Gone With the Nerd

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  She didn't look reassured. "I've heard bears are making a comeback."

  "In national parks, maybe. I can't believe they're common in a populated area. I'm sure it's everyone's active imagination. They want to see Bigfoot, so they see Bigfoot." But he sincerely hoped it was more than pure imagination. He'd love to catch a glimpse himself. "It's easy to look through the trees when it's getting dark and imagine a shadow is something menacing."

  "According to Margo it's more than shadows. The other night she heard heavy footsteps. Plus they howl. And they smell."

  Oh, wow. But he decided to downplay this, because Zoe was looking very nervous. "Well, maybe they have a prankster in Long Shaft. Or maybe it's one of the businessmen in town dressing up for the good of the economy."

  "Well, that's certainly possible. Long Shaft could use an economic boost."

  "That's for sure. It could use a tourist attraction, some light industry, a Del Webb retirement community, and a McDonald's franchise."

  That made her laugh. "It is a sad little town, isn't it? And I'll bet someone is dressing up pretending to be Bigfoot, like you said. They probably carry a tape-recorded howl and a stink bomb with them."

  "Sounds logical to me." Not really, but he'd settle for that reasoning in order to calm her down. There was nothing particularly logical about some guy dressing up in a furry suit running through the woods setting off stink bombs to boost the town's economy. Negotiating with Wal-Mart to build a discount store, now that was more like it. So maybe Bigfoot lived in the neighborhood. What a concept.

  "Because there's no chance Bigfoot really exists," she said more firmly.

  "Probably not." He wasn't about to recite all the stories he'd collected and probably still had stuffed away in a box somewhere in his closet.

  "I'm glad you agree, because I'm one of those people who don't like monster movies. Never did, never will." She took a deep breath. "Now that we've settled the nonexistence of Bigfoot, do you want to eat first or unpack?"

  "I vote for unpacking. I like to know right away where I'm going to sleep." He thought of Tony's dialogue as he said that.

  "Fair enough. I'll show you where your bedroom is." She started down the hall.

  He picked up his overnight bag and followed her. "Have you read any of the script?"

  "Uh-huh. It sounds like fun. But unlike Tony, you won't have to bunk down on the couch."

  "I didn't get to that scene." He'd been a little afraid of what he might find if he read any more. Following the trail of Zoe's perfume down the hallway and watching the sway of her hips, he wondered if he should beg off on the script read-through altogether. Even in that ill-fitting pantsuit, she looked sexier than any other woman he knew.

  Even Kristen, whispered a devil lodged in his brain. He tried to picture how Kristen looked in a pantsuit. Couldn't do it. He tried to imagine Kristen naked. Couldn't do that, either.

  "How much of the script did you read?" Zoe asked. "Just the first scene."

  "In the second scene she discovers an intruder has been rummaging through her bedroom. She'd meant to send Tony packing, but the idea that someone's broken into her apartment makes her reconsider and let him sleep on her couch."

  Flynn would bet a guy like Tony wouldn't stay there long. He'd be off the couch and in Vera's bed in no time.

  "Here's your room." Zoe gestured toward an open door.

  Walking in, Flynn decided he'd stayed in worse. A single bed covered in a thin blue spread sat against the far wall under a small window, with a nicked dresser on the opposite wall near the door.

  "Long Shaft doesn't have much to choose from," Zoe said. "I hope you can make do."

  "This is fine." He walked into the room and set his overnight bag and laptop on the bed. "But are you okay with everything?" Still holding the script, he turned back to look at her. "I mean, you have a house in Malibu. This is a far cry from—"

  "I'm on a mission," she said. "I need to stay far away from the public eye this weekend, so I can get ready for that audition with your help." She gestured toward the script in his hand. "I want the part of Vera, and I'd willingly camp in the wilderness to get it, except that I'm deathly afraid of bears."

  "I'm glad we're not camping." Flynn smiled at her. "I'm not crazy about bears myself."

  "And given the choice. I prefer an indoor bathroom."

  "Same here."

  "You see? Compared to roughing it in the wilderness, and I've done plenty of that on location, this is a five-star resort!"

  "It'll be fine, Zoe."

  She looked relieved. "I'm glad. How did you like the Town Car?"

  "I, uh, traded down for a midsize sedan."

  "You didn't! I wanted you to try the Town Car. I thought it suited you, and that you might even like it well enough to—"

  "Buy one?" He tossed the script on the bed. "Zoe are you ashamed of my transportation choices?"

  She flushed. "Ashamed is not the right word. I don't care what you drive. But appearances are important in Hollywood, and you might get more business if you drove something . . . more substantial."

  It was a hot button with him and he knew it, but he reacted anyway. "I hope clients hire me for my knowledge of contract law and not for the type of car I drive. If anything, they should be happy that I'm careful about money, because it means I'll be careful about other things, like the fine print in their contracts."

  "But do you have to turn it into a religion? Couldn't you get a new car every five years, just for the hell of it?"

  He'd been seriously thinking of buying a new car, something with a little more zip. He'd already done quite a bit of research on the Internet, but he wasn't about to admit that now. "My car runs great. I don't need a new one."

  She threw up her hands. "Okay, I give up. I'll go unpack my stuff. Oh, and your bathroom is across the hall." "Are we sharing?"

  "No. There's one attached to my bedroom." She looked guilty. "I took the master suite, such as it is."

  "Which you should! You're paying for this."

  "I was trying to make it up to you by reserving the Town Car."

  "Zoe, I didn't want the Town Car, okay? I'm happy with the one I have. I won't be driving it much anyway. We need to stay here and work, right?"

  "Right. Which reminds me. What's wrong with my outfit? I could see you were trying not to go into hysterics over it."

  He wondered if she realized how cute she was, standing there in her ridiculous outfit and nerdy glasses while trying to convince him to buy a new car, and repentant because she'd taken the better bedroom. The twist ties in her hair were especially endearing. He was charmed, and he didn't want to be. "We'll talk about the outfit over dinner."

  "About that, I should warn you that I can't cook."

  "Neither can I."

  She shrugged. "Oh, well. How hard can it be? We have groceries. We're two intelligent people. We'll find a way to turn that into food."

  "I'm sure we will." Flynn had a warm feeling settling into his chest, and he thought he knew what it was. Because they were sharing this experience, he and Zoe were starting to bond. He didn't think bonding with Zoe was a good idea. It could lead to all sorts of problems. But he didn't know how to stop it from happening.

  Now that Zoe had Flynn physically in residence for the weekend, she'd begun having all kinds of crazy fantasies. She'd had no idea that he'd appeal to her in that way, but he did. What an inconvenient time to start thinking about sex.

  Besides, Flynn had a girlfriend, a Harvard lawyer girlfriend. He'd already said he'd trust Kristen with his life, so it sounded like true love for sure. Zoe wasn't about to start messing with Flynn's happily ever after.

  Still, she thought about him the entire time she pulled her clothes—way too many for only a couple of days—out of the suitcase and draped them over whatever surface presented itself. The job was more difficult because her glasses kept sliding down her nose, and finally she took them off.

  She wasn't used to unpacking, because normally she had
someone around to do it for her. The process of dealing with clothes was boring anyway. She wondered how Flynn unpacked.

  Wait a minute. Brainstorm. She needed to know how Flynn unpacked. What was she doing in here when she could be observing Flynn being nerdlike? She could take notes! So maybe she'd enjoy observing him. So what? It was part of her job.

  Grabbing a legal pad she'd shoved into her suitcase at the last minute, she rummaged in her purse and finally found a pen. In seconds she was standing at the open door to Flynn's room, ready to observe.

  He didn't see her right away. He was too busy arranging his underwear in the top dresser drawer. She made a note: Are there neat nerds and sloppy nerds? She'd have to decide which her character was. She thought maybe a neat nerd, from what she'd read of the script.

  Then he looked up and spied her standing in the doorway. "What's up?"

  "I suddenly realized that I need to know how you do things. You can tell me stuff all you want, but if I watch you going about your normal routine, I'll pick up the habits you don't even know you have."

  "Uh, okay." He didn't look thrilled by the prospect, but he didn't tell her to leave, either.

  "You're putting everything away, aren't you?"

  He glanced at her. "I guess you think that's anal. It's only a weekend."

  "I'm here to learn, not judge. Why do you put everything away? Why not live out of the suitcase for a couple of days?"

  He paused, a belt in his hand. "I guess because I like knowing where everything is." Coiling the belt, he put it in the drawer.

  "You would know that. It would all be in the suitcase." "Jumbled up."

  She thought of the mess in her room. Flynn would hate that. "So jumbled up is a bad thing." She noticed that his underwear drawer contained knit boxers, which she found sexy. But then, she seemed to have sex on the brain when it came to Flynn.

  "For me, jumbled up doesn't work." He took out a small black bag and put it on top of the dresser. "My shaving kit," he said, acknowledging her unasked question.

  Zoe scribbled on her legal pad. "Let's say you're a woman."

  "Let's not."

  "I know you're not, but I have to make this gender switch. If you were a woman, you'd have all your bras and panties neatly stacked in a drawer, with no holes or stretched elastic spoiling the mix. Does that sound right?"

  "Zoe, I can't even get my mind around the idea of neat stacks of bras and panties. On this one you'll have to go with your instincts." He went back to his suitcase and pulled out a couple of white shirts, which he shook and hung up in the tiny closet.

  "How do you stand on wrinkles?"

  He paused. "I don't like them, but if you're talking about nerds in general, that's all over the map. Some don't give a damn about whether their clothes are wrinkled."

  "I'm going to play Vera as if she cares about wrinkles. I think she's an exacting person. I think she likes her world to be orderly. That's what bothers her about having Tony around. She doesn't have a good place for him in her neat little life."

  "That sounds right." He returned to the suitcase, took out a pair of slacks identical to the ones he was wearing, and hung them in the closet.

  "I'm guessing not much variety to the wardrobe," Zoe said.

  "Variety takes too much thought."

  "Gotcha. You have to save your brain for the important things, like complicated contracts. Or, in Vera's case, the formula that will combine weight loss, antiaging, and sexual stamina."

  "That's such a crazy concept." Flynn unzipped a small outside pocket in his overnighter.

  "I know. I—" She forgot what she'd been about to say. Inside the zippered compartment was a box of condoms.

  Chapter Five

  Flynn zipped the pocket closed so fast he pinched his finger. He hoped to God Zoe hadn't seen what was in there, but she'd stopped talking right when he'd opened it, so she probably had. How awkward.

  If he acknowledged that he had condoms, then he'd have to explain why. Last weekend in a flash of efficiency he'd packed his overnight bag for the Catalina Island trip with Kristen. Of course he'd brought along a full box of condoms. He was planning on a fair amount of sex.

  When Zoe had come up with this plan, he'd just grabbed the already packed bag, because his traveling wardrobe was the same as his everyday wardrobe and packing for one trip was the same as packing for another. With one glaring exception. And he'd totally forgotten about the telltale box in that outside pocket.

  He really didn't want to go into all that with Zoe, so he'd pretend this little moment hadn't happened and steer her focus back to his girlfriend. Without turning around, he reached for his laptop. "I'm not sure if my wireless connection will work up here, but I'd like to try e-mailing Kristen before dinner."

  "Um, sure. It should work. Cell phones do."

  From the sound of her voice, he would bet she was still processing that glimpse of condoms, damn it. "Great. Then I think I'll set myself up in the living room and give it a try."

  "All right."

  He took the laptop out of its case and turned to her, forcing a smile. Yeah, she was looking at him very strangely. She'd seen the condoms, all right. "I want to let Kristen know that I made it here and that everything's ... fine," he said.

  "Okay." She backed away from the doorway, a gleam of speculation in her eyes. "I'll look over the groceries Margo bought and see what might work out for dinner."

  "Great. That would be great." He walked briskly into the living room, sat on the brown flowered couch, and nipped open the laptop. He could hear Zoe banging around in the kitchen and recognized the aimless clattering. She behaved in the kitchen the same way he did, flailing around without a clue how to make food happen.

  She must be confused as hell by those condoms. He'd made such a production out of his relationship with Kristen that bringing condoms on this trip looked sleazy, as if what Kristen didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Even without the Kristen angle he must seem damned cheeky and presumptuous with that box in his overnight bag.

  He didn't like looking sleazy, cheeky, and presumptuous, especially not to Zoe. Maybe he should simply explain, but he wasn't sure how to begin the conversation. They didn't know each other that well.

  Eventually he realized that he hadn't even bothered to turn on the laptop, let alone call up his e-mail. Bad sign. He was already so distracted by Zoe that he was neglecting Kristen. He'd fix that right now with a long, cheery message.

  Powering up the laptop, he was able to connect to his Internet account, so he could stay in touch with both Kristen and his conscience. Maybe before he e-mailed Kristen he should do some Bigfoot research, just to be current.

  He found plenty of Bigfoot sites, which was encouraging. The idea hadn't died. As he logged onto one, eerie music poured out of his laptop and he immediately hit the mute button.

  "Was that you?" Zoe called from the kitchen.

  "Some crazy pop-up ad. It's gone now."

  "It sounded like the soundtrack for some creepy movie I would hate."

  "Yeah, you never know what you'll find on the Web these days." What he was finding right at this moment got his adrenaline flowing. Zoe might not believe in Bigfoot, but a whole lot of other people did, and they were only too happy to talk about it. Flynn read eagerly.

  Someone reported clocking a California Sasquatch at 35 miles per hour. That was damned precise. Casts of footprints too big to be human, too human to be a bear, had been made. Large bipedal creatures estimated to be fourteen feet tall had been seen running out in the open, and not far from here, either.

  Margo claimed to have seen a whole family of them. That was beyond cool. Maybe he should take a walk in the woods at night and see if he got lucky. Maybe—

  When Zoe cried out, he threw the laptop down and ran into the kitchen, his heart racing with anticipation that she'd spotted something outside.

  "M-mouse," she said, pointing a shaky finger toward a small alcove that held a table and four chairs. "I'm s-sorry if I scared you, b-bu
t it startled me. And I s-sup-pose we don't want it in here."

  Flynn was so incredibly disappointed she hadn't seen a Sasquatch peeking in the window at the far end of the alcove that he forgot that he didn't like dealing with mice. He blew out a breath and settled his glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose. "No problem."

  Surveying the area, he considered the options. The kitchen itself was narrow, with a sink and an old refrigerator along the wall on his left and an ancient stove and a counter with cupboards underneath on the wall to his right. Beyond the stove was a back door.

  He needed something, some helpful instrument to facilitate the situation. Then he spied a broom propped in the small space between the refrigerator and the sink counter. He reached for the broom.

  "Don't kill it."

  He hadn't made it that far in his thinking, but beating the mouse to death with a broom didn't sound like a good idea, for either him or the mouse. "We'll relocate it."

  "To where?"

  "Outside." Except he was remembering the main thing about mice, the thing he didn't like. They moved very fast. Right now the little fur ball remained stationary, staring at Flynn with whiskers quivering and eyes bright as drops of motor oil. But the mouse could turn into a gray streak in a split second.

  "There's a back door."

  "I saw that." And Flynn needed it to be open. Zoe was standing fairly close to the door, but she looked frozen in place. Besides, he wanted to be the hero. Solving this mouse situation might make her forget the box of condoms he'd inadvertently introduced into the equation.

  Keeping his attention on the little gray rodent, he edged over toward Zoe. "If you'll move back a little, I'll see if I can get the door open without scaring the mouse."

  "I can open the door." She stepped a fraction closer to the door and the mouse.

  "Let me. Just stand back."

  "I'll do it." Sounding determined, she slipped a little closer to the door. "Between Bigfoot and bears, I'm beginning to feel like a wuss. I may not like scary movies, but in real life I can be brave if I have to. And it's only a little mouse."