My Nerdy Valentine (Nerds, #7)(23)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

"No, I would never do that, sugar bum." He gave her his sincere look. "But now that you mention it, when you came home from the store yesterday, you must have been a little distracted."

"I was not distracted." Her nostrils flared like a horse after it had been running a lot.

"I think you were, sweet bunions. I wondered why you’d put the ice cream in the refrigerator, but I thought maybe it was too hard and you wanted it softened up. I guess you put the cigarettes in the freezer instead of the ice cream."

“ I did not." She looked as if she could take him apart with her bare hands.

He shrugged. "Go look." He’d enjoyed reversing the two items, which made it look logical that she’d done it.

Turning, she stomped toward the double doors of the refrigerator. Louise was a woman who knew how to stomp. This episode was proceeding nicely.

Harvey took off his coat and watched Louise open the refrigerator. There sat the carton of rocky road, and Louise stared at it like it was possessed. Then she began to swear, and she used all the words Harvey knew and a few that he thought she’d made up. They sounded great.

Taking the ice cream out of the refrigerator, she threw that at him, too. She missed, of course, and the ice cream splattered all over the kitchen floor. "You’re making me crazy!" She looked crazy, too, with her face all red.

Then she advanced on him, her fingers flexing. He knew what was coming next, and it was the price he’d have to pay for yanking her chain. At least she wasn’t boring right now.

She made a sound low in her throat. "Take your pants off, maggot mouth."

He only got them partway down before she was on him, shoving him down onto the slippery ice cream. Dropping to her knees, she rode him hard. His butt kept sliding around on the gooey floor, which shifted the angle each time. Right before he came, he congratulated himself for dreaming up the cigarette and ice cream switch. He hadn’t been bored since he walked in the door.

After they finished, she tried to unfreeze a pack of cigarettes in the microwave and started a fire. He’d always wanted to try this trick, so he stood on a chair and peed on the fire. It went out, but the microwave was history.

Harvey didn’t care. They could always buy a new one, and if he could create this kind of excitement all the time, life would be worth living. As Louise sat at the kitchen table trying to light a frozen cigarette, he sat down, too.

Time to start teasing the lion again. "Have you ever noticed how pretty the girl is who works for Dr. Tredway?"

Louise put down the lighter and the cigarette and gave him the kind of stare he imagined a cobra gave its victim. "If I ever find you fooling around with that girl, I’ll personally feed your privates to the nearest junkyard dog."

Harvey shivered with pleasure. Dr. Tredway thought she knew how to put zing into this marriage, but she didn’t know anything compared to Harvey. Even Louise didn’t get it. Only Harvey knew how to torpedo them both out of the same ol’, same ol’ rut. When Louise saw that he could get a woman as hot as Amanda to have sex with him, Louise would have to treat him with more respect. Then it would be time for Harvey to be in charge.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Amanda wondered what she’d been thinking to agree that Will could spend the next few nights sleeping in her apartment. He’d dropped by the office a couple of times already to play his role as boyfriend, and each time she’d felt like a fool carrying on this charade.

Now she was actually inviting him into her home. There must have been better alternatives, if she’d only stopped long enough to think of them. For example, she could have bought barbed wire and strung it in a crisscross pattern over her windows.

She didn’t know where a person found barbed wire in the heart of a big city like Chicago, but if not barbed wire, then something else to discourage a person trying to come in. She could have brought beer bottles home from Geekland, broken them, and placed the jagged edges along her windowsills. Except an intruder would probably be wearing gloves, and he’d be able to sweep that broken glass to the floor with no trouble.

Maybe she didn’t have as many alternatives as she thought. But Will in residence seemed like a very rash idea. If she could come up with another plan before he arrived to ride home with her on the bus, then she could tell him she’d changed her mind.

Bells. She could string little bells across her window, and if someone tried to come through, the bells would ring and alert her. And then what? She didn’t have a lot of confidence in her vacuum cleaner wand and collected works of Sigmund Freud. She could buy a gun, but she knew so little about them that she’d probably end up doing damage to herself instead of the stalker.

As Amanda racked her brain for other ideas, Gloria escorted out the couple who had been her last appointment of the day. "If the feathers make you sneeze, try the velvet gloves," she said. "And beforehand, use plenty of lotion. You want your skin to be supple and sensitized. Go easy on the pinching. That’s something to be used sparingly, right before cli**xing."

This was exactly the sort of thing Amanda didn’t need to hear before taking a man home for the first time in a solid year. Fortunately she had no supply of feathers and velvet gloves. Or condoms. That should keep her honest.

Gloria waved goodbye to her clients and walked back to Amanda’s desk. "What’s the dress code at Geekland? Bowling shirts?"

"What you have on is fine." Amanda thought Gloria would cause quite a stir in her shape-hugging sweater and short leather skirt.

"But I won’t fit in. Maybe I should go back to that shirtwaist, the glasses, and the sensible shoes."

Amanda shook her head. "The essence of nerdiness is to be exactly who you are. Nerds don’t try to be anyone else. I’d say fitting in means following that rule."

"You’re the expert."

Amanda opened her mouth to refute that, but then she closed it again. She might not have started out to be a nerd, but she could be turning into one thanks to her job at Geekland, her long hours of studying, and her lack of a social life. She wondered if entertaining a pretend boyfriend in her apartment for several days counted as a social life. Probably not.

Speaking of that, Will walked through the door carrying a small gym bag. He’d already told Amanda that a new membership in a health club would be his cover story.

"Will!" Gloria looked him up and down with obvious pleasure. "Headed for a workout?"

"Right. I spend way too much time riding a desk."

Amanda gave him a wide-eyed stare of disbelief. Surely he hadn’t just given Gloria an opening you could drive a truck through.

He closed his eyes briefly. Apparently he had.

Gloria laughed in delight. "You are too cute. I could have so much fun with that remark, but may I simply suggest that you try riding girls, instead?"

"Good one, Gloria." He shifted the gym bag from one hand to the other.

"You make it too easy, Will. So, are you going from the gym to Geekland for the tournament?"

"I checked that out, and I was confused. It’s not tonight. But, yeah, Justin and I will see you there about six."

Nice save, Amanda thought. She’d been reasonably sure there was no trivia tournament tonight. Will had been trying to keep Gloria and Justin apart, but that was a lost cause.

"I guess you’ll be looking for suspects," Gloria said.

"Definitely. Any more ideas on that?"

She shook her head. "Amanda and I went through my list of clients and eliminated all the ones she’s never met, plus the two we mentioned today and Franklin. As for the rest…"

"We did some random checking," Amanda said. "There wasn’t enough time to go through all the files, but it could be anyone in them. There are guys with performance issues, some with S and M tendencies, a few Oedipus complexes, and a bunch who display a mixed bag of neuroses."

Will scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "In other words, a fertile field of potential stalkers."

"Instead of calling this person a stalker," Gloria said, "I prefer to describe the phenomenon as transference. The client imagines himself in love with the person who’s helping him and is convinced that his love is returned. Normally that transference target would be me, but in this case, someone seems to have settled on Amanda, instead."

"And they’re scaring the stuffing out of her," Will said. "That falls into the realm of stalking, in my book."

"Then again, we don’t know that it’s one of my clients. A customer at Geekland could have developed an inappropriate crush. At least my clients are in treatment. Any kind of borderline personality type could walk into that bar and fixate on Amanda."

"I know that’s possible," Amanda said. "But I’ve been paying more attention to my customers since this started, and I’m having a hard time believing any of them are sending the valentines. They’re goofy, not aggressive."

"I agree with that," Will said. "Not saying it’s impossible, but I’m more willing to believe the guy’s a client. He would have contact with Amanda and a plausible reason to be in the office."

Gloria clearly didn’t like the idea of suspecting someone she was counseling. "We have a third group, don’t forget. Amanda has constant contact with psychology students. Believe it or not, some people are drawn to this field because they’re screwed up."

"You’re kidding." Somehow Will managed to look shocked.

"No, it’s true. I’ve met my share of strange people since getting into this business."

Amanda kept a straight face, but only because she didn’t meet Will’s gaze. "Speaking of my bartending job, I need to cut out of here. Gloria, I’ve finished all the filing, and the reports I typed this afternoon are all right here." She laid her hand on a stack of folders on her desk.

"I’m surprised you don’t have everything on disk," Will said.

"We do." Amanda patted the CD file box on her desk. "But you never know when technology will change, and good-quality paper in a fireproof filing cabinet is a safe storage method."

"Besides, playing with computers doesn’t appeal to me," Gloria said. "I’d rather play with less complicated toys." She settled her attention on Will. "Like vibrators, for instance. Amanda, on the other hand, can’t be bothered with them."

"I really have to go." Amanda rolled back her desk chair.

"Amanda’s the exact opposite of girls I’ve had in here before," Gloria continued. "They can hardly wait to get their hands on my vibrators. I had to insist that Amanda take one home. And then, does she use it? No. She—"

"Geez, the bus will be here any minute." Grabbing her backpack and shoving her purse inside, Amanda made a bee-line for the coat rack. Gloria should come with a warning label attached, CAUTION: DANGEROUS WHEN MOUTH IS OPEN. "Move it, Will."

"I’m right behind you."

"You’re leaving with her?" Gloria sounded bereft.

"Doing the boyfriend thing," Will called over his shoulder as he followed Amanda’s flight out the door and down the steps. "She can’t help herself," he murmured as he hurried along beside her. "I’m convinced she has no idea how she affects people."

"Maybe not, but God." Amanda’s cheeks felt hotter than a Starbucks latte.

"She forced a vibrator on you, huh?"

"I’d rather not talk about it."

"I understand."

But when they reached the bus stop, they were early and had to stand there waiting. A couple of people sat on the bench, but Amanda and Will stood off to the side. She struggled to come up with a conversational topic, but it wasn’t easy moving from the subject of vibrators to … anything.

"I think it’s a little colder today than yesterday," she said.

"Some." He put his arm around her shoulders. "Does this help?"

"Uh, sure. Thanks." Now that they were even cozier, the silence between them seemed ten times more awkward. Finally she couldn’t stand it. "Here’s what happened."

"You don’t have to tell me."

"Yes I do, because I want you to know the thing isn’t even in my possession anymore."

"Don’t tell me you threw it away."

"No. And it was the red one, so you get the complete visual. I stuck it in my backpack, and on the way home it worked its way up through the zipper, so it was sticking out. Of course I had no clue."

His body began to shake.

She glanced up at him. "You’re laughing, aren’t you?" "Yeah." He grinned at her. "Is that not allowed?" "You might want to pace yourself. It gets better. Mavis always pounces whenever I come home, so naturally she saw this red thing before I realized it was showing and wanted to know what it was. I told her it was a battery-operated hair curler and the batteries were dead." Will snorted.

"So then my other neighbor, Chester, comes to the door, and as I’m talking to him, I turn around, and Mavis is testing the curler on her hair. She says the batteries are fine, but she can’t figure out how it curls your hair."

By now Will was laughing so hard he had to let go of her so he could take off his glasses and mop the tears streaming down his face.

Watching him, she couldn’t help smiling, herself. She was smiling on the inside, too, where all kinds of good feelings blossomed in ways she’d been missing for a long time. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d shared a funny story with a guy.

Finally Will replaced his glasses and shoved his handkerchief in the pocket of his coat. He took a shaky breath, but he still couldn’t get rid of the grin. "So did you ever tell her what it was for?"

"Well, I had to, and she was fascinated. So Chester got uncomfortable and left, but Mavis was so intrigued that I let her take it back to her apartment."

"Oh …my …God."

"I know. Don’t think about it."

"How can I help it?"

"You have to. In about twenty minutes you’ll be meeting her."

Will groaned. "This won’t be easy."

"But necessary. You’ll need to meet both of them. I can’t bring a man into my apartment without letting them know. They’d hurt themselves trying to find out what was going on, so I might as well explain you right in the beginning."