm sure you could use some rest. I'll take care of it."

"I'm
not so sure you will. I'm losing my faith in you, Mr. Bannister. And as you
know, that can have serious consequences." Then Peterson laughed softly.
"I'd advise you to be down here in five minutes." Then he hung up.

Charlie
drove with exquisite care on the way back to Eve's house. Eve held on to him
with one arm while she used the other to balance a small covered trash can full
of cooking oil on her knee. It was a precarious arrangement, and for the first time
since owning the bike Charlie questioned whether a car might not be a smarter
option.

For
all these years the bike had served as a reminder of the freedom he would have
someday. He'd ridden in every kind of weather and never minded a bit. But it
wasn't the safest mode of transportation for Eve, especially when she was
trying to hold on to a couple of gallons of cooking oil.

He'd
had no choice tonight, though. He couldn't very well switch vehicles and ask
his mother and Aunt Myrtle to take his bike. Besides, Manny and Kyle needed a
ride back to his aunt's house.

Charlie
wondered if the cooking oil had changed any of Eve's plans for the rest of the
night. She'd been handed a new option to fool with, and she might want to begin
experimenting right away. Someone with a genius mentality like Eve's could
very well get locked onto an idea and not allow herself to be distracted by
something like, say, sex.

He
was eager to find out how the cooking oil worked, too. But not so eager that
he'd sacrifice the original plan, the leather chaps plan. He was no genius, but
for the moment he seemed to have a one-track mind, too. With luck he and Eve
weren't chugging along on entirely different tracks.

Once
they got to her place and unloaded the cooking oil, he'd tell her that he was
going to take a couple of vacation days from work. Maybe if she knew that
she'd have him around to help the rest of this week, she wouldn't feel so
desperate to begin working on the new fuel option right this minute. He hoped
she'd look at it that way, because in his current condition he didn't know how
well he'd be able to concentrate on the hovercraft.

Slowing
the bike at her driveway, he made a gentle arc as he glided in and parked
beside her Civic Hybrid. After turning off the engine, he held the bike steady
while Eve climbed off and set the can of cooking oil on the icy driveway.

She
reached in her pocket, pulled out her keys, and beeped open the passenger door
of her car. "Let's put your bike in the garage." She leaned in and
activated the garage door opener clipped to the sun visor.

"Uh
... okay." He watched the door rumble upward and estimated the available
room in the garage. "But won't my bike be in the way?"

She
turned back to him, looking extremely cute in his spare helmet with the clear
face guard flipped up. "In the way of what?"

"Well,
we'll need the space when we work on the ..." His heart began to pound.
"We're not going to work on the hovercraft, are we?"

She
took off the helmet and then untied the red bandanna she'd been wearing at the
bakery. She tucked the bandanna in her coat pocket. "That depends. What
would you rather do?"

Obviously
she had no clue as to the degree of lust that permeated his entire body.
"I—"

"I
mean, you can leave your bike out here if you want." She stood there
looking uncertain. "I just thought, considering that some people in this
neighborhood get up early, that you should—"

"You
bet." Charlie started up the bike and drove into the garage so fast he
almost knocked over the can of cooking oil on his way by. As he dismounted, the
garage door thumped down behind him. Anal retentive geek that he was, he wasted
a couple of seconds wondering if she'd remembered to lock her car and bring
the cooking oil inside.

But
then he turned around and there she was, walking toward him with that runway
stride, unzipping her coat on the way. So the cooking oil would freeze and the
car would be stolen. Who the hell cared? Laying his helmet on the seat of his
bike, he reached for her. "Let me help with that."

With a lazy smile, she
moved sideways, out of reach. "You handle yours and I'll handle
mine." She opened the kitchen door and walked inside. "I'll meet you
in the bedroom. Oh, and bring your chaps."

Charlie
gulped. When he'd fantasized this scene, he hadn't imagined how he'd get from
point A, him fully dressed, to point B, walking into her bedroom wearing only
his chaps and an erection. He couldn't do that any more than he could pose nude
for an art class.

But
he wanted to get to the part where he had sex with Eve while wearing his chaps.
She'd fired up his imagination with the idea, and he wasn't about to wimp out
when the opportunity was presented. He just had to work out how he'd accomplish
this maneuver with some class.

By
now she had time to walk all the way through her house, possibly stripping as
she went. The thought of that sent a jolt of electricity through him,
propelling him through the kitchen doorway. He locked the door behind him.

Once
he was inside he could hear the music she'd chosen for round two. No smoky
jazz this time. Instead she'd decided on something a little faster, with a
syncopated beat.

Charlie
reacted to that beat by getting hard. Well, now, maybe he could sashay into her
bedroom wearing the chaps, after all. Then again, maybe not. Every time he
pictured doing it he started to sweat. Besides, she'd asked him to
bring
his chaps. She hadn't said he should
wear
his chaps.

In
that case, how should he arrive? She was the expert at making an entrance. It
might not have occurred to her that everyone wasn't used to parading around in
a costume.

Most
people put on clothes and took off clothes as a practical consideration. It
wasn't considered performance art.

Oy.
Maybe he should begin by taking things off and finding out when
he'd hit his comfort level. He could certainly ditch the leather jacket. He
hung it over the back of a kitchen chair.

Logically
he'd have to take the chaps off in order to put them on again. Unbuckling them,
he laid them over another kitchen chair. The boots could go, too. He sat in the
chair, moving gingerly because his jeans were getting tighter the longer he
listened to that rhythmic beat.

After pulling off his boots,
he set them side by side on the floor. The socks also could be eliminated. For
sure he wasn't going in there wearing socks. He tacked a sock in each boot.

Then he looked at the scene
he'd created—his jacket hanging neatly on one chair, his chaps on the other,
his boots lined up on the floor and a sock carefully tacked inside.
Unfortunately, none of this indicated a man who made love with his chaps on.
This indicated a man who'd been president of his high school chapter of the
National Honor Society.

But this time he'd overcome
his natural inclinations, damn it! Standing, he wrenched his shirt from the
waistband of his jeans, unbuttoned it and took it off. Instead of draping it
neatly over another chair, he balled it up and threw it in the corner. It landed
on top of the converter and he resisted the urge to move it.

He
would be wild and crazy, by God! His T-shirt sailed into the other corner and
landed on the floor. Now he was getting into the swing of things. With a
flourish he undipped his cell phone from his jeans pocket and lobbed it into
one of his boots. Two points.

Then
he reached for the metal button at the waistband of his jeans. As he was
undoing it, he remembered two things. Once the jeans were gone he was down to
his briefs. Walking into Eve's bedroom wearing only his briefs and a hard-on
was only marginally better than making his entrance in the chaps.