Geek Love by SassenachWench.pdf

1. In which a battle is won

Let me tell you something about myself. My name is Edward Cullen. I'm twenty-six years old, a

little on the tall side, and I have ridiculously messy hair. I try to keep it tamed, but every strand

stands tall and proud, each in its own direction, each giving me and my "extra firm hold" gel the

big fat fucking finger every time I try.

I work in a marketing agency, in the "Interactive" department. That means we do webbie stuff.

You know, web sites, landing pages, emails, banners, Flash demos, whatever. I'm a coder, a.k.a

"geek". The new definition of "geek", that is - not the "bites heads off chickens at the carnival"

definition.

Now let me tell you something about battles. Sometimes you engage in battles that you know.

You suit up, arm up, and get the fuck out there. You either kill, or you are killed. You either win

or lose. But sometimes in life, you engage in a battle before you're even aware you're in it.

This is the story of my battle of the latter variety. It was a battle that I began waging long before

I was aware of it. A battle to win the woman of my dreams. The woman who, as I look at her

now sleeping beside me, is part of every breath, every thought, every action I take. The woman

who is so amazingly perfect for me, I cannot imagine for one moment my soul being complete

without her.

As they say, all is fair in love and war. In this war, not much was fair. But this dear readers, is a

war I won . That's the good news.

Geek Love Chapter 1: In Which a Battle is Won

The explosion to my right sent me flying to the floor. Bullet after bullet whizzed past my head,

ringing as they struck the precious things around me. It was a fucking automatic . Dammit! I

thought I had the only one.

My plush oversized microbes were the first collateral damage, one flying from its huge petri

dish, landing with a splash in the beta's bowl. The poor fish was confused—and rightly so—as it

was attacked bya Microbe of Unusual Size. The onslaught continued, and I seethed to see

Brainiac the Remote Controlled Zombie fall. He had put up a worthy defense, but ultimately was

only as good as the man controlling him. That man—me—was currently playing Cowardly-

fucking-Lion, hiding under my desk. Still the missiles rained down, taking good soldiers at every

turn. Boxing Nun fell next, taking Jesus Bobblehead with her. Half-Dead Potted Plant was the

last to fall, suffering a mortal blow as the desiccated soil spilled from its overturned pot.

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ how long is the ammo belt on that thing?

Suddenly I felt something warm and disturbingly wet dripping down the back of my neck.

Looking up I saw it was coffee. Drip after drip was playing lemming on the edge of my work

station.

Son of a bitch! There was coffee all over the schema I had been working on. That was my only

copy. Now I have to go talk to the asshat hipster kids in the Creative department in order to get

another one. Ugh.

Right now though, I had bigger things to worry about. Like the twatwaffle who shot at me. She

was going to pay.

Looking around at the damage, I saw the Nerf dart soaking in the pool of brown liquid around

my overturned coffee cup, ironically drowning in its own victim. Anger wrapped its ugly fingers

around my heart. That right there is unadulterated sacrilege. You don't fuck with my coffee.

Grabbing my own Vulcan Automatic Nerf blaster—stashed handily under my desk for just such

occasions—I channeled my inner ninja and crept stealthily along the inner sanctum of my cube.

Bitch. Must. Die. Or at least be slightly bruised by the Nerfageddon I was about to unleash on

her. Peeking around the corner I saw nothing. She must be hiding behind the half-wall of her

cube.

Coward.

Crouching lower, making sure my back and head were well below the top of the low filing

cabinets, I crept along the wall towards the next set of cubicles. Rounding the final corner, still

crouched, I raised my weapon in anticipation of the hell-fire of terror I was about to unleash,

when–

"Cullen! What the heck are you doing down there, man? I've been looking every where for you.

We need you in a status call with the client. They're really hot to trot on this new interactive

project and we need someone to speak geek to their geeks."

Holy poop on a stick, it was Mike Newton—Project Lead and King Asshat. I sighed, not

bothering to disguise it and got to my feet, waiting for the gloating that was sure to come. As I

rose, a dark slender figure stood on the other side of the half-wall. Hood pulled up, dark hair

peeking out, she gave me the exact shit-eating grin I feared seeing.

"You're learning well, padawan. But not well enough," Bella's voice was quiet but had an

unmistakable ring of victory.

I had nothing. She owned me this time. Who am I kidding, she owned me always. But just this

once I might have had a chance had Mike "Fucktard" Newton not called me out.

"Coming, Cullen? We're meeting in McD's."

All of our conference rooms had been named for fast food chains. McD's was one of the biggest,

with nasty-ass yellow walls. I think the color was supposed to be "Golden Arches", but it turned

out more "Baby-shit Mustard".

"Yeah Mike, I'll be there in a minute. Let me just get my notebook."

Mike scurried down the hallway, his loafers squeaking on the polished cement floors as he went.

Turning, I spoke quietly, giving my words a solemnity appropriate to the occasion.

"You killed my Microbes of Unusual Size"

"No I didn't Edward, they're only mostly dead."

She reached in her hoodie pocket, handing me a fuzzified almond M&M.

"The chocolate coating makes it go down easier."

She offered the candy, clearly intended as a "miracle pill", to revive my Microbe of Unusual

Size. She was truly a strange girl. I took it, holding back my comment on M&Ms being candy -

coated, not chocolate -coated. You don't fuck with a movie quote, even if slightly misused. It's

just rude. Walking back to my desk, I put my Vulcan Automatic Nerf blaster down, frowning at

the mess.

"I'll reprint the schema for you, Edward. Sorry about that."

She sounded genuinely penitent. It wasn't necessary—I would have fucked her up the same way

if I had thought of it first. But Bella Swan was always one step ahead of me. Hell, who was I

kidding. She was like four fucking steps ahead of me, at all times.

God she was a bitch.

And by "bitch" I mean "the most amazingly brilliant, funny, beautiful, wank-worthy woman, I

will never, ever, ever have."

Ugh.

I had a client call to get to.

Did I say "ugh" already?

Running a hand through my disheveled hair I turned, walking down the hall towards McD's.

Twenty four and a half minutes, three eye rolls, and eleven stupid questions later, I was just

wrapping up the phone conference with our latest panic-inducing client and their equally bored,

eye-rolling geeks, when I got a text message.

What ever you do, don't answer their questions. It's exactly what they'd expect you to do.

I quickly typed my response.

It's too late for me, they know everything. Get out! Save yourself!

We did this goofy shit all day long. It made my day — every day.

2. In which a door is closed

The next afternoon, enjoying a quick nap at my desk—as I was wont to do—I missed her

stealthy entrance.

"I need worms, Edward."

Lifting my head from my slightly drool-dampened sleeve, I cracked open a single eye to see

Bella—UXGoddess and Crushtastic Ego Destroyer—watching me intently. This could only

mean nap time was over.

"Worms?"

I cringed. There was verifiable evidence that I was an intelligent man—IQ tests showing me well

above average—yet this woman was capable of reducing me to a monosyllabic idiot.

"Yes, worms. I need some worms. Can I use yours? Bruce is hungry and I'm out."

Worms?…Bruce? I was trying desperately to make two and two equal four. Bruce is her fish.

Realization dawned. Blood worms . She wanted to borrow fish food. Jesus Christ was it so hard to

process a simple request?

I pointed to the container of Hikari blood worms next to Chum's bowl. She took it, eyeing me

carefully again. I resisted the urge to check my nose for a stray booger, or massive pimple. The

girl looked for all the world like she wanted to say something, but instead, she just sighed,

turned, and walked out. Of course I kept watching her as she went into her own cube farm. She

was wearing her favorite "Zombies Were People Too" hoodie, feeding Bruce, singing to him in

hideous gloomy bass-baritone.

"The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out; the ones that crawl in are lean and thin; the ones

that crawl out are fat and stout; your eyes fall in and your teeth fall out; your brains go tumbling

round your skull; be merry my friends, be merry..."

"Cullen, can you make the three o'clock?" Newton's irritating voice broke through my reverie.

Three o'clock…my mind raced. UI review for the new interactive project.

"Yeah. Sure."

"Great!" Turning, he hollered over me in Bella's direction, "Bella? You coming? We have to go

over the site map now."

I was displeased to discover that the fuckwadish quality to his voice increased exponentially in

relation to its volume.

"Sure Mike. I'll print them out. Meet you in your office in a few." As she turned to sit, intending

to print her documentation, I cocked my six-shooter and totally fucking nailed her in the back of

the head, the dart trying to bounce off her mass of brown hair, but getting caught in the curls. I

fived myself internally at my fan-fucking-tastic aim, but again the woman stole my thunder by

not even turning around. She had no reaction at all, other than slowly raising a single finger to

me.

You can probably guess which one.

~oOo~

Bella returned about twenty-five minutes later from her meeting with Mike. She

seemed…deflated, somehow. Tension rolled off her as she sat down at her desk. No-one else

around us seemed to notice, but then again, no-one else paid quite as much attention to Bella as I

did. Not that she knew.

I opened our idiotic corporate messaging app, IT having blocked the messaging port on our

network.

EC: You OK?

BS: Yeah.

EC: Really?

BS: Yeah.

BS: ...no.

BS: ...yeah. It's fine.

EC: Liar.

BS: Asshat.

EC: Wanna talk about it?

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