Confronted (Beauty And The Billionaire Geek Book 1) (6 page)

I started the next day. My coworkers and boss were decent –– a relief from the vibe in my house. I got trained in everything in about an hour, and I spent the rest of the day making sandwiches for college students and soccer moms.

A long wall of floor to ceiling windows looked out onto the vibrant neighborhood. I liked the environment inside the restaurant. Even though it hadn’t been my first choice, I loved getting back to work and feeling useful again.

After work, I lingered around on Market Street until I knew Stacy would be home from the gym. When I finally went home, I found Max, Justin, and Stacy hanging out in the kitchen around a box of pizza. I slid into a chair next to Stacy and took a piece.

Everyone seemed happier without Chris around, even Max. He looked like a normal kid again, instead of a sociopath’s sidekick. Chewing on my pizza, I listened to Stacy flirt with Justin. She was seriously a world-class flirt. If there were a competition for flirting, she would be the champion.

Usually, it got on my nerves, but tonight, it made everything feel normal again. I wondered why Chris wasn’t there, but didn’t ask. I didn’t want to jinx it or break the magical spell, or whatever was happening tonight. 

After a few beers, we all went off to our own rooms. I felt so good I forgot to lock my door.

Going home usually did not go well. If I had been able to shake my loyalty to my parents, I would never visit them. They had proved over and over again that they were degenerates who were not worth my time or energy. Yet I continued to go back.

Sitting at the filthy laminate table in my parent’s trailer in Lynnwood, the rancid smell liquor and cigarettes stung my nose.

They fought in the living room about something incoherent. It felt as if I were still a child, cowered in the kitchen, the loud shrieking of their voices making me turn into myself.

My scooter sat parked in the driveway, just outside the front door. All I had to do was walk through the living room, out the front door, put on my helmet, turn the key, and drive away. But I was frozen. I knew exactly what moves to make but couldn’t make a single one.

The sound of glass breaking made me jump and cover my ears. At twenty-two years old, I shouldn’t still be affected like this. I told myself to stop being so weak as I forced my elbows into the table, my hands firmly pressed over my ears.

“Get up and leave on the count of ten,” I told myself. “You are a grown man; they can’t send you to bed without supper or spank you. Just leave.”

One, two, three. Screaming from the living room. Four, five, six. The sound of glass breaking. When I reached ten, I stood, my heart pounding, and strode wordlessly through the house to the front door. They continued fighting behind me as I slid through and out into the night.

They didn’t seem to notice me. It stung. Yes, it stung. I came to see them every month out of some ridiculous ritualized loyalty, and they couldn’t even bother to stop fighting long enough to say goodbye.

I pulled my helmet on my head, and slung my leg over my Vespa. My mother swung the front door open, her mouth gaping. Her loose housedress billowed in the soft coastal wind.

“Billy, get back in here! We haven’t had supper yet!”

“I’ve got to go, Ma. I have to study.” I turned the motor and maneuvered the scooter into the trailer park street. I did have to study, or rather, prepare. Taking summer courses would allow me to finish my Master’s degree next semester. I would already be done if the need for money weren’t an ever-present burden. I heard her call me as I drove away.

Driving a scooter all the way from Lynwood to Seattle had never been a simple endeavor. If I took the highway, I would be bombarded by fast moving cars along the fifteen-mile route. If I took the street, it took twice as long, with all the stoplights.

Since I felt less keen on being pushed off the highway by a semi’s slipstream, I chose the street. As I drove, I made a firm decision to stop visiting my parents. Maybe someday, I’d be able to help them out of their pit, but right now, they were just dragging me down with them.

When I got home, my housemates were all sitting around the dining room table with their laptops. I’d missed the Wednesday night raid of Deepmine on our favorite MMORPG, Netherworld. 

Daniel shouted for me to join them, but it barely registered. I had already missed the raid, and didn’t want to come in half way through. Daniel was almost as good a raid leader as I was, even if our guild had to pick up a different warrior to fill in for me. I had other things on my mind tonight.

I slipped downstairs and into my bedroom. It took up most of the basement, sharing a wall with the narrow laundry room. No one else wanted to live down here, but it didn’t bother me. It was quiet, except when someone did laundry.

Dropping my helmet on the ground, I sat in front of my computer. Spock brushed against my leg, meowing. The cursor blinked at the last line of code as the monitor came to life. My eyes grazed over the letters, numbers, and symbols.

Mind racing, registering information.

My fingers clicked over the keys, entering code like a composer pounds the keys of his piano. Everything came into sync, like a symphony. The idea had been in the back of my mind for months, like an ever present itch that wouldn’t go away––one website to integrate all social media, forums, and the latest news stories dedicated to the user’s interests. Instant access to all the best the web had to offer, in one portal, all at the user’s fingertips.

If the user wanted to discuss knitting, my webcrawler would find the best knitting forums, articles, and would even introduce the user to other knitters in your area. You would have access through instant logins. No friends requests would be required, and all the latest trends would constantly update. 

I was close. I could feel it. I just needed to further modify the open source webcrawler I’d used as a foundation in order to accelerate the download process.

I hadn’t told a soul, even my professors. I was writing my Master’s thesis on the evolution of binary code, without one mention of my website. I didn’t want anyone to know until I’d completed alpha testing. I didn’t know if I could pull it off. I didn’t need anyone else telling me it was impossible to parse that much data without crashing servers. I already knew it might be true.

Even with the slim chance that it was possible, I needed to pursue the idea until I knew for sure nothing else could be explored, until I knew for sure that I’d looked at it from every angle and had failed. Maybe we just didn’t have the technology yet. Maybe I wasn’t the guy to invent it.

When I looked at my clock, it said 3 AM. I’d arrived home at just after ten. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. I really had to sleep. I had service calls for my freelance computer tech business in the morning, and doing them on four hours sleep would make them even more mind numbing.

I heaved myself from my chair and stumbled face first into my bed. Spock licked my fingers as they hung over the bed. I moaned, fatigue taking over.

My alarm blared, and I shot out of bed feeling as if I was late for a fire drill. I stared at my phone, my eyes still blurry with sleep. The world slowly materialized, and it occurred to me that I needed to get up and get dressed.

I stood from my bed and tripped over a pile of dirty laundry. Laundry. When had I washed it last? It kicked up a rancid smell. I needed a shower. Upstairs, on the main floor, Maddie, one of my roommates sat on a stool at the kitchen bar eating a bowl of cereal.

Maddie said good morning through a mouthful of cereal not looking up from her copy of Gray’s Anatomy. I grunted at her and poured a cup of coffee. After dumping cream and sugar in the brew, I drank deeply and drained the cup. With a satisfied sigh, I deposited the cup on the counter.

After my coffee fix, I ducked into the bathroom and locked the door. I peeled off my shirt, scrutinizing my slim, naked chest in the mirror. At least I wasn’t overweight. Approximately half the other males in my computer science program were obese. I held my arms up to the mirror like a body builder. I wasn’t without tone; I was just thin. I’d been told I was ‘cute’, whatever that meant. I suspected it had something to do with the fact that I still looked adolescent.

I made a note to myself to start working out and drinking weight gain protein drinks. I did want to have sex again at some point in time. It had been a while since I’d had a relationship. I thought about it for a minute. I hadn’t been with a girl since high school. My physics lab partner, Cynthia. I made a mental note to look her up. Last I’d heard, she went to Cal Tech.

After a quick shower, I pulled on my bathrobe and went downstairs to get dressed. In my khaki pants and short-sleeved collared shirt, I slung my backpack over my shoulders and hopped to my scooter.

I had an appointment with a pornographer.              

My eyes burst open when a hand forcefully covered my mouth. Another hand reached between my legs and pulled at the fabric of my panties. Chris’s weight crushed my body into the mattress. I flailed with my arms, scratching at his face. He caught them and held them over my head.

My heart thumped violently, and I screamed under his sweaty palm. My voice didn’t carry beyond muffled whines. How did he get in my room? Shock that he would try this with five other people in the house gripped my chest, and I felt stunned into submission.

Stunned inaction only lasted a moment until he moved his hand to grope me again. I punched and kicked at him with all my strength. I could smell the liquor on his breath as he panted in my face.

Chris was far bigger than I was and much stronger. Thankfully, his drunkenness made him slow. I made contact with his crotch. He grunted and rolled off me, moaning insults. Still fully dressed and hazy from drinking, I grabbed my purse and ran into the hall. I heard him behind me as I sprinted down the stairs, barefoot. A pair of someone else’s flip-flops sat near the door, and I grabbed them as I ran outside.

I could hear him behind me as I sprinted down the street with the flip-flops in one hand and my purse in the other. He shouted after me, but I didn’t turn to see if he’d followed. I rounded the corner into the business district. Nothing was open this late at night except the grocery store several blocks up the street.

I ran past the cafés and dress shops until I came to the lights of the grocery store. Ducking inside, I found a bench and dialed Stacy’s cell phone as I gulped air into my lungs. 

It rang, but she didn’t pick up. Damn it. There was no way I was going back to that house, like ever. I looked around the grocery store squinting under the florescent lights.

“Are you alright, miss?” asked the pasty, young night clerk behind the checkout counter. His face showed concern. I was still panting from my sprint down the street.

“I’m fine. I was just groped by my jerkoff house mate,” I said, not knowing why I’d told him. Maybe hearing myself say it aloud made me feel safer.

“Should I call the police?” he asked, his brows knitting together. I hadn’t even thought about calling the police. All my stuff was still back at the house. I didn’t know if getting the cops involved would make it easier or harder to get my stuff back. Max might decide to confiscate everything, claiming I broke my rental agreement.

“Um, no. It’s okay. He didn’t get far.”

“Still, ma’am. You need to protect yourself. It isn’t alright for him to do that to you.”

“I know. I’m getting out of that house. I’ll just get a room in a hotel or something. Do you know of a really cheap hotel close by here?”

“Over on Aurora. But you probably don’t want to stay in that part of town.”

“It’s fine. Thanks.”

I found the address of a cheap hotel, bought a bottle of cold coffee, and went to wait for the bus. I didn’t have enough money in the bank to be particular about my accommodations.

The bus arrived, and I boarded. Only a few weary eyed passengers sat in the seats. I took a spot near the front, feeling the need for the driver’s protection. It didn’t matter. I knew I was fucked.

The bus dropped me off just a few blocks from the hotel I’d found on my phone. I strode down the street in the over-sized flip-flops, trying to pretend like a bad ass. My blood buzzed through my veins as the cool night air hit my bare legs. A dark face passed me, covered in a hood. His eyes gleamed through the shadows.

Cars zipped by on the four-lane street. A woman in short, glittery shorts bent into the open passenger window of a car. I kept my eyes straight ahead as I made it to the hotel.

The dingy interior of the hotel office felt like a port in a storm as I pushed through the glass door. A small old Asian man sat behind the counter. I handed him my bankcard and took a room key.

As I walked to my second floor room, the sound of drunken laughter mixed with angry shouts. I quickly pushed the key in the door and then locked myself inside. The room had worn office grade carpet and two queen sized beds covered in scratchy thin comforters.

I felt too tired to care. I had work in the morning and school started in three days. Pulling back the blankets, I collapsed on the bed and passed out.

I woke early, pounded the coffee I’d bought the night before, and dialed Stacy’s number until she finally answered.