Free Follow Me (Corrupted Hearts) by Tiffany Snow Page B

eyes.
    He’d laughed at my joke. Maybe he thought I was funny. Funny as in Ha-Ha, not funny as in Weird.
    “Do you like fish?” I asked.
    “Yes, but usually filleted and sautéed in a nice butter sauce,” he said with a grin.
    I looked at him. “Goldfish are technically edible—they’re a freshwater fish—but I wouldn’t think they’d taste very good.”
    “Not literal, Aunt Chi,” Mia hissed to me as she walked by. “Here you go,” Mia said more loudly to Clark, handing him a plate heaped with food.
    Oh.
    “Thanks,” he said.
    Unsure what to do, I headed back to the sofa and my lukewarm beef and broccoli. The television was paused at the beginning of Castle .
    “I love that show,” Clark said, sitting in the middle of the sofa between Mia and me. “But I’m a big Nathan Fillion fan.”
    “You are?” I asked.
    “Yep. He even tweeted me once.”
    “No way, really?” I’d had a crush on Nathan Fillion for years.
    “Yep,” he said, taking a bite of his food. I waited while he chewed, then he said, “It was Valentine’s Day and he was throwing his annual virtual party—”
    “I’ve been trying to get into his parties forever,” I interrupted.
    “I know, right?” Clark grinned. “So I tweeted him and said ‘I know lots of useless trivia, like the last line spoken in Return of the Jedi .’”
    “‘He’s my brother,’” I quoted.
    He grinned. “Very good. Anyway, I didn’t think anything about it but when I checked Twitter about eight hours later, he’d tweeted me back and said I was in.”
    “Oh my God! That’s so cool!” My nervousness was nearly forgotten, the mutual excitement over Nathan Fillion obscuring my natural shyness.
    “He was amazing in Firefly ,” Clark said, taking another bite.
    Now he was talking my love language. We spent the next thirty minutes talking Firefly, Buffy , and all things Joss Whedon.
    “Did Mia go to bed?”
    I glanced around at his question, just then realizing that Mia was nowhere to be found and my bedroom door was shut. The little shit.
    Nerves hit hard as I realized we were alone together and, to mask them, I grabbed our plates and carried them to the kitchen. To my dismay, Clark followed.
    “So what do you do?” he asked, leaning against the counter.
    I began rinsing the dishes. “I’m a programmer,” I said. “I write software, things like that.”
    “Really? That’s pretty impressive.”
    “Thanks.” I couldn’t help the kernel of pleasure his words gave me.
    “How long have you been doing that? You don’t look old enough to be out of college.”
    “I’m twenty-three,” I said. “I’ve been out of college for four years.”
    Clark blew a low whistle. “Wow. So you’re like one of those genius kids.”
    Genius kids . Hmm. Not really how I wanted the hot neighbor guy thinking of me. I briefly wished I’d lied, said I was a secretary or beautician or something. Then he wouldn’t be looking at me as though I was from a different planet.
    When I didn’t answer, he seemed to hesitate. “Hey, I’m sorry. That wasn’t meant as an insult. It was a compliment.”
    I smiled to let him know I hadn’t taken offense, but didn’t really know what to say. “It’s fine,” was what I settled on. “Can I get you anything else? Do you want an eggroll? Or a fortune cookie?”
    “I’d love a fortune cookie.”
    Reaching into the bag, I pulled out a handful of cookies and set them on the counter. “You’re supposed to choose your own fortune,” I said.
    He picked up a cookie at random and so did I. We opened them together.
    “Huh,” Clark said, looking at the slip of paper in his hand. “Mine says, The end of the world is near . . . and it is all your fault. ” He looked up at me. “That’s kind of a downer. What does yours say?”
    I glanced down. “ Today is probably a huge improvement over yesterday. ” True so far.
    Clark smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten such odd fortunes before.”
    “They’re all