I didn’t want to wreck his high score or anything, so I waited off to the side without interrupting. I kept getting distracted by his Adam’s apple. It looked like he’d swallowed a huge jawbreaker. I tried not to stare, but it may as well have had a spotlight on it.
The other boy looked younger. He had so many freckles that they lacked definition individually. Sort of like he had freckle land masses. He stood about six inches shorter than his friend and still had the roundness of baby fat not yet lost. I sort of still had some myself, so I sympathized. And also having the fair skin and red hair—yeah, freckles can be a problem.
Finally, the sound effects of a planet dying meant he was done. I took a deep breath and bounced up to the game before they could start another. “Hi, guys.” I even broke out my chipper voice.
They stared at me and then turned to each other, then back to me. I smiled my brightest, but I think I only succeeded in making them nervous. I never really talked to nerds in my…own timeline. Plus, the Adam’s apple hypnotized me a little, so I gave up the cheery and let my posture slip back into its usual lazy position. Jaunty I was not.
“Look, I have a feeling you two are the smartest guys in the room. Am I right?”
They looked around, as if trying to find someone smarter, and then shrugged and nodded.
“Good.” I pulled a stool over from the arcade game behind me. “I need your help.”
Once again, I was met with silence.
“Not just help. Big time help. Like, help-me-Obi-Wan-Kenobi-you’re-my-only-hope kind of help.”
That got their attention.
“I’m Paul,” said the Adam’s Apple. “And this is Pee-wee.” Pee-wee smacked his arm. “I mean Kevin. His name is Kevin. We’re not allowed to call him Pee-wee anymore on account of the thing that happened in the locker room.” Pee-wee smacked him again.
“Shut it, asshole.” To me, nodded with his chin and said, “How are you doing, lovely lady?” Then he waggled his eyebrows.
Lovely lady? Seriously?
I bit my lip to prevent a comment that would stall forward progress. To Paul, and not Lothario Jr., I asked, “How are you with computers?”
“You’re interested in binary code?” His eyes shown with admiration.
“Uh, no. I’m interested in hacking into the school’s computer.”
They exchanged looks, and Paul tried to swallow heavily around his protruding jawbreaker. “Can’t be done.” He jiggled his pocket. “I’m out of quarters. Time to go, Kevin.”
“Whoa. Wait.” I stood up and blocked him from passing. “The two of you are terrible liars. Kevin is blushing enough to replace a stoplight.” And Paul looked an uncomfortable shade of gray. “I don’t want to do anything bad, really. I just need to get enrolled without any previous records. Or parents.”
A grin replaced Kevin’s worried look. “So, you’re a new girl?” Again, with the eyebrows. It was just wrong.
Paul pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Why? I mean, where are your records and your parents?”
I had a feeling that they wouldn’t really buy the witness thing, but I wasn’t ready to divulge the time travel either. Crap. “I just need a clean slate.” I locked eyes with Pee-Wee across the console and pouted a little. “I used to be kind of a bad girl.” I traced my fingers over the game. “If you know what I mean.” Ugh. I tasted bile. Tell me I was not resorting to flirting with Mr. Romance.
He cleared his throat and looked like a kid staring in the windows of a toy store. “How bad were you?”
“If I told you, you would lose all respect for me.” I wet my lips. “So you’ll help me, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Pee-Wee—” Paul warned.
“Kevin, asshole. My name is Kevin.” He pleaded with his friend, “C’mon. She needs us.” He nodded and gestured as if to show “you know what that means.”
Can you say desperate?
Paul exhaled on a sigh. “My computer can’t do it. We’ll have to use Nate’s.”
“Who’s Nate?” I asked.
“Our Dungeon Master,” they answered simultaneously.
My eyes widened. What were these guys into?
“No, no, no. It’s cool. Not a real dungeon. We play D&D at his place,” Kevin answered.
“D&D?”
“Dungeons & Dragons.”
“Oh.” Mind you, I didn’t know what that meant either. I’d heard of it, but the only things I knew about it were the kids who stood in line for Lord of the Rings played Dungeons & Dragons on Fridays instead of going to the high school football games.
Someone tapped on my shoulder. “Hey, Carrington. Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure, Heather. Be right back, guys.”
She dragged me into a corner. “What are you doing? Talking to those two is social suicide.”
“I need to hack into the school’s computer. Do any of your friends know how to do that?”
“Well, no. But…this is not good for your standing. And by association, mine neither.”
Interesting, isn’t it? How concerned she was with my popularity all of the sudden? Since she cared so little for it back in—I mean…forward in 2011. And just as interesting was how little I cared about it anymore. Being seen with the “right” people was not going to get me home. Bring on the nerds, geeks, and dweebs.
“Listen, Heather, I know you’re just worried about me. And I appreciate it, really I do. But I need to enroll in school, and this is the only way. I told Jennifer that I was hopeless in science. She thinks I’m looking for a tutor. Just go along with my story, okay? For my safety?”
All the lies were taking up a good portion of my available brain space. I hoped I could keep them all straight.
“I don’t like this, Carrington.”
I patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to keep my exposure to a minimum, okay?”
I sent her back to her table and found the boys, who were in a heated discussion, most likely about me.
“So, when can we go to Nate’s?” I asked.
Paul resigned. “Tonight.”
He gave me the address of the dungeon keeper or whatever. I could hardly wait. Who wouldn’t want to spend the evening with a Trifecta of Nerd?
AS with just about anywhere in Serendipity Falls, the dungeon guy’s address was within walking distance of my grandparents’ house. Heather offered a ride, but I declined. I was really worried about getting her too involved in my predicament and irrevocably damaging my own future. Part of me thought I should try to stay away from her. But, I really needed my mom. I was scared and confused, and even though she was ditzier than I was, it was comforting to be with her.
So after dinner, we left “together” to hang out at Sissy’s, but she dropped me off at the corner, and I walked the unfamiliar, familiar streets.
I knew I had the right address when I saw Pee-Wee, I mean Kevin, pacing the sidewalk ahead of me in front of the house. I got the feeling this was new for him—meeting up with a girl.
“Hi.”
“You came!” And then he remembered he was cool. He lowered his voice an octave. “How’s it going, foxy babe?”
If he tried to hold my hand, I was going to sucker punch him. “Kevin, here’s a clue. Never call me, or any other girl, foxy babe. Ever again.”
He looked around to make sure nobody was watching. “What should I have called you?” he whispered.
“My name.”
“What about—”
“Seriously.”
“All right. How’s it going, Carrington?”
I smiled. “Fine, and thanks for asking.”
He blushed and gestured to the garage that was set back from the house. “Nate’s room is above the garage.”
“He doesn’t live in the house?”
“He has six brothers and sisters. He got to move out here for his sixteenth birthday.”
Wow. That’s a lot of kin.
The garage was painted to match the h
ouse—a cheery yellow with white shutters. It looked…happy. I wondered what it would be like to have so many siblings. It sure sucked being the only kid after the divorce. I would have liked to have someone else to talk to, to take some of the pressure off. A six-pack of them might have been overkill though.
We climbed the stairs and Kevin rapped his knuckles on the door. It swung open, revealing a shirtless guy towel-drying his hair. “What is your deal? I saw you pacing the sidewalk a few minutes ago. Have you gone mental?” Then he stopped drying. “Who the hell is she?”
What a pleasant fellow.
“Hey, Nate. She’s my—she’s with me. Well, she’s meeting me, not really ‘with me’ with me. More like, we just met ‘with me.’ Her name is Carrington. Isn’t she pretty? She needs my help. Well, not my help exactly, because I don’t know anything about computers. Well, not enough for the help she needs. But Paul does. So, I guess, she’s kind of meeting Paul and not really me, but I’m the one that gave her the address and met her outside.”
Then came the awkward pause. We didn’t know if he was done. And I didn’t know if he had breathed recently. It all came out so fast.
Towel Boy then asked, “So what’s she doing here?”
I answered, not only because I didn’t want to have to resuscitate Pee-Wee, but also because I objected to being talked about like I wasn’t there. “Paul said he needed to use your computer.” I smiled. Winningly, I hoped, because this guy seemed super grumpy already. “Is that okay?”
He looked at me directly for the first time and his eyes pierced the space between us. I inhaled sharply. They were gray-blue, I noticed first, and narrowing into angry slits, I noticed second.
“What do you want with Paul and Kevin?”
“I asked them to help me.”
“Why?”
Kevin said, “It’s okay. We want to help her.”
Nate joined us on the stoop, presumably so he could interrogate me further. “What does she need help with?”
Dude, for real? I straightened my spine. “She needs computer help. She is also standing right here and she would appreciate it if you would stop referring to her as if she were someplace else.”
It was then I noticed how the drops of water beaded on his chest after they fell from his wet hair. And I could smell the soap he’d used in the shower. It felt like static was building inside my stomach.
He held the ends of his towel tightly and stepped a little too closely into my space. “If she has such a problem with it, maybe she should go find somebody else’s computer to use and somebody else’s friends to take advantage of.”
Intense much? “Whatever, I don’t need this drama. Kevin, please tell Paul I said thank you. I’ll figure something else out.”
I turned around. Defeated. It was all too much. Hot tears prickled my eyes. But I didn’t cry because I’d traveled back in time twenty-some years or because my family didn’t recognize me. I didn’t cry because I didn’t know how or why it happened and I had no idea how I would get back. I didn’t cry because I had to wear my mother’s clothes and didn’t know how I’d get enrolled in school. I cried because a boy hurt my feelings.
Because in two minutes, I developed a crush on the Nerd in Charge.
How was that even possible?
“Wait!” Kevin yelled.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and heard him take them two at a time.
“I’ll talk to him.”
Mr. Moody stayed at the top of the landing. Arms crossed and staring at me. Still shirtless. He really hated me; irritation rolled off him in waves.
“I don’t think so, Kevin. It’s his house and his computer, if he doesn’t want me here, I should go.”
“How will you enroll in school?” Eager, like a puppy. Nate was right; I shouldn’t take advantage of his friends.
“I’ll figure out something.” Sure I would. “You’ve been really sweet, but I shouldn’t have involved you guys in my mess anyway.”
“Nate’s just overprotective of us.” His face flushed pink. “Paul and I used to have a lot of trouble with some of the bullies at school. If it weren’t for Nate, I’d probably still be getting swirlies.”
“What’s a swirly?”
“Freshman prank. It involves a toilet.”
I’d heard of those. “Wait, Nate thinks I’m going to give you a swirly?”
“No.”
Kev and I both looked up. Nate had thrown a shirt on and joined us at the bottom of the stairs. He still smelled delicious, but at least his skin no longer distracted me… the way it wrapped around him tightly and glistened with water…okay, so I guess the memory of it still distracted me.
Maybe I’d hit my head and all this was a dream. I had to be trapped in Oz; I could not be lusting after a guy like Nate. Not. My. Type.
He may have been in charge, but even an alpha nerd was still…well, a nerd.
“Look,” he began just as I was trying to stop looking, before looking became staring.
I’d never been so close to such an intense guy before. Tall and thin, but not rail thin—he was muscular but not beefy. I liked his jaw—square, masculine, shadowed with a light dusting of stubble. It was his eyes, though, that arrested me. He was searching for something in mine.
“Look what?” I asked.
“What?”
“You said ‘look.’ You didn’t finish.”
“Oh.” He wrinkled his brow beneath his floppy hair.
I’ve read books, seen movies, listened to music…but I’d never experienced the rush of sensations they promised. He stared at me, through me. A stillness surrounded us. It was like the world stopped moving and we collided into each other.
“Guys?”
Oh yeah, Kevin.
Nate brushed the hair off his face. “Wait.”He looked away from me, like he couldn’t get it out unless he pretended that I wasn’t there—”I’m sorry I came down on you so hard. Paul and Kev trust people too easily, is all.”
My heart did not just flutter at his manly show of loyalty.
“She’s right.” Kevin paled. “Nobody likes to be talked about like they aren’t right in front of you.” He turned and stalked back to the garage, kicking rocks out of his way. We’d embarrassed him.
“I’m such a shit.”
“No, Nate. You were just taking care of your friends. I do that all the time. At least you don’t have to hold his hair when he pukes.”
He smiled. “But still. I just made him feel less than manly.”
“If you don’t want us to use your computer, I’ll understand.”
“No, it’s okay.” He looked up to his room. “Maybe I’d better go talk to Kev for a minute first.”
I nodded. “I’ll just wait down here for Paul.”
He started to walk away and then turned back. “Promise you won’t leave?”
The air thickened between us. It was a casual question, but for a long moment, it loomed like the shadow of an omen.
“I’ll stay.”
When Paul and I walked up the stairs to the garage, I tried to cover my nervousness with babble. I sounded like Kevin. But I wanted to caution Paul that this situation had become drama breeding grounds. With Nate running hot and cold with me, Kevin feeling emasculated by Nate, and me being a basket case, I thought he should have fair warning.
“So, basically, what you’re telling me is I should have stayed home and studied the theory of quantum physics.”
I shrugged. “Anything is better than this.”
“I like physics.”
Ooops. “Sorry, did I just insult you?”
“No.”
I knocked on the door before opening it slowly. The guys sat on the floor playing Super Mario Bros. on a Nintendo console. I know this because my father used to break his old one out now and then and tell me about the good old days and a game called Pong. The sight of guys playing video games in front of a television comforted me a lot—this, I was used to. Some things hadn’t changed. I bet Kevin
would die if he saw Halo.
The room was set up like a mini-apartment. A little kitchenette to the right of the door didn’t appear to have more than a small fridge and microwave (which was huge, I mean huge). The rest of the room was living room. It felt very grown-up. Not like my room at home. I still had all my stuffed animals on my bed and crayon marks on my dresser.
“There’s Coke in the fridge,” Nate yelled over his shoulder.
Yes, caffeine. “Want one, Paul?” I was already pulling one out for myself.
He shook his head and took a seat behind the hulking computer. “I hate New Coke. It tastes like crap.”
“New Coke?” Sure enough, the label on the can claimed it was new and improved. I took a sip. “Oh yuck.”
“I like it,” Nate said.
“It’s too sweet.” I shuddered.
“Nate stocked up on it,” Paul said.
“Why?”
He sent me a look that said Carrington=Alien. “In case they stop making it.”
“Oh.” That couldn’t be right. I drank Coke all the time.
“They went back to the old formula.”
The computer was taking forever to boot up.
“Old formula?”
Paul looked at me weirdly again. Notice I hadn’t mentioned his Adam’s apple? I was totally getting over that.
He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Were you out of the country last year? Everybody in the world, except for Nate, hated the new stuff…so they went back to the old and are calling it ‘Classic.’”
Weird. Who knew that even cola led such a complicated life?
Paul picked up the phone and placed it on some kind of modem or something on the desk. Great. Dial-up. I pulled up a chair next to him; this was going to take a while.
Nate and Kevin joined us around the desk.
“So, are you changing her grades?” Nate asked.
Paul shook his head. “We’re enrolling her.”
Nate had leaned over me a little to look at the screen. He bent his neck to ask me, “Why?”
Our faces were very close and I was caged in by one of his arms. I prayed to God for a non-booger day. “Long story.”
“First, Middle, Last,” Paul asked.
“Carrington Krystal Morris.”