Page 13 of Love Around the Corner
“What?”
“They booted the hackers off the server.”
“See?” Livie cried triumphantly. “I told you. People will usually do the right thing if you give them a chance.”
“Well, I also informed them that they were in violation of the law in about four affected countries, even if they were only hosting.”
“Nick!”
“Hey, you be nice if you want. I’ll fight dirty.”
“Now we’ll never know who won.”
One of his eyebrows hiked and the smile he gave her made her heart beat faster. “It was a competition?”
“Not a—a competition.” His teasing was making her all flustered and tongue-tied again, just when she’d started to relax around him.
“Oh, yes, it was,” he replied, nudging her knee with his. Their chairs had inched closer together while they’d been sharing his keyboard. She pushed hers back. “Admit it, Livie, you’ve got a competitive streak.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Everybody has a competitive streak.”
“Not in my experience.”
“Because you’re at Adams. You like it there?”
Wait...what?What did Adams have to do with anything? “Excuse me?”
“Adams. You like it?”
He was harder to keep up with than Janet when she was on a roll. “Sure. I mean, the research project with Janet—”
“Aside from the research, I mean. Surely you do stuff outside of class? Friends? Fun?”
“Oh. Not really.”
“You don’t have other astronomy geeks you hang out with? Talking about, I don’t know, the Big Bang, or whatever?”
Her social awkwardness was bad enough to live through. Trying to explain it to someone else was a whole other level of awful. “I don’t really have too many friends.”Don’t sugarcoat it, Livie.“Um, none, really.”
“Really? None?”
“I have my sisters.”
“Family doesn’t count. So no friends?”
“People find me...”
Nick nudged her foot with his and she startled. “What do people find you?”
Well, it wasn’t as if she was ever going to fool him into thinking she was cool and sophisticated. Might as well admit the whole truth. “I heard some of the undergrads in the class I teach talking about me. They think I’m odd. They don’t like me.”
“Yeah, but they’re undergrads.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure they’re terrified of you.”
“I’m not terrifying.” There was nothing even remotely scary about her. She couldn’t even manage assertive.
“Intimidating, then.”
