Stalker Problems - Chapter 41 - Archer, Mustang, and Vandal
Tanner was right - I did need to work overtime if I was going to get everything in place for the Wineflix and Chill launch party.
Although my overtime during the next two weeks wasn’t exactly productive.
I spent most of my evening hours eating amazing takeout, secretly staring at Tanner while he worked, and asking him to tell me more stories.
Seriously, his stories were insane. He’d spent six months at a Buddhist monastery.
Robes, shaved head, meditation for hours on end.
The whole thing. He also showed me a scar he had from the time he got kicked by a horse while hanging out with some Brazilian gauchos.
I’d yelled #HorseFacts at him and he didn’t even think it was that weird.
He’d just smiled at me with that perfect smile of his.
Last Friday evening we played a game where I opened up Google Maps, spun the virtual globe, and then he would tell me a story about whatever place we landed on.
Paris? He’d lived there.
Tokyo? Lived there too, and he had a full set of samurai armor to prove it.
We didn’t get any work done that night, so he instituted a new rule: I could ask him one personal question each night. But beyond that, we had to focus on our work.
“Pssst,” said Chastity, spinning my chair so I was forced to look at some crazy spreadsheet she’d been working on.
“What exactly am I looking at here? I thought that Wineflix and Chill wasn’t going international until next year at the earliest?”
Chastity shook her head. “No, look. I’ve compiled a list of all the places that you’ve said Tanner lived or visited.
And they’re color-coded by how old he must have been when they happened.
I mean…I’m guessing tween Tanner didn’t get offered his choice of virgin while trekking through the Ugandan countryside. ”
“That seems like a safe assumption.”
“Here’s the thing…all of this stuff would have been impossible for him to do unless he’d literally been traveling non-stop since his 16 th birthday.”
“Hmmm…” I scanned her list to check for errors, but her logic was sound. “Well we don’t know for sure that he’s 28. If he was like 36 then there would have been plenty of time for all this.”
“Or maybe he’s a vampire like we originally thought. An immortal being would have lots of time for travel.”
I sighed. I’d been giving this a lot of thought.
Especially after Chastity had made a scene of not inviting Tanner into our cubicle like how you’re not supposed to invite vampires into your home.
He’d stared at her like she was a crazy person.
Which she was. So was I, but I was really beginning to think we were wrong about this.
I’d been alone with Tanner a bunch and he hadn’t once tried to suck my blood.
“I don’t know, Chastity. I’m starting to think vampires aren’t even real. ”
“Say what? Or course they’re real. Don’t you find it odd that they’ve been mentioned in so many ancient cultures in completely different parts of the world?”
I shook my head. “He’s not a vampire. He goes out in the light all the time. And he has a reflection. Are you really going to make me waste my one question tonight to get him to confirm once and for all that he’s not a vampire?”
“No. But only because I wouldn’t trust his answer.”
“Trust what answer?” asked Tanner.
Chastity slammed her laptop shut as we spun around.
“Nothing,” we both said at the same time, sounding totally guilty.
“Well,” said Tanner, “you might want to spend a little less time trying to figure out my deep dark secret and more time on the Wineflix and Chill web design.”
“You wanted it by Friday, right?” I asked.
“Yes. But tomorrow is your day off, and we’re not going to get much work done tonight.” He locked eyes with me.
“Oh la la,” said Chastity. “Why won’t you be getting much work done tonight?”
Tanner gave me a mischievous smile. “It’s a surprise.”
I stared at him. How the hell was I supposed to focus on my work after he dropped that bomb on me?! “What kind of surprise?”
“A good one. No. A great one. A total gamechanger.” He turned and walked back to his office.
“Oh my God!” squealed Chastity. “Tonight’s the night.”
“For…?”
“He’s finally gonna bend you over his desk.”
I laughed. “I don’t know about that. I’m pretty sure he just meant he found a good new restaurant to order from.”
“That wouldn’t be a surprise. He gets you takeout every night.”
Hmm. “Good point. And I wouldn’t necessarily classify good takeout as a total gamechanger. Unless it’s like… really good.”
“What if he’s going to finally ask you out?”
I wish. But I refused to get my hopes up. “He’s not going to do that. Because if he does, bad people will kill me. Or something like that.”
“Maybe he got rid of them.”
“I doubt it. And anyway, I’m not sure he likes me like that.
Two weeks ago he took me to a sauna so I could bang some rando named Karl.
” Kind of. It had been a terrible misunderstanding and I could still picture how upset Tanner looked when he thought I was going to go through with it.
Either way, that sauna had haunted my dreams. Although not always in a bad way.
Because in my dreams, Karl and his friends all looked like Tanner.
And I didn’t run away from them. I crossed my legs and tried not to think about it.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” said Chastity. “He could have just been testing you. Or maybe he’s a swinger and he doesn’t want to ask you out until he knows you’re cool with his lifestyle.”
“I guess I’ll find out tonight.” Maybe.
***
“So what’s my surprise?” I asked as Tanner and I dug in to our takeout.
“You mean this Michelin-star risotto isn’t a good enough surprise? In that case…” He grabbed my bowl and took it away.
“Hey! That’s mine!”
“Oh? Because just a second ago you were talking about how it wasn’t a worthy surprise.”
“No. It was a good surprise.” Just not the surprise I had been hoping for.
I tried to visualize him getting on one knee and asking me out.
Wait, that was how people proposed. Well…
that wouldn’t be so bad. I’d say yes to that.
I cleared my throat when I realized he was staring at me.
“But I think that calling it a game-changing surprise was overselling it a bit.”
“You’re right,” said Tanner. “Your real surprise is like…a thousand times better than this.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Well can I have it?”
“Let’s wait until I’m finished eating all this.” He picked up his spoon and acted like he was about to dig into my bowl.
“Don’t you dare!” I snatched it back from him just in time. And then I made sure to put it well out of his reach.
“Don’t I dare eat your food? Or make you wait for your surprise?”
“Eat my food. Actually, both. You know I hate waiting.” Why do we have to wait until after dinner?
That kind of did make it seem like it was gonna be a sex thing.
I gulped and tried to focus on the delicious risotto rather than his delicious cock.
God, why was my mind even going there? He wasn’t going to ask me out. Or is he?
He smiled at me, like he could hear the internal struggle going on in my brain. “Don’t you have a question to ask me tonight? Chastity wanted to know if I’m a vampire, yes?”
I laughed. “Nice try, buddy. But I’m not gonna waste my question on that nonsense. Tonight I’m going to get to the heart of your deepest, darkest secret.”
“You’re welcome to try.” His eyes dropped to the side of my neck.
Holy shit. He was just trying to throw me off. I hope. I took a long drink of water to give myself time to decide which question I wanted to ask him. I’d narrowed it down to two options. Where were you born? Or… “Who was your high school crush?”
He choked on his risotto.
“Yes! I knew this was gonna be a good one.”
He took a big swig of water and cleared his throat. “You know you just celebrated me nearly choking to death, right?”
“Well it sounds bad when you put it like that. But you’re fine. You’re talking. Now spill it. Who was your high school crush?”
“I went to an all-boys school.”
“Is that your way of telling me that you experimented in high school?”
He nodded. “We did experiments, yes.”
Oh my God. “With like…you and man parts?”
“Cadavers? We only used those once, if I recall correctly. Or maybe twice. It was a really long time ago.”
“Ew. What? Really?” Is he serious?! Cadavers?
“Yes. Didn’t you?”
“No. I’m pretty sure my biology teacher would have ended up in prison if he’d made us dissect a human cadaver. Now quit trying to distract me from the fact that you hooked up with dudes in high school.”
Tanner nearly choked again. “Whoa, who said anything about me hooking up with dudes?”
“You did. Literally two seconds ago. I asked if you experimented, and you said yes.”
He looked confused. And then something clicked. “Oh…you thought…” he laughed. “Definitely not. Your modern lingo is weird. You really think I would have screwed around with guys in high school? That would have gotten me a date with the executioner.”
“That seems extreme.”
“It was a different time back then.” He coughed. “In the…90s.”
“You went to high school in the 90s?” What the hell? That would make him like 45 years old! Or had he been some weird genius baby?
“No?” It looked like he was doing fast math in his head.
“No. Stop trying to sneak in extra questions. You wanted to know about my high school crush, so I’ll tell you about her.
Her name was Sapphire. She didn’t go to my school, of course, but whenever I got a chance I’d slip away from school to go meet her down by the river.
I’d bring her scraps from lunch and teach her how to read. ”
I laughed. But when I realized that Tanner was totally serious I turned it into a cough. What kind of backwards place did he grow up?
“We were going to run away together once I got enough money, but my parents didn’t approve.”
“So your parents forced you two apart?”