The Geeks and the Socialite

by Allyson Lindt

  He laughed. “I was. My offer stands.”

  “I’d love to.” No. She was supposed to say thanks, but no thanks.

  “But...? I hear your hesitation.” He was good.

  She still felt like she was chasing the white rabbit, but so far it was fun. “But I have plans tonight. Legitimate ones. With a client.” She added quickly, “I’m free tomorrow though.”

  They set a time and a place. “It’s a date. We’ll see you then.”

  It was just a phrase. It didn’t mean anything. That didn’t stop Liz from wondering about the odd but friendly couple. The comment about not getting hung up on monogamy...

  She was having dinner with a couple of possible new friends. There was no reason to let her imagination run rampant.

  Chapter Four

  “And then, when she was seven, she toured the world by herself in a zeppelin she built from broken cereal bowls.” Chloe danced an effective blockade with Stew, side-stepping every time he tried to move around her to follow Liz.

  “Don’t do this, Chloe. She’s real news.”

  She was to Chloe, but it didn’t explain why Stew was interested in her. Not that Chloe cared what the gossip was. “Right? I’ll even give you your BuzzFeed headline—Top Ten Facts You Didn’t Know About Elizabeth Thompson. Subhead—Number Three will make your hamster weep. Guess what Number Three is?”

  He tried to step around her again. “Almost married one of the biggest scammers in Salt Lake City? And didn’t realize it?”

  Whoa. What? No. She wasn’t interested. “Yawn. Number Three is discovering the secret to cold fusion, using a glass of Alka-Seltzer‎ and a Popsicle stick.” There were a lot of things Chloe wondered about the attractive brunette. For instance, was Liz local to where Chloe and Jordan lived? She also wondered things like, did Liz have any desire to hook up with a random couple she bumped into while traveling, who always said they’d open their relationship if they met the right person?

  Stew rubbed his face, as if to chase away irritation. “Do you even know her?”

  “Nope. Never met her before this week.”

  “She’s Elizabeth Thompson.”

  Chloe raised her brows, hoping to convey disdain and disbelief. “I got that much when you called her that.”

  “Heiress to the Thompson Advertising fortune?”

  The thing about being from big, old-money Salt Lake City—real big, even if it wasn’t quite as old—was everyone knew the family names. Chloe wasn’t one of those wealthy elite, but she worked for someone who was, so she was familiar with the family trees as well. Turned out there was a twisted kind of financial incest when it came to keeping wealth with the people who already had it. She was pretty sure Liz’s brother owned Thompson Advertising. “Heiress? You make her sound like royalty. She’s not even running a courtesy suite here. She’s simply wandering through E3 like another of us drones. And have you stopped to consider how common the last name Thompson is?”

  “If you don’t know her, why do you care if I talk to her?” Stew pocketed his phone and leaned against a nearby pillar, arms crossed.

  Chloe wanted a nice, quiet evening. To get back to Jordan and one of the most useful conversations they had in months. She kept the looming exhaustion from her posture. “Maybe she’s my story, and you interrupted. Maybe Jordan’s getting the inside scoop right now, and we’ll have our Top Ten list in place before you walk out of here.”

  “You think you’re funny, but you’re not.”

  “Then it’s probably because I’m human, and she looked like the last person she wanted to talk to was you. Why does she matter, again? I’m not sure I’m getting the real news part of this thing.”

  His expression shifted to a smirk. “She agreed to marry this guy, who was already married to one woman and engaged to three others, and now he’s been arrested and everyone’s talking about them. If I’ve got an actual post about it, imagine the clicks and views I’ll draw.”

  “She did?” Chloe nodded toward the exit Liz and Jordan vanished through moments earlier.

  “Yes.”

  “So, one of the Thompson children, their family princess even, agreed to marry some dude. She’s worth millions. Billions? Do zeroes matter when you get up that high? He says be mine, and she says okay, without ever running a background check on the fucker? It never occurs to her he’s already taken? Her family—her lawyer—let her get away with that?”

  “Exactly.” Stew smiled, looking relieved she understood.

  “And exiled her to L.A. as some kind of cursed punishment?” Chloe patted him on the arm and let condescension spill into her words. “I was wrong. You don’t need my help, making up ludicrous bullet points for your little list. You’ve already got ridiculous and implausible covered. At this rate, why do you even need to talk to her?”

  “But—”

  “Leave her alone.” Chloe wanted this to be over.

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “I can write you into my next game as a love interest.” She hated using that as a threat. Despised that someone thought it was a bad thing—not the being written into the game, but the way she’d do it.

  “No one will recognize it as me.”

  She loved her everyone deserves love stories and that she got to put them in popular media, and Stew had reamed her more than once in his pieces for being too queer in her games’ storylines. “You’ll know. I’ll make him swoon over the hero. Fall at the big guy’s feet. Beg to be loved.”

  “You can’t stop me from emailing her.” His bravado was gone, and his attention darted between Chloe and the exit.

  She raised her brows. “Are you sure about that?” She couldn’t do it, but she’d bet he didn’t know.

  “You suck.” He turned and left, increasing his pace to almost a sprint before he reached the next row of booths.

  When Chloe was certain he was out of sight, she sank into a nearby seat. Witty banter was fine, but she didn’t like twisting the conversation that way. It always felt deceptive instead of fun. At least Liz wasn’t subjected to it, though.

  Why did Chloe’s talk with Stew hit her so hard? That kind of interaction with the media was a huge part of her job, as Head of the Community Department. It wasn’t the conversation that bothered her—the realization snuck up from nowhere. It was that she stayed behind, while Jordan left with Liz. True, it was what they agreed on, and those were almost always the roles they took, but this time was different.

  Next time, he was doing the witty banter, and she was doing the whisking away of the fair maiden. Saving the day. Being the knight in shining armor. Or maybe she wanted to be the one whisked away. Jordan hadn’t rescued her like that since... his fake marriage proposal that never became more, in front of the audience at E3, years ago.

  Her phone chirped with a new message.

  Jordan’s text said. You okay?

  She hesitated with her reply. Almost typed, No. Come save me? She couldn’t bring herself to do it. I’m good. Where are you?

  She followed his directions, and less than a minute later found him in the convention center lobby. The moment he saw her, his smile grew. He closed the distance between them. Before she could say anything, he cradled her cheeks with his palms and kissed her hard. The sudden intensity stole her breath and thoughts. When he nudged her back against the wall and dove his tongue into her mouth, she whimpered. This was... The thought vanished in favor of her focus on his hunger. She dug her fingers into his chest as she pressed her body into his.

  When he broke away, he didn’t let go. “You okay?” His voice was deep and low, his gaze never shifting from her face.

  “Better now.” The kiss left her breathless. The way it used to be. The kind of kiss she thought would forever sink inside her, making her stomach flutter and lighting her nerves on fire. A sensation she hadn’t felt in a while.

  “Good.” He nipped at her bottom lip, then glided up her jaw to her ear, his mouth hot and tempting. “I hated having to leave you back there
.”

  “It’s okay. A tiny flash in time, compared to the whole of life.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Very philosophical of you.” He traced his hands down her arms, to intertwine their fingers. “Your plans for tomorrow night haven’t changed, have they?”

  The shift in subject snagged her floating thoughts, and they started to fall. “As in, my nights are yours? No. My nights are still yours.” They promised each other to make this work. They had to take time away from their jobs and set aside their evenings.

  “Good.” He kissed her nose, and then her lips again. “We have dinner plans.”

  What?

  “With Liz.”

  Disappointment mixed with anxious anticipation crashed around Chloe. “No. We promised.”

  “We promised evenings were for working things out. She’s part of the plan.”

  “No way.” Chloe pulled from his grip. She couldn’t name everything that swirled inside, but confusion and hurt were present. And hope. What the hell was that doing there? “Why?”

  “You said you wanted to experiment. She was the catalyst. She’s free tomorrow. We’ll never see her again.”

  Except apparently Liz was one of Utah’s wealthy elite. Not that Chloe and Jordan spent a lot of time with those people. “I didn’t mean with her.”

  “Why not?”

  Because... Because— “I don’t know.”

  “Okay.” Jordan’s expression shifted to impassive, but sympathy filled his words. “Not her, then. I’ll have the hotel desk send a note up to her room, telling her never mind.”

  And that was that. Was Chloe going to do this every time? Pick fights with Jordan because all they ever did was talk about experimenting, and then back away from any opportunity, terrified of what might go wrong? “I’m nervous; that’s all.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not like there’s any sort of guarantee she’s interested. But if she is, don’t you want to find out?”

  She couldn’t ignore the wild flapping churning her insides. “Yes. Dinner it is.” Please don’t let this be a mistake. Or a disappointment. Or absolutely incredible.

  LIZ STOOD AT THE BACK of the darkened panel room in the convention center, watching the K.M. rep bounce through the launch news about individual-level licenses for their animation studio. Mercy had helped them pull together amazing video to go with the demo, and the audience cheered with each new snippet of information.

  Her phone vibrated, and she pressed Ignore without pulling it from her pocket. She swore, every credit card company on the planet picked today to do a marketing push. Her voicemail and email were full of messages that were probably spam reminding her about the different rewards programs she got with her cards. All things to sift through and delete later.

  “They love you,” she said to Jonathan.

  “We’ve got good marketing behind us.” He leaned against the wall next to her. “Tell Mercy we’ll be back for more.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you have plans tonight?”

  The question knocked loose the wave of uncertainty Liz had tried to ignore since Jordan and Chloe rescued her from that guy, and it tumbled with a thunk into her gut. “I do. I’m sorry.”

  “No worries. You should see the city while you’re here. As long as you don’t bill me for it.” He gave a light laugh as he pushed away from his post to stand in front of her.

  She’d seen L.A. several times in her life. It lost its sparkle after a few visits. “No sightseeing for me. The Rinslet team invited me to dinner.”

  “Really.” His tone fell flat, then a tight smile flitted back in. “Be careful with that group.”

  “Why?”

  “Their thing, marketing-wise, is making a spectacle. Don’t let yourself get sucked into it.”

  Odd thing to be recognized for, but after last night, she wasn’t surprised. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

  “I’ll let you go, so you can beat the rush of top-of-the-hour crowds. See you in the booth tomorrow morning?”

  “I’ll be there.” She shook his hand, then strolled into the hallway. She had to blink a few times, to adjust her eyes to the sudden brightness. As she paused, the full force of nervousness she’d tried to hide from all day rushed back. It didn’t matter how many times she tried to tell herself this was nothing; she couldn’t stop hoping it was more than that.

  The first time Liz married, it was to her high school sweetheart. He and their baby were taken in the same accident that killed her parents, almost a decade ago. The memory clenched and cramped her already churning insides. She forced herself to focus on being in the now, rather than fall into the pain. After their deaths, she withdrew for years, throwing herself into the college education she skipped out on by marrying so young. Volunteering. Anything that distracted her. Thanks to her inheritance, she had a lot of options.

  Then George came along. Suave, sweet, sympathetic. He got her. At least, she thought he did. What he understood was how to tug heart strings and make her believe true love trumped all, including background checks and prenuptial agreements. Untangling his lies led her back to some she’d told herself. For instance, that her attraction to women was a passing phase. She still liked men, too, though. As she told Chloe the night before, she wasn’t choosing.

  Liz realized she stood in the middle of the flow of traffic, people parting around her with grumbles. She boxed up her rambling thoughts. Dinner wasn’t until seven. Three hours. She could only spend so much of that getting ready, even if she dragged it out.

  Crap. What was she supposed to wear? She’d brought plenty of suits, all pressed, button-down, and polished cotton. Possibly for the first time in her life, she wondered if dressing down made more sense. Not that she owned anything casual, let alone brought it with her. Did she care that much about impressing these people? Of course she did. It mattered enough that she kept dwelling on how appropriate it was to ask them about their relationship. We don’t get hung up on things like monogamy. Jordan’s words teased her since last night, pressing into her with memories of kissing Chloe.

  Shopping. She had enough time for that. Would they judge her for not owning any trendy clothes? No, that was totally high school. Which happened to be the last time she dated seriously besides George. She went out with a couple of guys in college, but didn’t have any interest in more with them.

  She used the GPS in her rental car to point her to the nearest place with a Hot Topic. She had no idea how such a small shop took up so much time, but she spent the next hour sifting through racks and stacks of shirts with vintage game characters, references she was pleasantly surprised to get, and jeans not meant for someone with hips as wide as hers.

  New purchases in hand and distraction gone, her mind drifted back to tonight. She handed over her credit card when the cashier gave her a total.

  The girl swiped it once and frowned. Then she swiped the card again. “I’m sorry. The card’s been declined.”

  “Oh. Right. I’m sorry about that.” Liz tried to look casual as she fished out her debit card instead. Yesterday morning rushed back—she never followed up on why the bakery refused her payment.

  “This one too.” The girl handed it back, tone sliding toward annoyed.

  Shit. Liz had the corporate card, but she wasn’t charging that. What else did she have? She sifted through her wallet. There were couple more cards in her name, but she wasn’t interested in going through each one and having them refused until she found out what was going on. Options. What were they? “Give me a minute. I’m sorry.” She smiled at the cashier. She could call Ian and ask permission to use his card, which she’d sworn to herself many times she was going to stop carrying.

  “Make that two minutes,” Liz said. “I’ll be right back; I promise.”

  She moved aside to let other people pay, and started pulling up accounts on her phone. One after another, they showed similar messages. Your account has been temporarily suspended. Please call Customer Service for more details.
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  She shouldn’t have ignored the phone calls and emails from the different card companies today.

  The conversation with Kyle yesterday morning rushed back to taunt her. He’d said some of her accounts might be frozen because of George’s arrest. She called his office, and was patched to a paralegal who explained any account the SEC believed George had access to was locked, pending investigation.

  Which, as far as Liz could remember, was all of her credit card accounts, plus her primary checking. He shared his cards with her, and she did the same. They trusted each other and were in love. Fuck. At least her investments and trusts were safe.

  Until she got everything shifted, and changed which accounts she accessed, she was stuck out of town, with no money of her own. The company card would take care of her business expenses. She swallowed her pride past her dry throat, and called Ian.

  “Hey. How’s L.A.?” He sounded stressed and rushed.

  That was status quo. “Smoggy, crowded—as you’d expect.” She didn’t have the concentration left to make small talk, and his day was drawing to a close, so he probably didn’t have time. “I need a favor.”

  “Always.” Like that, his tone shifted to concerned.

  “Nothing big. Just... Are you okay if I use your platinum MC while I’m here?”

  “That’s fine. You have to tell me why, though.”

  Of course she did. Because she wanted another I told you so sigh from him. She spat out a brief explanation of what was going on, followed by, “But Kyle’s team is on it. I should have everything back soon.”

  “Did they say soon?”

  She snarled at the receiver. “No. I did.”

  “I’d check your expectations. But yes, the card’s yours. Give me a heads-up if you make any big purchases. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. Having a blast besides this. Thank you.”

  “Any time. I have to run. Call me if you need anything else.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” She was pretty certain he disconnected before she finished.

  George had managed to steal a portion of her inheritance anyway. At least he wasn’t using it any more than she was, and he couldn’t make things any worse from behind bars.