Page 155 of Dial L for Lawyer
A small, almost imperceptible smile touches her lips before she presses them together again. "You are unbelievable," she says, shaking her head. "Get upstairs before you reboot on the sidewalk."
She turns and swipes her key fob, pushing through the glass door without waiting to see if I'm following. I am. I follow her like a well-trained drone, trying to find the right words. The last time I was this terrified was my first thesis defense, and at least then I knew the material.
Inside, she turns on a lamp and kicks off her heels in a way that I find both fascinating and intimidating. The apartment is exactly what I would expect, organized, minimalist, with books stacked in neat towers that look structural. Not a single cushion is out of place.
"So," she says, turning to face me, arms still crossed. It’s the same posture she uses right before she systematically dismantles a flawed argument in a design meeting. I feel like a flawed argument. “Want to explain this without the computer analogies?”
“You want me to talk like a regular person?” I smirk, and that at least earns me an amused eye roll.
“Please. It’s late, we’ve both been drinking, and I’d appreciate regular words over programming jargon for a change.”
"Right. Regular words." I take a deep breath that does nothing to steady the erratic rhythm of my heart. My hands feeluseless, so I shove them in my pockets. "Okay. The truth is... I'm an idiot."
"That's demonstrably false. You have two PhDs."
"Academic intelligence and emotional intelligence are completely different things." I force myself to look at her. "I've been in labs since I was a teenager. I skipped most of high school, all the normal social development stuff. I don't know how to read when someone is..." I gesture helplessly. "When they're interested. Or flirting. Or sitting progressively closer to me at a nightclub because they like me."
Her expression softens slightly. "Logan?—"
"When you got up and said you give up, I literally didn't understand. Bennett had to explain it to me. In small words. Like I'm five." The words tumble out faster now. "I like you. I've liked you since before I met you because your work on NeuroTech was groundbreaking. I read your papers. All of them. The one on signal degradation in high-density arrays? Brilliant. I was a fan before I even walked into Carmichael Innovations."
I stop, realizing I'm just listing her professional accomplishments like it's a job interview.
"My point is," I try again, "I've been intimidated by you from day one. You're brilliant and funny and you make fun of my organization system but then you use it anyway and you're the only person who's ever made me want to be better at this stuff but I don't know how and tonight when you got close I panicked because I don't know what I'm doing and?—"
"Logan." She steps closer, and my brain short-circuits. Again. "Stop talking."
She rises up on her tiptoes, her eyes closing, and terror floods my system. This is it. My first kiss. I haven't researched this. I don't know the mechanics, the angle, what to do with my hands, what if I'm terrible, what if…
I react on pure, unfiltered instinct. My hand flies up, a clumsy shield between my mouth and hers. It connects not with a soft press of lips, but with the bridge of her nose and her mouth. My palm flattens against her face. Her wire-rimmed glasses twist sideways, one lens digging into her cheek. Through the gaps between my fingers, I see her eyes snap open, wide with shock. The warmth of her surprised breath ghosts across my skin.
Oh. Oh, god. I am a catastrophic failure of a human being.
We both freeze.
For a long, agonizing second, the only thing I can process is the faint imprint of my fingerprints on her skin. Her expression shifts from surprise to a kind of blank, wounded horror. She stumbles back, yanking her face away from my hand as if I’ve burned her.
She shoves her glasses back into place, her cheeks flaming a shade of red I’ve only ever seen in high-temperature exothermic reactions. Humiliation radiates from her in waves. It's a palpable, devastating force.
"You need to leave," she says, voice tight. "Right now."
"Audrey, please, that's not what I?—"
"GET OUT!" The words explode from her, and there are tears in her eyes now. "Just... get out, Logan. Please."
I stand there for another horrible second, wanting to explain but having no words that could possibly fix this. How do I tell her it's not her, it's me and my complete lack of experience? How do I explain that I panicked because I've never even?—
Fuck.
I flee like the coward I am, taking the stairs three at a time, my palm still tingling from where her lips touched it.
~AUDREY~
The door slams behind him and I sink to the floor, tears coming fast and hot.
He blocked my kiss. With his HAND. Like I'm something disgusting, something to be kept at a distance. Like the very thought of kissing me was so repulsive he had to physically stop it from happening.
I replay the last hour in excruciating detail. "I give up," I'd said at the club, and he'd just stared at me with that confused expression. Everyone at the table knew what was happening except him. And then he'd chased after me, and I'd thought—God, I'd actually thought it meant he felt the same way.
