Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Kyle Camden, Nerd Alert
LORNA
Lorna sat in the corner of the bar watching the tall, thin guy with dimples and glasses lead his team, Risky Quizness, as he submitted a team answer for a question about the video game Fortnite.
When the answer was declared correct, Kyle and his team were victorious, soundly beating a rival team called The Smarty Pints, a group of wholesome, geeky girls clad in a lot of corduroy and patterned blouses who could pound beer faster than fraternity brothers.
With the pub quiz concluded, Lorna observed Kyle as he approached one of the Smarty Pints girls to congratulate them but he fumbled his opening line, then couldn’t recover, and the geeky girl with curly dark hair and a greasy forehead begged off and said she was joining her friends.
Kyle glumly headed toward the barstool right next to Lorna and ordered another beer. He was quickly joined by his pub trivia teammate, a thin, wiry, short guy who could not stop moving. The short teammate drummed his thumbs on the bar and bounced from one foot to the other.
“You’re out of her league, big guy,” the short guy said to Kyle as he motioned to the Smarty Pints girl who had rebuffed him.
Lorna shifted in her seat so she could more perfectly hear the conversation happening next to her. Information was everything.
Kyle sighed. “Rejection is my middle name, Ethan. No normal woman will ever have me.”
“First of all, normal sucks. We need, nay, we deserve extraordinary!” Ethan ordered two beers. “What happened with Shelly, that fitness instructor? I thought you were in a situationship with her.”
Kyle stared into his new pint of beer. “Ah, yes. I see I have not apprised you of that particular romantic disaster. Yes, we had been seeing each other for about a month when, over a plate of fish tacos, Shelly came out to me as gay, after which I awkwardly and abruptly rearranged my thinking about her sexuality. I mean a pretty sudden realization, right? By the time the flan arrived, I had pledged my full support for the LGBTQ+ community and wished her luck. I even gave her a hug. Then, a week later I find out Shelly was banging the very male owner of my gym.”
“Seriously brutal.”
“I know. I loved that gym.”
“Did you confront her? What did you say?” Ethan asked.
“The only thing you can say in a situation like that. What the fuck?” Kyle took a sip of his brew. “Turns out she thought I was such a nice guy that she only claimed to be a lesbian to ‘let me down gently.’”
“Whew. Harsh.”
Kyle’s shoulders sunk further. “Plus, my mom called to tell me she put my name on the singles prayer list at the church.”
Ethan nodded solemnly. “Yes, that is a new low.”
“She also said my gaming was probably an issue. So did my sister.”
“What? No! Gaming is our life. Are we not allowed hobbies? Other people golf or go birdwatching for shit sake, while we stage late-night raids on the Dark Portal against the undead in the safety of our basements. We’re unsung heroes!” Ethan protested.
Kyle gave Ethan a deadpan stare just as they were joined by another teammate.
“What are we talking about?” said a chubby guy in his early forties, unshaven with unkept shaggy hair who was proudly wearing pajama pants and house slippers.
“Hey, Gerard,” Ethan said with contempt as he pointed his thumb at Kyle. “Kyle here is talking about his deep shame of being a gamer and how he’s going to die alone if he doesn’t give up his controller.”
Gerard shrugged. “No shame in being yourself, bro. Hello, my name is Gerard, and I am a gamer. Say it with me, Kyle.” Gerard accidentally farted loud enough to be heard by everyone at the bar but made no move other than to slowly wave away the smell. “Besides, I like being alone.”
Lorna leaned over slightly to get a good look at Gerard. Good thing you feel that way, fella.
“Look, I organized this pub quiz night so we could meet girls,” Kyle offered.
“Is that why we’re here?” Gerard asked. “I thought it was the chicken wings.”
“I thought it was because Nate’s wife kicked us out of his house. She acted like we were surrounded by hookers and blow.”
“She didn’t want him gaming anymore,” Kyle offered.
“Give me a break. Nate is a grown-ass man,” Ethan said.
“His wife scares me, though,” Gerard said.
“Yeah, remember when she came home early, caught us gaming, and threw us out?” Kyle asked.
“How could I forget?”
“I can’t get her words out of my head,” Kyle said glumly, remembering. “She looked at me and said: ‘Still gaming, huh, Kyle?’”
“Dude, it’s not that big a deal and you told her that, too,” Ethan offered.
“But what if she’s right? She said, ‘Adults don’t game, Kyle.’” He air quoted. “‘The sooner you get that in your geek brain, the better off you’ll be. Gamers are losers. And no woman in her right mind would blow a gamer, let alone date one seriously.’”
“That’s not true,” Gerard said.
Both Kyle and Ethan looked at him skeptically.
Kyle stared down at his beer again. Then, thoughtfully, he asked, “For the sake of my own curiosity, where would you go to meet a woman who possibly liked gaming as much as us?”
Ethan said without blinking, “Big ask.”
“What about normal women who tolerate gaming? I don’t need her to love it, I just need her to not hate it and by default hate me,” Kyle said.
“Truth is, my friend, normal women don’t game.” Ethan patted him on the back. “You’re looking for a unicorn. Normal women don’t date guys like us.” He slammed the rest of his beer and got out the key to his bike lock. Gerard offered him a condolence shrug. “Gotta bolt.”
Kyle waved goodbye to the guys as they headed off.
Lorna whispered, “Damn it.”
Kyle turned and took in the sight of Lorna, who was dressed in black leather booties, black denim, and a white and black plaid shirt, her long auburn hair falling around her shoulders as she stared down at her device.
She knew she did not look like your typical pub quizzer.
She looked up at Kyle, who was open-mouthed, staring at her.
“Oh, I’m sorry, my language.” She pushed her hair behind her ear and continued to stare at the smart phone that was vexing her. “I just can’t get this to work. Technology and I don’t mix.”
Knowing from the file she had on him, Kyle was drawn to tech problems like a moth to flame. He stepped closer to her. “What’s the problem? Maybe I can help.”
“If the experts can’t help, I’m not sure you can,” she said. “But I appreciate that.”
As if on cue, Kyle could not shy away from a tech challenge given his education, profession, and personal hobbies. “No, seriously, I know a thing or two about iPhones, the hardware and the software.”
She looked up at him slowly, with an expression that said he was her knight in shining tech armor, and said, “It’s not your typical problem.” Oh, please be the geek I need you to be.
“All the more intriguing.”
“So, here’s the deal. This is my work phone, but I also have my personal phone.
My personal phone has all of my financial data and some very personal details on it.
” She cleared her throat, and continued, “I left it at a restaurant in Manhattan Beach, and I need to disable it so no one can access it in any way until I get my hands on it again.”
“Do you have Find My Device activated on your personal phone?”
“No.”
Kyle thought for a second. “Do you have your ID and password for your personal phone?”
“Yep,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “I have that.”
Kyle smiled with confidence. “I can help.” Kyle proceeded to show her how exactly to set up a new way to access her personal phone via a ghost app that was easily downloaded onto her work phone so she could access her personal phone and shut down parts of it.
When he was finished he handed her the smart phone and said, “Now you have the ability to shut down that phone in case you leave it somewhere again.”
“Brilliant,” she whispered.
Her hair fell over her eye again as she looked at him, with a smile dripping with gratitude.
“I’m Kyle, by the way.”
“Thank you so much, Kyle, you have no idea how much this means to me.” She held out her hand and said, “I’m Lorna.”
Kyle shook it gently and said, “Nice to meet you, Lorna.”
Lorna kept her eye on him, as if assessing him like a butcher sizes up livestock and asked, knowing the answer before he gave it, “Kyle, by any chance, are you single?”
One more to go.