Home Is Where the Heat Is (19 page)

Kurt’s bravado made her smile despite the fact that he was going out with JT tonight instead of her.

“Looking forward to the game?” she asked.

“The game? Oh, Nuggets. That’ll be interesting. I’ve been studying basketball.”

“You studied?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to look like a dork… any more than usual. It’ll be fun hanging out with JT though. He’s a good guy.” The printer hummed and spit out an accordioned sheet of paper. “Try printing your document again.”

She clicked the mouse and the report appeared, smooth and unblemished. “Thank you!” She gathered the pages and dropped them onto Alex’s desk.

Kurt was lingering by her computer when she got back. “Are you having any more trouble with the virus?”

She sat down and grabbed the mouse. “No, everything’s fine.”

“Good, good.” He kicked at the floor and adjusted his glasses. “I boosted the network connection between your computer and the printer, so it shouldn’t cause any more problems for a while.”

“Thank you, Kurt.” A filing deadline reminder popped up on her screen. She opened a pending case file and checked the documents to make sure she’d completed them.

“I’m going to the Consumer Electronics Show next week, so I won’t be in the office. I uh… wanted to make sure you… your needs… your computer was taken care of before I left.”

Claire opened her email and addressed a message to the circuit court. “That’s sweet.”

He smiled, paused a moment, then turned toward the door, stopping short of opening it. “But I’ll be available by phone, text, email, or even Skype in case you need me… my help.”

Uploading the attachments took longer than she expected, and she drummed her fingernails on the keyboard. “Good to know.” Metallic rattling caught her attention. She glanced away from the monitor and saw Kurt fiddling with the doorknob.
Why is he still here?
“Are you okay?”

“Huh?” He stared at her like a gasping fish. “Yeah, I was just hoping….” He shook his head. “Have a good night.” He ducked out the door.

“You too.”
Hoping for what?

A text message lit up her cell phone. JT:
‘Are you sure you don’t want to come to the game tonight?’

She grabbed her phone and pounded out a message.
‘No, thanks. I have plans.’
Big plans. Go home, change into comfy clothes, eat an entire frozen pizza, and pop
Her Minor Thing
into the DVD player.
Now there’s a man who knows how to treat a woman.

She tossed her phone on her desk and uploaded another attachment as Will and Alex walked out of his office, talking strategy. The detective winked a goodbye to her, and she waved.

Alex shut the door behind him and yawned. “Did you get the Bancock motions filed?”

“I’m uploading them right now.” She checked the progress. “It’s done.” She sent the email and closed the file.

“Thank you. I’m working late tonight, but you can go home whenever.”

The clock on her monitor read four forty-one. “No hurry.” Her movie crush would wait.

“Okay. What’s on my calendar tomorrow morning?”

She pulled it up on her screen. “Nothing until an eleven o’clock meeting with Judge Maxwell.”

An evil grin lit up his eyes. “Good. Don’t expect to see me before ten.”

Claire groaned and shook her head as her boss disappeared into his office.
Talia’s such a lucky bitch.
When one guy worked late, she had another one to fulfill her needs.

She should’ve said yes to JT’s invitation. He wouldn’t ditch Kurt for her. The three of them could watch the game together, have a few drinks, and then…. “Don’t go there,” she grumbled to the empty room.

Why not?

Another text from JT buzzed her phone:
‘I’ll make it up to you.’

‘You already told me that.’

‘I mean it.’

She sighed and shoved the phone across her desk, then clicked the last item off her To Do list and shut down the computer, leaving a few minutes early. As she waited for the elevator, she remembered her phone and scurried back to the office. JT’s last message still showed on the screen.

She typed a reply.
‘I know. I’ll see you soon.’

Why did she always get attached to men she couldn’t get enough of?

***

“Claire said no?” Kurt’s heart sank as JT tucked the phone into his pocket.

“Said she has plans.”

The crowd roared, filling the Pepsi Center with thunderous applause. Kurt shouted over the din while his stomach tied itself in knots. “What plans? A date?”

His companion shrugged. “Probably nothing. I think I pissed her off.”

Whew.
She’d ditched
JT
. “Nice going.” Kurt flicked an oversized grain of salt from his soft pretzel onto the floor. “If you screw this up, I’ll have to steal her from you.”

JT laughed. “You didn’t even have the balls to ask her out for coffee.”

“I’m waiting for the right moment.” He pulled a mineral-free chunk off and stuffed it in his mouth. His patience had lasted eons, but the perfect opportunity he’d been waiting for must’ve gotten sucked into a black hole.

JT slapped him on the back, and Kurt coughed up the pretzel. “Keep waiting, dude. I’m sure you’ll get your chance.”

The ball swished through the basket, but the crowd remained calm.
Oh, score for the wrong team.
“Is that advice or more misdirection?”

JT grinned and downed his beer.

“That’s what I thought.” An air horn blasted, rattling Kurt’s spine and his nerves. “What the hell was that?”

“End of the first quarter.”

Kurt glanced at the scoreboard then shook his watch. “That took longer than fifteen minutes.” The website he’d read told him nothing about the nuances of the game.

“You have a lot to learn, my genius friend.”

The words ‘genius’ and ‘friend’ rarely went together, at least not in his experience. “I need another beer.”

“Yeah, I think it’ll help.” JT waved the vendor over then sat back and crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for the beer to be passed down the row. His jaw twitched, and he gripped the plastic cup so tight it wrinkled.

“How’d you piss her off?”

He sighed and rubbed his jaw. “This rebuild is more work than I expected, so I’m putting in a lot of hours.”

Kurt didn’t need a network administration degree to make that connection. “And she feels neglected.”

“I haven’t seen her since New Year’s. I promised I’d make it up to her, but she just says ‘I know.’” He took a drink, then pressed his lips together.

More pieces fit into place. “She’s probably heard it before.”

JT raised an eyebrow. “You think so?”

Snippets of conversation echoed in his memory from another office party he’d been compelled to attend. “I remember her complaining about one guy, a doctor or something, always having to work.”

“She told you that?”

Kurt kicked at the salt he’d dusted off the pretzel, grinding it into the floor. “I heard her tell someone else.”

JT shook his head. “Stop playing the wallflower, man. You gotta get in and talk to her, let her know there’s more to you than computers and lucky pool shots.”

Lucky? Nothing he’d said made any sense. “Why are you encouraging me to hit on your girlfriend?”

He grinned. “Claire’s mine now, but the next time you crush on a girl, you gotta go after her.”

Mine now.
Opportunity gone. “Before someone else takes her….”

“Exactly.”

He’d lost Claire. He should’ve learned something, but the thought of approaching someone new short-circuited his ability to analyze the experience. “I can’t. Too risky.”

“Jesus. You’re never gonna get laid.”

“I’ve gotten laid.” Kurt flinched as the horn blasted again, then sat up straight. “And what the hell does that have to do with anything?”

JT matched his stance. “Look at me. You think I’d be where I am today if I hadn’t taken risks? Since I got my first construction job way back in high school, I’ve done everything my supervisors asked, jumped on every opportunity, and when Eliot Hodge retired, he asked me to take his place.”

Kurt pondered his words. His friend might’ve believed luck had handed the good life to him, but… “Sounds like a lot of hard work.”

JT’s eyebrows drew together. “Well yeah, I worked my ass off, but my point is, my boss never would’ve known I could run the company if I hadn’t played my cards right and taken chances the other guys wouldn’t.”

“Did you always win?”

“Hell no, but when the chips fell in my favor, they paid off big.” He drank half his beer in one gulp. “Now I just hope the rug doesn’t get yanked out from under me.”

Must be a hard way to live.
“Even if it does, you’d get back up. You’ve earned your success.”

JT brushed that off as if swatting away an irritating insect. “I fell into it, and I could just as easily fall out of it.”

Kurt’s brain started clicking. “If I need to learn to take risks, then you need to learn not to fear success.”

The scowl on JT’s face made him appear more baffled than angry. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“You worked hard for what you’ve got. Take control and make it work for you.”

Genuine confusion filled his eyes. “How?”

The answer came easily. “I knew what my major would be before I applied for college, and I chose a school with the best IT program I could find. I got part-time jobs that looked good on my resume. I planned my career from entry level to retirement, and I’m exactly where I want to be to achieve my goals. Everything I do fits my objectives. There’s no room for chance.”

JT clutched his shirt, fondling the arrowhead underneath. “You’re too smart for your own good.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t get me laid… much.”

“Working all the time doesn’t either.” He pulled out his cell phone and typed something.

“So we’re both screwed.” The ball bounced off the rim and half a dozen guys in shiny shorts scrambled for it. Rubber squeaked on hardwood as both teams chased after the ball.

He glanced at the blank screen and frowned. “Or not.”

“So basketball is run down the floor, throw the ball in the net, run back….” A whistle blew and everyone stopped and stared at the guy in black and white stripes.

“Pretty much.”

“Why do you like this game?”
Swish
in the basket; cheer from the crowd.

“Because it doesn’t require me to think. It’s just fun.” JT leaped up and clapped, whistling through his teeth. “Nice shot. Woohoo!”

What a concept.
Kurt craned his neck as everyone around him responded in the same manner. He stood and applauded. “And you form an emotional attachment to a team.”

JT grabbed his beer as they sat down. “Yeah, that helps.”

Kurt nodded and sipped his drink.

He pulled his phone out again. “Otherwise it’s just dribbling and the occasional three-pointer.”

Dribbling? Kurt wiped his dry chin, then remembered what he’d studied. Dribbling involved bouncing the ball to move it down the court. He glanced at the scoreboard clock and then at his watch. He could’ve been playing
Knights of the Old Republic
with his online friends. People mocked him for playing games with guys he’d never met, but at least his role-playing adventures offered more action than sitting on his butt watching someone else play.

JT elbowed him. “Want to share a bag of popcorn?”

“Sure.” Kurt reached for his wallet.

“My treat.”

He nodded. “So it’s the companionship that makes watching sports enjoyable?”

His real-life friend gave him a genuine smile. “Yes, it is.”

The overbearing air horn announced half-time. Kurt had been working on an excuse to bail out, but JT handed him the hot, buttery popcorn.

“Dig in.”

“Thanks. The next snack is on me.”
And that’s why I’ll stay.
Not because he’d obligated himself to, but because he wanted to.

***

Damn it, why won’t she answer?
JT searched all his text messages just to make sure he hadn’t missed something, then he checked the outbox to see if the text he’d sent Claire had gone through.
‘Makeup sex. Tonight. Wait up for me.’

JT blinked at the screen.
Oh shit. Did I really send that?
No wonder she hadn’t replied. He started typing an apology when a text message chimed through.

Claire: ‘You know where to find me.’

He backspaced his message and typed
‘That’s a yes, right?’

Kurt jumped up and cheered at something, flinging the remaining popcorn over the fans around them. JT watched the scoreboard for the replay. He added his applause then checked his phone. Nothing.
She’s screwing with me.
He probably deserved it for ordering a booty call.

As the fourth quarter got underway, the response he’d been waiting to see appeared.

Claire: ‘Yes.’

He grabbed his lucky arrowhead.
Thank you!

Kurt passed the empty popcorn bag back to him. “They could do away with the first three quarters and just play the fourth. Now the game’s getting interesting.”

JT laughed. “I’m surprised you lasted this long.”

“I was tempted to duck out at half-time, but you kept feeding me.”

“I’m thinking about skipping out early, too.”

“Now? The Nuggets made up an eighteen point deficit, and they’re threatening to take the lead. This could go down to the final buzzer.”

JT blinked at the nerd perched on the edge of his seat. “Where’d you learn to speak basketball?”

“I’ve been listening to you for the past two hours.”

“So I could ditch you, and you’d be okay with it?”

Kurt tore his gaze away from the court and frowned at JT. Confusion flickered, and then a light switched on. “She finally answered you?”

“Yeah, and I’d much rather risk pissing you off than her. Again.”

The geek-turned-NBA-junkie laughed. “Good luck.”

JT grunted as he stood up.

“Hey JT!” Kurt called after him.