Free BOMBSHELL by Xyla Turner Page B

started. “What do you do?”
    “I’m a marketing consultant. How about you?”
    “I’m a website designer.”
    “Oh, nice. You’re a geek.”
    He smiled and said, “Something like that.”
    “Nice! You write code and all of that or do you cheat like I do and WordPress it?”
    “I’m a coder,” he smiled.
    “Ah, yup. A geek.”
    It fell silent and we continued to eat and watch the game until the half-time show came on. The quiet wasn’t weird but expected since he invited me over, he’d had some sort of plan of conversation. Maybe I offended him by calling him a geek. I started to fret over this, until he asked, “So, this relationship you are in, it’s serious?”
    “Uh, why do you ask?” I looked at him with my eyebrows pushed together.
    “Isn’t it obvious? I’m interested in you, but you said you were in a relationship. I’m trying to figure out if it’s serious or not, so that …”
    “You can steal me away?” I asked.
    He laughed, “No, just to see what my percentage is. Remember, I’m a geek, so I deal in real statistics.”
    “Ah, I see. Well, shouldn’t you calculate my interest in you, since you deal in real numbers?”
    “I have.”
    “Oh, how did you figure that?”
    “You’re here aren’t you?”
    “What does that mean? I’m watching a game and eating my food at a neighbors. That has nothing to do with my interest in you.”
    “Actually, it does. One, we are friendly towards one another. Two, we share a love of the same restaurant. Three, we share a love of avocado. Four, we are both quick-witted. Five, we both like football. Six, we both hate the Skins and seven, shall I go on?”
    “No, but what do those things have to do with my interest in you? I have male-friends and I see nothing wrong with them.”
    “Right and as one of your potential male friends, I will have a better chance with you than any other guy, because we were friends first. It’s a proven fact.”
    “Oh my gosh. That’s not true. I have a male friend for about three years and he hasn’t once tried to hit on me, ask me out and I was single most of that time.”
    “He’s either gay or you’ve put him in the friend zone a long time ago.”
    “That is not true. He’s not gay and we started off as colleagues and I don’t usually like to mix business with pleasure.”
    “Usually?”
    “Well, the guy I’m seeing now is also a colleague.”
    “Ahh, you broke your own rule. Why?”
    “He didn’t give me a choice, I guess is the simple answer.”
    “You didn’t want to have the choice, is more like the accurate answer.”
    “On some level, I guess you are right. I am usually very aware and can disengage people, but he just blew all that away.”
    He stared at me thoughtfully and said, “I can see that. He broke through your defenses and it’s scary, huh?”
    “Are you a psychologist?” I smiled.
    “I minored in psych during undergrad,” he said matter-of-factly.
    I laughed. “I see.”
    “Well, for the sake of transparency, just in case it doesn’t work out with you and your ‘colleague.’ I’m interested and as your friend, I should be next in line.”
    “That seems a little calculating and you don’t even know me man. I’m hell on wheels. Ask anybody. Plus, you are very attractive and can pull any woman you want. You don’t want to be someone’s rebound, so don’t feed me that line.”
    “Babe, that’s no line. I told you, I’m a man of statistics and I can count ten reasons why there should be ‘a you and me.’ I don’t see it as a rebound, but a process,” he responded in a matter-of-fact way.
    “Hmm, so you say.”
    “I do,” he said with a smile.
    “Well, I should be heading out,” I said after wrapping up my trash.
    “Yeah, there is no way the Skins will come back after this, so we can sleep well tonight.”
    I laughed and stood up.
    “We should do this again,” he suggested.
    “Uh, maybe not.”
    “Come on, as friends. I won’t make you feel awkward, I