Chapter 22
Chance
I can’t shake the sound of Danni’s voice or the look on her face when she said our kiss was “nothing.” How can my first kiss be her nothing? I thought I was good at reading the room.
Right now she seems unhappy. I’m pretty sure about that. She’s been cranky since the moment I picked her up. I can’t be with a cranky girl with no sense of humor. Isn’t that what I said?
I fix my eyes on the road, my focused attention more critical now that traffic has picked up. The traffic jam is an hour behind us. Ahead are the Appalachian foothills and then Atlanta. I’d like to reach I-285 by seven o’clock, eat before we reach the hotel, and call it a night, but the gridlock cost us nearly an hour and I’m not sure my stomach can wait that long.
“What are you doing?” Danni squeals as she gawks at whatever is happening behind us. I glance at the rearview mirror. All I see is the back window and the car behind me.
“Put it back on!” Danni hollers.
I glance over my shoulder and get an eyeful of Drew’s surprisingly chiseled chest, absent any chest hairs. He’s a buff nerd.
“I will put it back on when Chance lowers the AC,” Drew huffs.
Morgan and Drew have been going back and forth about the ambient temperature for the last forty-five minutes. She’s too cold. He’s too hot. He refuses to remove his “neck brace.” Morgan nearly strangles him trying to yank it off.
Danni reaches for the temperature controls and hits the down arrow.
“No!” Morgan cuts in. “I’m hot. I mean, I’m cold. I mean, turn it back up, Danni.”
Danni scowls at her friend.
“When is the last time you went to your gynecologist,” Drew asks Morgan.
I can’t see her face, but I’m sure it looks horrified. Then again, I suck at reading the room, so I could be wrong.
“Not long ago,” she answers.
“You should ask him or her to give you a blood test to check your hormone levels. You could be in early menopause, which can include both cold and hot flashes, low libido, vaginal dryness, hair loss.”
Danni hunches over and presses her hands to her ears.
“I am not in early menopause,” Morgan says hastily, and then she purrs, “Not even close.”
Danni peeks up at me, kinda like she did before I saved her from that spider. I share her sentiment, but mine is mixed with curiosity.
“Okay, who’s ready to stop and eat?” I ask.
“I need to eat now,” Drew says. “As in right now. Pull over so I can get my protein bars from my bag.”
“I can’t pull over,” I say. “I’m on the interstate.”
“It is not illegal.”
“I’m pretty sure stopping just to grab a protein bar is illegal.”
“Fine. I will starve.”
“There are restaurants at the next exit,” Danni says. She points to the sign that lists the local fast food joints along with Cracker Barrel and iHop.
“I call Burger Boy!” Drew shouts.
Danni breathes deeply as she smooths her shorts. “You don’t have to yell.”
“I did not yell. That was my stomach.”
“Your stomach has a mouth?” Morgan asks.
“And vocal chords. And teeth.”
Morgan laughs way too hard at Drew’s joke. I cut her off, “I don’t eat beef.”
“Chicky Chops?” Danni offers.
“You do eat chicken. I have seen you eat chicken,” Drew says.
“And fish.” Morgan mmm-hmms.
“So where are we going then?” My hunger is making me impatient and the slow guy in the passing lane is making it worse. I give up and cross to the right lane. “Chicky Chops? Fish ’n Grits? Something else?”
“Chick-y Chops. Chick-y Chops,” Morgan chants. Danni joins in, pounding her fists against her thighs for emphasis.
“Chicky Chops it is.” I pull onto the exit ramp and follow the sign that’s telling me to go right. Chicky Chops is up ahead on the left, the building resembling a chicken in a feat of architectural engineering. After waiting a couple minutes at a stoplight, I pull into the parking lot and find a place to park.
Morgan and Drew don’t waste any time. They both jump out of the van calling shotgun on the bathrooms. I didn’t know that was a thing. While they’re doing their business, Danni and I get in line behind a middle school girl’s soccer team and wait our turn. Many minutes later we’re still waiting and more soccer players in knee socks are lined up behind us. Morgan and Drew are several heads back.
We finally reach the register, Danni orders chicken tenders, I order boneless chicken wings, and then I pay with the company credit card. As we carry our food to a table, I pass the card to Drew so he and Morgan can pay on JetAero’s dime.
Danni chooses a booth by the front window, excuses herself to go to the “little ladies room,” and returns before our coworkers order their food.
Her gaze wanders to the front of the restaurant where Drew is using Morgan for a crutch. Morgan’s arm is wrapped around Drew’s waist, her hand precariously close to his bum.
Danni raises her eyebrows at me. “What on earth is going on with those two?”
“Don’t ask if you don’t want to know the answer.”
This garners a faint laugh from Danni. She bites into a chicken tender and then dabs her mouth with her napkin.
Here we are. Alone again. After a grueling five-hour road trip where Morgan and Drew stole the show. Now it’s just me and Danni and her shiny hair that’s tucked behind her ears, looking as fresh as it did back in Charleston despite the temperature fluctuations and the unrelenting humidity. Now would be a good time to ask her what hair products she uses, but I have more pressing questions to ask.
“Hey. Danni. About Friday night. We’re cool, right?”
“You didn’t chew gum the entire ride. What gives?”
She’s trying to distract me. Won’t work. “My jaw started hurting, so I gave up the habit. Are we cool?”
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Well.” I plunge a French fry into ketchup. “Because you said it didn’t mean anything, but to me it seemed like–”
Danni coughs, draws her hand up to her chin like a piece of chicken is gonna fall out. She grabs her drink. “Oh. My. That went down the wrong pipe.”
I think she’s faking, but I don’t call her out. Instead, I say, “Eating is hard.”
She nods and we’re quiet for a moment as she devours her Chicky Chops and I try to work up the courage to bring up the kiss again.
I take a swig of Coke to clear my throat. “Back when Drew and Morgan were falling into a ravine, we were talking, and I didn’t get a chance to finish.”
“I did,” Danni says brusquely, her crankiness suddenly on high.
It’s not the answer I wanted. And yet it is. I misread her body language Friday night. Danni isn’t into me. Heck. I don’t even know if she likes me.
“Thank gawd,” Morgan says as she plops next to Danni.
I scoot over to give Drew room. They chatter on about how the help here sucks and they thought they were never going to get their food, and oh crap, they forgot Morgan’s cheese.
“I told them I wanted a plain Friskie Chicken with cheese and they gave me a plain Friskie Chicken without cheese,” Morgan says.
“Are you going to go complain?” Danni asks.
“No.” Morgan humphs. “I’m too hungry.” She takes a huge bite of her sandwich, and then she gets to work, pulling out her phone, four different colors of pens, and a notebook. “We need to decide who is going to what.”
She writes four categories on her page: Cyber Security, Front-end Development, Back-end Development, and Web Services, and then she pulls up the Chai World schedule and starts divvying up the sessions under the headings, color-coding everything, while I sit here wishing I was back home on my balcony listening to the night sounds of the marsh or staring at JustInCase.xslx deciding what to do next. I should have gone with my gut. No initial zing, no soulmate material. With Danni being cranky, Morgan flirting with Drew, and Drew hurting himself every five minutes, I’m pretty much over this trip. And even though I’m not quite over Danni, I will be soon. Her bad mood is accelerating the process.
“No,” Danni says. “Drew. Why?”
I look up from my French fries. Drew is holding a carton of milk, taking a long swig from his long straw.
“Milk gives you gas,” Danni says.
With his head stationary and his lips wrapped around the end of the straw, he looks at Danni, swallows, and then says, “No, it does not.”
“You farted all the way to Orangeburg.”
“I am only lactose intolerant in the mornings.”
“How does that work?” Danni asks, unconvinced.
“It means I am not lactose intolerant in the evenings.”
“All right,” Morgan says, her eyes glued to her phone. “Some of these sessions don’t fit in my categories. Quantum Brewing: Superposition and Entanglement in Chai.”
“Computer Science 101,” Drew says with an eye roll. He puckers his lips and takes another swig of milk.
“Quantum computing is new tech,” Morgan says. “It’s hardly for beginners.”
“A qubit is the basic unit of information in a quantum computer,” Drew says. “It has two states, 0 and 1 like traditional computers, differing in that they exist in a superposition of states 0 and 1 until they are measured, which causes the state of qubits to collapse to one of the two states. Easy.”
“Make Drew go to that session,” Danni says.
“Right.” Morgan writes it down under Drew’s category using her purple pen. “Chai & AI: Steep Learning. Who wants it?”
Danni raises her hand.
“That gives Chance Virtual Chai Management: What’s Brewing in the Cloud, and me ChaiScript: A Special Starter Kit with Tea Samples.”
Drew and Danni balk.
“Why do you get free tea?”
“I’d rather go to that one.”
Et Cetera.
“She who holds the pens gets the free tea.”
“That is not fair,” Drew says. “I know all about qubits but I know nothing about chai lattes and various chai mélanges.”
Morgan reaches over the table and rests a hand on Drew’s cheek. “And you never will.”
They lock eyes for a moment and seem to forget Danni and I are sitting right here. “Oh.” Morgan fishes through Drew’s bangs and pulls out a burr. “Missed one.” She giggles.
My brain hurts. My food is gone. And so is my desire to watch Morgan and Drew flirt while the three of them argue about a tea sampler.
“I need some fresh air,” I say. I wad up my food wrappers, take a final sip of my Coke, and leave the three of them to argue about tea bags.
The parking lot at the hotel is crowded, but I luck into a spot across from the main entrance. I tell everyone to jump out and get their suitcases, hastening the process by pulling the bags and suitcases out myself and setting them on the asphalt. My suitcases and bag are the last to leave the van.
“Two suitcases?” Danni asks with a skeptical arch of her eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you were so extra.”
I tip my head back and grab onto each handle. “I am.” I didn’t pay three hundred dollars for an authentic Stetson Skyline cowboy hat to squash it in a canvas bag. My hat and my boots get their own suitcase and I’m not ashamed of it.
We cart our luggage through the sliding doors and into the lobby, and they hover behind me as I approach the front desk and flash the JetAero credit card to the young lady with two frizzy braids in her red hair. She taps my name into the computer and begins programming four key cards. Behind me, the lobby is abuzz with guests, many of them here for Chai World and Profacy Universe, which are occurring simultaneously in downtown Atlanta. Our hotel is fifteen minutes north of downtown, a little cheaper but still fancy with a floor to ceiling crystal water feature and an in-house restaurant and bar called Toasties.
The redhead squints at her monitor and then refocuses on me. “I have you down for two rooms. Two queens and a king.”
I grab the key cards from her. “We reserved two double queens,” I say.
She flits her eyes to her computer, tugs on a pigtail, and then regards me with sad puppy eyes. “I’m sorry. We’re booked solid. I don’t have any more queens available. Do you still want both rooms?”
“Sure.” No way am I sharing a bed with Drew, so I keep the keys to the two queens, and give the girls the king room. “Sorry, you get to share a bed.”
Morgan puts her arm around Danni and squeezes. “We don’t mind. We love each other.”
Danni doesn’t look as convinced, but she doesn’t complain. She seems a little less grumpy since she ate. Maybe she was just hungry the whole trip. Or maybe I’m misreading her again.
Dadi’s voice threads through my brain, Indian girls are less complicated.
Yes, Dadi, I know. Navya probably doesn’t have mood swings. She’s probably even keel, always the same-o, same-o.
Which sounds boring,
I guess I don’t know what I want.
Per the redhead’s directions, we meander to the elevators, Danni in front of me, her glossy hair sashaying with each step and her shorts fluttering against her svelte, athletic legs.
Yes. I do. Her name is Danni. She likes pink Hello Kitty shirts and flowers and other pastel things, and she has occasional mood swings, but she knows how to code, she’s not afraid to challenge me, and I’m not going down without a fight.
The elevator doors close, trapping us in the small little box on pulleys that we’re expected to trust with our lives. Is Danni having intrusive thoughts about the cable breaking, sending us to our deaths?
“The elevator was inspected five months ago.” I point to the certificate. “We’re safe.”
She looks at me with one eyebrow arched again, her expression exquisitely, beautifully cranky.
We make it to the third floor with our lives intact. The girls stop at Room 305. Drew and I split off to Room 307.
I hover the key card in front of the lock and listen for a click.
“Want to hit the swimming pool tonight, boys?” Morgan asks, obviously not as exhausted by the road trip as I am. Being a passenger has its benefits.
“I’m beat,” I say. “I need to rest up for all the note taking tomorrow.”
“Fine, then. Night night.” She flashes Drew a grin before following Danni into their room.
I lead the way, Drew trailing behind me with his suitcase thundering over the fake hardwood floor. I’m about to collapse on the bed by the window when Drew pushes me out of the way and dives onto it.
“I call the bed by the window.” He crosses his feet at the ankle and folds his hands behind his head.
“Dude.”
“I need to sleep by the air conditioning. I have asthma.” This is the first he’s ever mentioned it. He fake coughs.
“Okay, first, I don’t care where I sleep. And second, don’t push me again. Ever. And third, Morgan is into you.”
Drew looks at me like I’m speaking Kannada, which my dad never taught me, but I picked up while living in Bengaluru. Regardless, I’m speaking English and he still looks as confused as a fly banging against a window.
“She’s into you,” I say again.
“That is not possible. You do not put together puzzles very often, do you?” He uses hand gestures to make it more cringe.
I drop onto my bed. The one by the bathroom. “You’ve never heard anyone say that?”
“The key goes into the lock. The nail goes into the wood. The staples go into the stapler.”
I fall back and cover my face with my hands. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“I do not like figures of speech. They are imprecise leading to confusion. Exhibit A: I have no idea what you are talking about.”
I prop myself up on my elbows so I can get a good look at Drew. “She likes you.”
“And I like her.”
“She like likes you.”
Drew shudders violently.
“What? You don’t think she’s hot?”
“I do not like people butchering long-standing grammar rules for the sake of sounding cute.”
“You’re impossible.”
Drew pushes back his bangs and blinks at me.
“She was flirting with you the entire trip. She let you use her as a crutch and picked burrs out of your hair. Did you see the way she smiled at you just now?”
“Yes.”
“That means she has romantic feelings for you.”
“Oh. You should have said it that way the first time. However, I fail to see how any of this is relevant.”
I throw up my hands and lie back down. “It’s not relevant to me. I just thought you might like to know since you’re clearly oblivious.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?”
“You could flirt back.”
“I have never flirted with anyone. Please provide suggestions in the form of bullet points.”
“Tell her she looks pretty. Tell her you think she’s a good coder. Let her know you’re interested in her. If you are, that is.”
The AC kicks on noisily while Drew assimilates my orderly list. “I am not opposed,” he finally says.
I lift my head. Drew is sitting up now, his elbow on his knee and his chin resting on his fist.
“I kissed Danni.”
He looks at me cautiously. “Is this when we compare our sexual prowess?”
“No. I just wanted to tell someone.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” I really don’t. And I already regret it.
“Did she kiss you back?”
“Yeah. But I think she hates me.”
“Why do you think she feels intense, passionate dislike for you?”
“Well, for one, she doesn’t look at me the way Morgan looks at you.”
Drew meets eyes with me. His wheels are turning. I think he finally understands what it means to be “into” someone. I’ve done my fatherly duty.
“I think you should go for it,” Drew says matter-of-factly, and then he rolls onto his back, crosses his ankles, places his hands behind his head, and grins at the ceiling.