by Penny Reid
At first, as I walked into the small shop, I had trouble trusting my eyes. Star Wars paraphernalia covered every surface, littered the walls and the floor. I had to hold the messenger bag in front of me to fit through several tight spots. At one point, I knocked over a Darth Vader mask, and it told me that it was my father.
I would have to bring Sandra here; maybe in a few weeks, after the wedding was over and things were back to normal.
“Uh, I have a canvas tote from Episode II.”
“Nope,” I said, now on my fifth stack of hundreds. “It has to be from one of the earlier movies, Episodes IV, V, or VI.”
“Those are expensive,” he said.
I lifted just my eyes. I looked at him. Waited.
“Uh, right.” He nodded, catching on. “Let me see what I have in the back.”
***
WHAT MOST PEOPLE don’t understand about computers is that their defining and primary design objective is to receive and store stimuli. Yes, they provide output—via monitors, printers, and so on—but output is not their main function.
Ninety percent of how computers are used is to receive and store data. Nine percent is to modify the data. One percent is to output the data.
You don’t need a computer—or even the Internet—to hack into a network or move beyond firewalls. Consequently, it’s possible to hack a computer that isn’t connected to the Internet. In order to break through, you just need a stimulus that the network or individual computer is configured to receive.
As an example, when I hack these days, I use high frequency sound waves.
In this way, I suppose, computers aren’t much different from people.
We’re wired a certain way, especially men. When presented with a stimulus of a particular type and quality, we receive the signal whether we want to or not. Typically, we just store it. About nine percent of the time, we learn from it, which means the stimulus changes us in some way. About one percent of the time, we respond to it.
Being in love is a lot like being hacked.
Depending on the hacker, non-essential or essential systems start to fail. Performance lowers in some areas and increases in others as CPU priorities are rerouted. Behavior is unpredictable and, essentially, influenced a great deal by the whims of the hacker.
No one wants to be hacked; at least, that’s what they’ll say if you ask them. I didn’t. Unlike most of my counterparts, I’m not configured to receive certain types of stimuli. I’m not built that way, not wired that way.
This is because of my past, because of how I spent my childhood, because all three stories that I told Sandra on our first date were true.
Until now, until Sandra, I was numb to what most would consider basic stimuli.
The last time I felt remorse was when I killed my roommate at the foster home.
The last time I felt fear was when my biological father attacked me in my room, then died in a drunk-driving accident that he caused.
The last time I felt happy was when I was accepted into a hacking group called PackHackers, which was run by a Japanese programmer named Wolf.
I was an old school mainframe with no network or Internet connection; an island of computing power with minimal ports for reception or retrieval of data.
Regardless, two things I now know for certain: I’ve never met a computer I can’t hack, and I’ve never met a person who is immune to Sandra Fielding. I suspect that everyone who meets her falls a little in love with her.
I hid the large vintage plastic bag behind the bench in the hallway as I entered our Cloud City apartment. Sandra was cooking, or had just cooked something. I knew this because I was surrounded on all sides by the smell of onion and garlic.
Since we’d moved in together, she was always cooking. She admitted to me that she liked to cook before, but that her old kitchen was too small. I didn’t complain. I’d never considered food as anything other than a means to an end. But that has changed.
I’m not of a fanciful nature or disposition. When I retreat to my fortress of solitude, it’s a cold place, with cryptograms to solve and code to break. I have no desire or innate ability for daydreaming. I never saw the point of envy or wishing on gas giants some hundreds of thousands of light years away.
My previous outlook could be summed up as follows: Life is shit. Math makes sense. Fictional characters are superior to real people because real people are equal parts pitiful and predictable.
But that’s all changed.
And it’s all Sandra’s fault.
“Alex?” Her voice carried to me from beyond the hallway, and I smiled. She has a great voice; like the rest of her, it warms me up. “We’re in the living room. Don’t come in! Ashley, Elizabeth, and I are indecent.”
I rolled my eyes at her bluff and shrugged out of my jacket. It was a new purchase, an olive green Northface windbreaker with fleece lining. One of Sandra’s few demands was that I wear it outside, at all times, until the temperature broke fifty.
“I don’t mind,” I called back. “Maybe I’ll join you.”
I heard a few squeals and running footsteps, but ignored the sounds and strolled into the living room.
Then I stopped, my mouth falling open and my blood pumping fire, and I turned away. “Sandra! What are you guys doing? You’re all in your underwear!”
“Well, she told you not to come in here.” I heard Ashley’s flat tone over my left shoulder.
“We’re having a panty dance party!” Elizabeth called from somewhere behind me. “Or, we were going to have one until you showed up early.”
Sandra launched at my back, wrapped her arms around me, and she was laughing. “Oh my God, you should have seen your face! Did we shock your delicate sensibilities?”
I pulled her by her wrist until she was facing me and marched her backward into the hall. When I had her cornered, I held her wrists on either side of her face and indulged in my desire to look at her body.
She was wearing a white lace bra and matching underwear. It had small, delicate, sparkly things woven into the edge of the bra cups and at the waistband of the panties. I’d never seen it before. I would have remembered it.
“Where did this come from?” I couldn’t seem to lift my gaze any higher than her chest.
She shrugged. “The girls gave it to me. It’s a wedding present. Do you like it?”
My throat was dry, so I swallowed. “Tell them to leave.”
“You’ll have to compromise and let go of me first.”
My eyes met Sandra’s, and hers were full of mischief, as usual. She always looks like she’s planning something, or she knows a secret. I’m halfway convinced that she has the recipe for pixie dust.
She can be blinding, and I’m not the only one affected. Doesn’t matter where we go, people are drawn to her, to the striking light within her, to her humility and kindness, and her compassion and humor. It’s as though she loves everyone, forgives everyone; they can sense it and want part of it.
They want a part of her.
And it pisses me off.
I hate it.
I stepped away, released her wrists, but couldn’t stop thinking of all the different ways I was going to compromise her after her friends left.
She didn’t move at first. Instead she stood, back against the wall, wrists where I’d left them, framing her, and watched me. I know she likes it when she thinks I’ve lost control. I think I even like it.
But I resent the hold she has over me. I’ve survived my entire life without wanting anything or needing anyone. Before I met her, I was numb; now I feel the cold.
And I hate that as well. But I also love it.
“Okay, ladies, party’s over,” she called into the adjacent room, holding my gaze.
“We figured as much,” was Ashley’s response. “And ask Alex if I can borrow his copy of Lonesome Dove.”
“You can borrow it,” I called out.
Sandra and I shared a smile.
Ashley was awesome. Her dry sense of humor won
me over, and her love for reading. I’d never debated the merits of a book before with anyone. She’d surprised me by challenging my perception of certain genres, then began littering our bookshelves with novels she wanted me to read.
Elizabeth emerged first from the living room, fully dressed, and tapped my shoulder as she flew past. “Nico is expecting to play chess with you tomorrow.”
“Why? He always loses.”
Elizabeth turned to face me and walked backwards to the exit. “But that’s not the point, is it?” She paired this statement with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.
I frowned at her. Before I could respond, Ashley rushed into the hall.
“We’re leaving. We can tell when we’re not wanted. Also, I expect a thank you note and some flowers for picking out that pretty set of lingerie. Maybe a new book too. And some yarn.” Ashley said all this as she waved over her shoulder without turning around. She grabbed Elizabeth by the hand and tugged her out the door.
Sandra’s attention was focused on her friends’ backs, her hands on her hips. I indulged myself by watching her profile. She was smiling.
I felt the pull. It was a sharp tugging in the center of my chest that sometimes made breathing difficult. The pull—a compulsion to touch her body, to touch the source of light within her, to stroke it higher—had been why I approached her and spoke to her in the first place.
Others—strangers, her legion of platonic male friends—are drawn to Sandra because of how she makes them feel. These are the people I hate. They want a part of it, a part of her.
I used to watch her, study her, and I still do. At one time, I told Sandra that it was the power of the red dress that compelled me; that was half true. The last few times she came to the restaurant, I saw sadness in her, and loneliness. Her light was dimming. This woman who’d shone brightly for others kept so very little of it for herself.
Maybe it’s because of how I’m wired, or—as one of my past therapists would diagnose it—maybe I have a hero complex, but instead of seeking her light for the way it made me feel, because I wanted a part of her, I pursued Sandra because I wanted to be the reason for it.
I wanted to be the one to make her shine. I wanted her to need me, to want me. I wanted to be the one to make her feel valued, to challenge her and force her to see how exquisite she is.
I wanted this woman in every way, and I wanted to be the one to light her up, to make her burn.
Like she made me burn.
Her eyes flickered to mine and narrowed; she’d caught me staring and was confused.
She said, “I called your cell phone.”
“Did you?”
“You’re as bad as Janie. Why do you carry it if you never put the battery in it?”
“Just in case.”
Like a sane person, Sandra would take my Just in case to mean Just in case I need to call someone. What I meant was Just in case I need to create a decoy hacking beacon.
I’d reprogrammed the phone to emit high frequency sound waves. These sound waves would penetrate the NSA’s network and raise an alarm. This would serve as a smokescreen and draw attention away from whatever I might be doing at the time.
Despite our time together, the months we’d shared and how I’d changed, I doubted I would ever stop playing chess with the world.
“Hmm….” She studied me. I let her.
As her green eyes danced over my features, she slipped away from the wall and wound her arms around my neck.
“Where have you been?”
Her body, was soft and warm, like her words. I growl-hummed my response to her closeness; it’s instinctual. I also swallowed down my now familiar desire to rip off her remaining clothes and take her against the wall, in the shower, on the counter, on the couch, in line at the grocery store—basically, wherever we happen to be.
I placed my hands on her hips where the curve of her body was steepest as it sloped to her waist.
“I was running errands.”
“My parents are going to be here tomorrow.”
I nodded, didn’t allow my apprehension to show. For the first time in my entire life, I wanted to make a good impression.
“Is everything set?” I rubbed the expanse of skin on either side of her belly button with my thumbs. This always made her squirm.
She nodded, and I was rewarded—and tortured—for my thumb maneuvers by her pressing against me. “Yes. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
She looked skeptical.
“I do.”
She tilted her head to the side, her eyes narrowing further.
“I do,” I repeated.
“Okay.” She sighed, lifted on her tiptoes, and placed a gentle kiss on my mouth. It wasn’t enough. My fingers flexed on their own, staying a potential retreat.
She didn’t move away. Instead, she lightly scratched the back of my head, just above my neck, and said, “Just a few more weeks. After the wedding, things can get back to normal.”
“You mean, things can get back to unbelievable.”
She smiled, kissed me again. I moved to deepen the kiss because I had no choice, but she tilted her head away.
“Alex.”
“Yes?” I sought her mouth. She resisted.
“I love you, you know.”
My eyes focused on hers. The mischief in them shone through, as though this—her love for me—was the secret she kept.
I nodded. “I know.”
“I want you,” she whispered. “I want to be with you.”
“I know,” I said, because I did know.
Because I trust her.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Love Hacked: A Reluctant Romance is the third full-length novel published by Penny Reid. Her days are spent writing federal grant proposals for biomedical research; her evenings are either spent playing dress-up and mad-scientist with her two people-children (boy-6, girl-4) or knitting with her knitting group at her local yarn store. Please feel free to drop her a line. She'd be happy to hijack your thoughts!
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Read on for:
Note to readers: Love Hacked background, explanations, and citations
Acknowledgements
Penny Reid Book List
Sneak Peek: Prologue of Kimberly Knight’s Tattooed Dots
Sneak Peek: First chapter of Daisy Prescott’s Geoducks are for Lovers
Sneak Peek: First chapter of R.S. Grey’s With This Heart
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
If you’re interested, what follows is background, explanations, and citations for Love Hacked.
Opening Line: The opening line from this book (He was bald in a way that reminded me of both melons and sex) came from a writing prompt given by fellow author, Katy Regnery during a Twitter conversation back in June 2013. I completely forget what the prompt was, but the sentence stuck in my head for months. After I finished Friends Without Benefits and began plotting Sandra’s story, I decided that I must open her book with that line. Only Sandra could draw a line between a honeydew and sex.
Sandra: The character of Sandra is based very loosely on a woman I met two years ago. Other than hailing from Texas, nothing in their past is
similar; but her outward character traits—people immediately drawn to her, bright shining light, hilariously funny—were inspired and modeled after this person.
I watched this woman (we’ll call her Sandy) and observed how people gravitated toward her, wanted to tell her everything about themselves. She had this effect on everyone she came in contact with. I found it a bit alarming at the time and tried to stay on my guard. Nevertheless, after two or three probing questions, I also opened up as though I were compelled.
I think some people are just born this way. They’re people whisperers. Needless to say, I found her and her abilities fascinating.
Bitcoins: When I finished the first draft for this book, bitcoins were valued above $800. As I write this note to you now, they’re well below $300 and have suffered a severe hacking scandal. All the facts I relate within the book regarding bitcoins are true to the best of my knowledge, except that Alex Greene did not invent bitcoins (…because Alex Greene doesn’t exist except in my imagination).
No one is quite sure who created bitcoins, but they’ve started an interesting trend of crypocurrencies (bitcoins are not the only electronic currency in existence, but they’re probably the most famous).
I struggled with how much information and how much of an explanation to provide about the subject within the book. In the end, I decided to only give you (the reader) as much information as you needed to follow the unfolding action. However, if you’re interested in how bitcoins work, Diane Rehm had a great show on the subject.
Here is the web address: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-11-19/lawmakers-and-regulators-take-closer-look-bitcoin
Foster Care Statistics: I knew before I started writing this book that Alex would be a foster kid because Sandra, with all her innate ability, needed to learn how to love someone without trying to fix him.
I gathered a lot of statistics and information about foster care in this country. I’m not going to go into any details on my personal thoughts on the subject, but if you want to know where I found my statistics I list my sources below:
