I've Seen You Naked and Didn't Laugh: A Geeky Love Story

CHAPTER ONE

When you think of hotbed of geek fandom, Waco, Texas does not immediately come to mind. Oh, we existed, but there weren’t many of us, and we tended to keep a low profile. We hid among the stacks in the library, behind the dusty velvet curtains backstage in the high school’s theatre. We stuffed Spider-Man comics and well-loved Potter paperbacks in the deepest recesses of our backpacks; close, but buried. It would not do to be caught with geek contraband. Not in Waco. Not where Baylor football was worshipped, and where cow-tipping, beer and Sunday school bolo ties were the expected norm.

But I was unabashedly geeky, uncaring (or perhaps just unaware) of how suspect that was. I wore Star Wars tee shirts and worked on Dungeons and Dragons character sheets during recess, could recite entire passages from Star Trek TNG’s Chain of Command episode, and once went an entire week with my ginger hair in Princess Leia cinnamon buns until the teasing became too relentless. I didn’t care, not really.

But then, when I was ten—ten point three years, to be exact—my mother’s newly widowed sister from Louisiana came to live with us. She’d stepped inside our modest Ranch, gave one long, slow glare around my mother’s simple style—leather recliner, passed-down fancy mahogany dining room table with matching chairs and sideboard, to the gleaming dark kitchen cabinets—then quickly glanced at my three older brothers before her critical attention stopped right on me.

"Mais non, Michelle. The frown she’d given my mother looked as though she expected an explanation for the disaster I clearly was. Pippi Longstocking braids and all. What is that girl wearing? Cher, come. Taunte Clarice will fix you up."

She took over then and I let her, Mama did because, Mom promised, Clarice was sad and lonesome since the cancer took her man. I was to be her pet project. I was the distraction that took her from her grief.

That’s when I stopped wearing my geekdom on my sleeve and shelved it deep in my dreams.

Taunte Clarice taught me to sit up straighter, with my knees pressed together and my legs crossed demurely at the ankles. She taught me how to braid my hair to look like a fishtail, or how to wear it up with delicate wisps highlighting the softness of my face. She taught me how to hold flatware, which spoons to use and for what occasion, how to use a linen napkin, and to fold my hands into my lap while chewing. And God love her, Clarice taught me how to handle myself when things were falling on top of me—expectations, worries, struggles, and, eventually, the bright glare of a spotlight as I debuted in my first Miss Teen Texas beauty pageant.

During my years on the pageant circuit, Taunte Clarice coached me to move with some kind of grace under the quick appraisal of strange eyes as they watched me wearing hardly anything at all with a number pinned to the glittering blue one-piece swimsuit I’d been stuffed into, the one that got skimpier as the years passed and my body widened, filled out, became rounded. It got to be that I felt like the Cajun boudin that Clarice insisted she make for our family whenever she got homesick for Louisiana. That fatty meat got stuffed into tight casing same as me. Only, the boudin got eaten, not criticized by a panel of local business owners looking for free advertising as they judged me and my fellow competitors at the Miss North Waco beauty pageant. That had been yet another of Clarice’s efforts to put me in front of the right people. The right men.

I’d been Clarice’s guinea pig—a proper Southern girl she expected to marry off to some redneck who drove a pickup and wore a hat too big for his head. Secretly, I dreamed of Jean Luc Picard and Luke Skywalker. I didn’t want to stand at some man’s side while he flew off into the sunset. I wanted to fly the damn ship.

But there was little chance of stowing aboard a star cruiser in Waco so I opted for something that might at least get me out of Texas—obsessively watching Inside the Actor’s Studio as my own little Master Class in how to act. Well. At least to act like I knew how to act. At seventeen it became official: James Lipton was my spirit animal.

But that was then.  Ten years later and I was out of Waco and Taunte Clarice, God bless her soul, had lived long enough to take credit for my first feature film. Never mind that I’d played Short Skirt Wearing Chica with No Mouth Number 2 in a sci-fi flick that made zero money. Clarice had still been proud. My mama, not so much. It was the short skirt. She didn’t like me showing that much leg. But as time went on, and I continued to get my name in the credits—true, not many, and none too high up on the cast scroll, but there—even Mama came around and admitted that maybe I had made some right decisions with my life, after all.

Now it was a Tuesday, like any other in my Hollywood Heights Spanish Revival. I was a long damn way from Waco but it wasn’t as glamorous as you’d think. Had I become a working actress? Yes. Had I moved through the ranks and earned a little clout in the industry? Yes, well, mainly because of my friends, but yes. As a glamorous Hollyweird movie star-person, was I living it up surrounded by muscular, gorgeous men with loads of adoring fans clamoring for the smallest glimpse at me? Um. No. Not so much. Turns out, that shit required way more effort than I could bring myself to muster, or even really care about.

The alert on my phone brought me back from my daydreaming; something I'd been doing a lot of lately. The damned thing had disappeared into the depths of my couch cushions, and the clutter that had accumulated there. I dug around under the mess of empty Cheetos bags and three day old Starbucks cups I’d guilted my assistant Kelsi into bringing me despite it being her week off.

Stay-cation honeymoon. Pfffttt. I paid her too much for such trivial things.

So, the alert only got me moving because A) I had to pee, and B) I was so within the throes of a Funk of Epic Magnitude, (forthwith referred to as FEM), that moving my limbs, getting the blood circulating again and uncramping my muscles had become a more pressing urgency than even the aforementioned peeing.

When I finally unearthed my iPhone, I had to wipe off the Cheetos dust and fingerprints that smudged along the white cover before peering through the crack that ran across the screen, resembling something akin to a thunder strike like the ones that ripped through the Texas night sky during the summer back at my granny’s place near Lake Waco. But when I saw the subject of the alert, I threw the phone back on the couch, not caring about the further damage rough handling might cause. I needed to check this news out on something more reliable than a Cheeto-smudged, lightning cracked disaster of a phone.

I retrieved my MacBook from where it had only marginally been stashed on the coffee table and thumbed it on. Come on, WiFi... The small encouragement seemed to work and TMZ’s website loaded. Blazoned right there on the front page was the subject of that heart-stammering alert:  a picture of my former best damn friend, Will Callahan’s smug, too handsome face right alongside that no good, backstabbing former roommate and at one time bestie for life of mine, Ellie Garcia.

I should have stayed blissfully unaware.

The small video below the ‘WILL CALLAHAN AND ELLIE GARCIA: ‘JUST’ CO-STARS?’ headline lagged for just a few seconds before it fired up and I tightened my fingers, reaching for my cold, half-gone instant coffee I’d sleepily made a few hours before. A moment later, I coughed it back up, and I doubt it was because of the taste.

There was Will on the screen, looking especially sharp; lean, engaged, chin dabbled with artsy stubble, his wavy, brown hair perfectly coiffed. He looked far more suave and distinguished than I knew he was, waving to the photographers and fans as he and Bitch-From-Waco (hitherto known as BFW), Ellie stood arm-in-arm, laughing and whispering in each other’s ears like they both hadn’t been responsible for the two greatest betrayals of my life.

Captain Hot Stuff, the exaggerated voice on the video began, chuckling behind the stupid nickname, as Will and Ellie continued to nod and wave to the cameras clicking crazily from behind velvet ropes. Captain Hot Stuff. Didn’t those idiots know the term was Captain Hot Pants? Besides, I bet Ellie or that stupid reporter wouldn’t be all that impressed by my former BFF if they knew how extensive (and beloved) his Marvel comic book collection was, or just how much cash he dropped at any and every convention that he went to (incognito, of course) just like a fanboy, or that he had a Han Solo in Carbonite desk—not a figurine, a desk—in his home office. Okay. That last was pretty damn cool, but still not the point.

"Will Callahan, former star of Cooper Vilmont’s space western, AURA, and everyone’s favorite bombshell Fairy Maiden, Ellie Garcia, have teamed up for NBC’s sexy new cop drama, Alibi, about a con man turned PI on a mission to clear his partner’s name and solve his murder. Will stars as Mick Samson, and Ellie as Lydia Gomez, the reluctant Chicago detective lending a hand to Samson. Ellie also serves as executive producer and showrunner. But it was how cozy the two co-stars looked at the network's annual American Heart Foundation gala that had tongues wagging."

The video shifted to an edited shot of Ellie touching Will’s arm, leaning across him to kiss the cheek of someone I couldn’t see as Will leaned away. "Rumor has it that these longtime friends are spending as much of their shooting schedule getting cozy as they are actually working. Both Will and Ellie’s camps insist their relationship is strictly platonic, but sources on the Alibi set say that the couple have gotten very close since filming began a month ago, and insiders behind the scenes have been bragging about the couple’s chemistry on and off camera. No word on how the new couple’s relationship will impact Callahan’s legendary Oh-No-We’re-Just-Buddies friendship with Emmy-winning actress of HBO’s steampunk horror, Clockwork Castle and Ellie’s fellow Waco, Texas alum, Raine Quinn. There already has been no love lost between these former best friends since their falling out years ago, and this new development will no doubt add fuel to the fire. But then, as the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity! Alibi is set to air this fall."

The Mac tittered against the marble countertop when I slammed the laptop shut. It was stupid to be upset about Ellie and Will. No matter that I hadn’t spoken to him in months, Will would never be with Ellie after she stabbed me in the back. Logically, I knew that. Although he had made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t interested in me that way, he had never stopped insisting that he was my friend, and even friends who are mad at each other still operate per the Friendship Handbook, right? It was pointless to let the surge of anger coursing around my chest build until my temper had gotten so sharp that I half thought about chucking my Mac across the messy living room.

Stupid. Pointless.

I did it anyway. My aim was bad and the laptop popped open when it hit the floor, a wavy image of the stilled video mocking me as Will continually laughed at something Ellie whispered in his ear.

Ripper, my overweight, slobbering basset hound lumbered into the living room at the noise and I swear he looked between me and the laptop, shooting his lazy gaze back at me as though wanting to ask, What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know how expensive that thing is? For once, I was happy he couldn’t speak.

Sloppy, wet kisses went up my neck as I bent to collect my now busted laptop and I cringed against Ripper’s slobbering and the crooked crack that frayed across the screen. Damn it.

A small ooff of noise made its way past my lips as Ripper flopped into my lap and I was stuck resting against the sofa, the laptop forgotten in the onslaught of those slavering kisses and my distant, out of focus stare as I scratched the dog behind the ears.

What am I gonna do, Rip? That question garnered a wetter, more enthusiastic kiss, which I accepted gratefully. If only you were a real live boy, buddy.

But he wasn’t, no matter how much I might wish it. Closing my eyes, I let him settle on my lap, resting that big head next to my hip as I leaned against the plush cushions behind me.

Will.  God, the thought of that night only a few months ago, the night where all my dreams came true and then were brutally dashed within just a few hours came to me no matter how tightly I squeezed my eyes; the image of my best friend, well, once best friend, completely naked and enthusiastically licking...

Shit. No. That won’t help.

To my left the half open laptop was still powered up, though pink lines started shifting in and out over the screen. On it, Will’s smiling, sweet face seemed to mock me. I looked away, but it was no use. The curved inset bookcases on either side of the fireplace and along the mantel held rows and rows of framed pictures, and in nearly every one was Will and me, or Will, me and all of our friends. Or, my family—the Ginger Tribe, as Will had always affectionately referred to us. Or, his mom, Lana, and us during our frequent trips to Brazil so she could get a little nip and touch up.

He was everywhere—in this house, in my career, in my damn head.

I patted Ripper on the head as I wiggled away from his heavy body and stood in front of those bookshelves contemplating why I hadn’t seen fit to rid myself of Will’s influence, at least inside the walls of my home. Why did I insist on keeping him so front and center, knowing that in doing so I must resign myself to being the safe, familial friend?

There was a large photo of the two of us from six years before. It was the night I'd wrapped my first day of filming on Clockwork Castle and Will had come to the set to take me and our shared friend and mentor, Cooper Vilmont, out to dinner to celebrate. It had been Coop’s dream to write and direct a steampunk crime fighting historical series and he’d tapped me to star in the thing. It had been the happiest I’d ever been creatively. In the photo I still wore the brown leather corset over a white frilly shirt, topped off by a weathered aviator jacket with tails and brown britches. Will’s arm was draped over my shoulder and his smile was genuine and dazzling. Like most things we did together—professional and otherwise—it had been a fun night. It was just another happy memory I’d shared with Will and staring at the humor lighting up his face only made me resentful and embarrassed.

I’m going to take you. I’m going to take you again and again.

I shuddered, trying to dismiss the memory of the drunken slur in Will’s voice from that night three months ago. That wonderful, horrible night, that happened right here in this room, that night when everything changed between us. It was the night I lost my best friend forever and it was my own damn fault.

The next morning, I was still drowning in bliss, having finally been able to show this man who I had loved in secrecy for so long just how I truly felt about him.  He, however, hadn’t remembered a thing. He had, in fact, been utterly horrified to wake up naked next to me.

Oh God, Rainey. What did we do?

There’d been so much fear in his eyes at that moment.