Tekgrrl (7 page)

The woman screamed. “Stop it! Leave him alone!”

I turned to face her. “Listen, I know you’re in shock, but it’s going to be okay. You’re safe now.”

“Safe? What are you talking about, safe? I’ll give you whatever you want, just leave my boyfriend alone!”

Boyfriend? I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “You mean, he’s not attacking you?”

“Attacking me? Of course he’s not attacking me! The only people attacking us are you two. Just take some money and go.”

“We’re not trying to rob you, we’re heroes,” Luke said. “We’re trying to help!”

The woman snorted and pointed at me with a manicured finger. “So you people get off by dressing up in crazy outfits and ‘helping’ people. Others like to have sex in public places. That’s not a crime, is it?”

“N-no,” I stuttered.

“Indecent exposure maybe,” Luke suggested, still holding the boyfriend.

“In a dark alley where only freaks like you hang out?” The woman clutched her ripped blouse shut. “Let go of my boyfriend right now, before I sue your ass.”

Luke let go of the guy, who quickly went for his pants. He rebuttoned them, pink-cheeked, and turned to his girlfriend. “Let’s just go, Lucy.”

Lucy took her boyfriend’s arm. “Are you okay, Barry? Maybe I should take you to a hospital.”

“I’m fine!”

“You said the same thing when you fell off the bed and hit your head on the nightstand table. That time you ended up having a concussion.”

“I said I’m fine!” He’d turned bright red. “Let’s go!” He tugged her along, away from us.

“You two need to get laid once in a while!” Lucy called back at us as he dragged her away.

Luke and I stood a moment in awkward silence, eyeing each other. Then I saw the corners of his mouth twitch. I gave him a small smile. We both burst out laughing.

“For what it’s worth, I thought we made a good team there. If not an entirely bright one,” Luke remarked.

“You can add ‘stupid’ to your list of insults, I suppose,” I joked after a moment. “Possibly lonely.”

“I’m no better, I thought he was attacking her too,” Luke said, still laughing.

“So, I guess you’ve never done anything adventurous like that, either?” I said—then realized too late what I had just said. And to whom.

“I guess my adventurous nature is more suited to saving people and not the bedroom. Or
outside
of the bedroom.” He smiled wryly. “Or maybe I just haven’t met the right woman yet.”

I ignored the tingle of attraction that surged through me. “Well, I think you’d have to be pretty desperate to decide to move things out here in order to spice things up in the bedroom.” I gestured around. “It’s, well…unhygienic. And cold.”

“I suppose I should be grateful,” Luke said, sobering. “If that whole thing wasn’t an icebreaker, I don’t know what is.”

“Sorry I yelled at you like that,” I said. “And maybe it is frivolous female jealousy that’s getting to me. She
is
gorgeous.”

“See, that’s one of the things I don’t understand about women. So she’s pretty, so what? You’re pretty. You never see men not be friendly with someone because he’s more attractive.”

“We are mysterious creatures,” I agreed, taking delight that I’d gotten a compliment out of him. I’d only had to be insulted and embarrassed beforehand, but hey, a compliment is a compliment. “But I will try to rise above petty insecurities and be nice and friendly from now on.”

“Insecurities? You can rewire shuttles to take people into space, and you’re insecure…” He shook his head, as if amazed. I fought back even more pride. “We’re still going to work out together tomorrow, right?”

“Right,” I said. Oh, no. What was I doing? I’d implied I was going to start training more with him, but that had been the champagne talking. I avoided working out like the plague. Luke acted like it was a form of religion.

“I’ll invite her to join us. It’ll give you two a chance to get to know each other.”

“Well,” I decided, “no one is glamorous while sweating.”

“Exactly.” He gave me a wink.

I knew I had to play nice. “All right, it sounds like a plan,” I agreed.

He started off down the alley, back toward the main street. “Let’s wrap this patrol up. I have a feeling there isn’t much villainous activity happening in our quarter tonight, and it’s best we don’t mess up any more…intimate encounters.” He laughed. “Tomorrow I think we’ll start off with a nice long jog, bright and early. Good way to get the blood pumping.”

“I thought that’s why God invented caffeine,” I replied, joking weakly.

A jog at the butt-crack of dawn with the Glamazon? What had I gotten myself into?

I groaned and sat up in bed, fumbling for my alarm. It was still dark out, so why had it gone off?

Everything came back to me: Luke and I on patrol. The kinky couple in the alleyway. My promise to go jogging with Luke and Selena, so we could all be one big happy dysfunctional hero team. It was too early for this without coffee.

Throwing on an EHJ T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants that I’d bought when Toby and I optimistically promised each other we’d do yoga every morning (we actually only did it once), I found my sneakers in the back of my closet and tied my newly dyed hair back in a ponytail. Then I headed downstairs in the early morning darkness.

Stepping out of the elevator and into the quiet and empty lobby was a bit disconcerting. While we owned the building and our personal accommodations were on the top floor, the downstairs held a gift shop, a coffee house, and a crime-fighting museum focused mainly on the history of the EHJ. The floors between were offices for our corporation—we were a brand, after all, with lawyers and publicists. Paul and I both had full-floor laboratories for our work, though I liked to do a lot in my room. What can I say? I constantly tinker.

My tennis shoes squeaked on the newly waxed floors, and as I walked through the double-glass doors I could see Luke and Selena standing right outside in the cool, foggy morning air. Selena was laughing about something he’d said, and she touched his arm in a flirty and intimate gesture.

Seeing me, Luke flashed me a smile. “Mindy! Good morning.”

“Morning,” I mumbled, never the picture of grace or sweetness in the a.m., especially not until after I’ve had my caffeine fix.

“Good morning,” Selena added, cheery. “All set?” She was dressed in one of those expensive matching zip-up sweatshirts and pants that are cropped to be like a second skin. They usually have some sort of phrase written on the butt, but I didn’t want to stare at her perfect ass to find out what hers said.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

She laughed. “I hear that.”

“So do I,” Luke said. “You both volunteered to do this.”

“I like to keep in shape,” Selena said, giving him a dazzling smile. I grunted something affirmative.

“Best to keep up an even pace,” Luke instructed us. “I’m assuming you already did some warm-up stretches, Mindy?”

“Oh yeah, of course,” I lied, like I hadn’t just rolled out of bed. Was
stretching
what they called what they’d been doing?

“All right, let’s go,” Luke said. “If we get separated, we’ll meet back here.” And we began our slow descent into hell, aka our morning jog.

It wasn’t so bad at first. I kept a decent pace, managing to stay even with Luke, the crazy fitness nut, and Selena, who didn’t look winded or break a sweat. By the time we had gone a few blocks, however, I was starting to feel sweaty and my calves stung, and Luke was ahead of me. (At least that made the view nice. Here was an ass I didn’t mind staring at.) Selena was just a bit behind him, safely between us. I didn’t bother to feel jealous.

We went a few more blocks, and I began getting a pain in my side. My calves felt like they were on fire and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. And Luke? He was out of sight.

Cursing my out-of-shape body, I slowed to a walk, breathing hard and holding my side. I hadn’t gone too far at this new pace when I ran into Selena, who was leaning against the side of a wall, hands on her knees, staring at the sidewalk. I guess being super strong didn’t always translate into having super stamina.

Hearing my approach, she looked up and smiled. “Boy’s got stamina, huh?”

I nodded. “You could say that.”

She brushed back a few strands of sweaty hair from her face, which somehow made her look artfully mussed, whereas I probably looked like a wet mop. “The things we do for hot guys, huh?”

I shrugged. “I need to get into shape. Obviously.” I motioned to my sweaty clothes.

“Lainey told me that you had a thing for Luke.”

Nice. How kind of Lainey to blab about my pathetic crush to this woman who probably had men flocking to her by the droves, and who now had Luke in particular wrapped around her little finger. “Had. As in, past tense. We’re just friends,” I said.

She studied me. “I don’t want to get in the way of anything.”

In the way? I wondered if nothing had happened between them yet. That seemed unlikely. “Trust me, Selena, there’s nothing for you to get in the way of.”

There was a bit of regret in my voice, and she must have noticed. She said, “That was the best thing about my last team, The Fives: It was all women, so there were no strained relationships or competitions over guys.”

I snorted. “I’m no competition to you.”

“Please, Miss Smarter than the Whole Planet, I’d love to have just an eighth of your brains. Ask Lainey. She had to tutor me all through school. I was a total brick—which isn’t just a remark about my powers.”

“Like guys care if a woman is smart or not,” I grumbled.

She frowned. “What kind of guys have you been dating, girl? Do you know how many times I’ve been made to feel like the pretty, dumb girl who should just stand in the back of the room and shut up because I don’t completely understand what a black hole is or know the exact trajectory of the sun? Both of which I’m sure you could explain in your sleep.”

I tried to allow myself to feel a bit better.

“Look, Mindy, I asked Luke if I could tag along with you guys this morning,” she said, standing straight.

“You did?”

“Yeah, I asked him to ask you last night, to make it sound like his idea. It’s not what you’re thinking, that I wanted to horn in on your time with your friend. I really wanted to get to know you a bit better.”

“Me? Why?”

“You all seem to be a tight-knit group, and that’s nice. I’d like to be a part of it. Lainey’s my friend from way back, and she knows I didn’t exactly have a large number of friends in school. Something about me just puts people off.”

“Maybe because you’re perfect?” The words slipped out before I could do anything to stop them.

Selena looked startled. “Perfect? Me?” She let out a sharp laugh. “Please. Everyone expects me to be, but I’m not. Much to my dad’s chagrin.” Then, as if she’d said too much, she shook her head. “Never mind, no one wants to hear my parent issues, especially when I’m too old to still be holding on to them.”

“That might be the one thing we have in common, other than Lainey,” I argued, mentally adding:
and Luke.

“Oh? You too?”

I nodded. “Scientists hailed by everyone, including the government, for their contributions to humanity. But they didn’t really know what to do with a supersmart kid.”

“My mother’s a former model turned district attorney. Dad’s a geneticist. I was cared for by the nanny.”

“I had tutors, so they could drag me everywhere they went.”

“I went to boarding schools, and they would only come and get me for Christmases and summers, though I either stayed with the nanny or was shipped off to some camp.”

“I was never allowed to play with toys that weren’t educational, or to read kids’ books because they were ‘beneath my intellect,’ whatever that means.”

Selena laughed, clearly enjoying this game of one-upmanship, too. “I was never allowed to eat junk food because my mother wanted me to be a model and was worried I’d gain weight.”

“I was never allowed to eat junk food because my parents knew all of the side effects from processed food.”

“I was never allowed to wear shorts or pants as a child, only dresses that I couldn’t get dirty.”

“My parents gave me long, complicated, after-the-fact explanations of the consequences of my actions, instead of saying, ‘Don’t put that fork in the light socket.’”

Selena shook her head, surprised. “When I found out about my powers, my parents started sending out applications for me to join teams, and they said I’d join whichever was the most prestigious.”

“My parents sent me to live with aliens who experimented on my brain.”

Selena stared at me, openmouthed. “I can’t top that. Seriously, that’s what happened?”

I shrugged. “They didn’t know exactly what was going to happen.”

“But still.”

I nodded. “But still.”

She nudged me. “This kind of shared pain deserves a mocha.”

I smiled and agreed, “A venti, at least.”

“And extra whipped cream.”

“With chocolate shavings and a drizzle on top.”

“Girl, you read my mind!” she said, giving a look around. “Think Luke will notice if we skip the rest of the run?”

“He said if we get separated to meet him back at home. We’ll meet him there. In the café.”

“I like the sound of that,” Selena laughed, and we turned around, chatting all the way home.

I couldn’t hate Selena anymore. She was a decent person. Drat.

Back at the EHJ building, we skipped the line in front of the barista—owning the place has its perks—and, after collecting our coffees to the accompaniment of clicking camera phones taking pictures I so didn’t want to see on Page Twelve, we found a seat in the small café. A television was tuned to one of the all-day news channels, and a few corporate types were sitting nearby, probably waiting to check the stock report.

After taking a sip of my mocha, I steeled myself to do what I knew I had to do. To be a grown-up.

“Selena,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I think you should ask Luke out. If you haven’t already.”

She lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “You do?”