Talk Nerdy to Me (Nerds, #5)(23)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

While Eve described her hovercraft to Rose and Myrtle, she tried to gauge Manny and Kyle’s reaction to see if talking about the hovercraft made either of them squirm or fidget. Guilty people tended to do that.

Manny and Kyle sat quietly, giving nothing away. Either they weren’t guilty of breaking and entering, or they were experts at hiding their guilt. Their expressions were impossible to read one way or the other.

Too bad. She’d still like to pin the theft of her notes on them. They were strangers in town, so if they were the culprits, her idealized picture of Middlesex wouldn’t be smashed to smithereens.

In any case, she was getting a kick out of talking about her project. She tried to keep her explanation as free of technical jargon as possible, and references to Michael J. Fox and the hover boards in Back to the Future Part II seemed to help Rose grasp the concept. Myrtle, however, never looked the least bewildered.

When Eve finished, Myrtle bounced with excitement. "I’ve read up on this! Biofuel is the wave of the future!"

"I hope it is," Eve said. "Maybe my hovercraft will help pioneer that. It will be a toy at first, but once people see that they can power a vehicle with something other than fossil fuel, they might want to expand the concept."

"What about powering it with used cooking oil?" Myrtle said.

Eve was startled. She hadn’t met too many people who were versed in this subject. "It would work, too. I haven’t considered that for my project because I don’t cook with oil, myself, and I…" Then it dawned on her that she was standing in a bakery. Used cooking oil would flow from this place like water. She looked at Charlie.

"I thought of it," he said. "But I wasn’t sure if you wanted to get other people involved."

"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.

The second thing he remembered were the two condoms still in the pocket of his jeans. He’d carried them all the way to the bakery and back. And he’d be needing at least one of them shortly.

So it was decided. He’d go in there wearing his jeans and his briefs. He’d carry the chaps. Somehow, in the course of events, he’d get rid of the jeans and briefs and put on the chaps. Or maybe she’d help. There was an encouraging thought.

Taking a deep breath, he picked up his chaps and started toward her bedroom. He hoped he hadn’t taken so long to get down there that she’d given up on him and fallen asleep.

Eve had made a bet with herself as to whether Charlie would follow through with the chaps. She’d kept to her part of the bargain. She was lying nak*d in her round bed under her custom-made, fluffy round comforter.

Before coming in here she’d darted into the bathroom and snagged a couple more condoms, in case Charlie had left his jeans in the kitchen. She didn’t think he’d forget that item, but it didn’t hurt to have backup. Then she’d stripped down and crawled under her comforter.

And waited. Talk about torture. Now that she knew how expertly Charlie used his equipment, she wanted more of that, the sooner the better. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the chaps fantasy. Charlie might be struggling with that part of the plan.

Well, of course he was. In order for him to walk in here wearing only his chaps, he’d need a personality transplant.

She should know. The only way she managed that long walk down the runway during fashion shows was to leave her glasses behind. The audience became an indistinct backdrop that she could ignore.