Talk Nerdy to Me by Vicki Lewis Thompson

great." Then he closed the pamphlet.
"Now let's check out that washing machine."
    "Okay."
Getting Charlie to think about something human instead of mechanical might
prove more of a challenge than she'd thought.
    But right
before he turned around to leave the room, he paused. "You have a round
bed." He sounded surprised, as if he'd been so absorbed in the pamphlet
that this was the first real look he'd taken.
    Obviously the man wasn't plugged
into the same sexual outlet that was powering her sex drive. "Yes."
She'd had it so long that she'd forgotten it worked as a conversation piece.
If the bed could jump-start a personal discussion, fine.
    "Why round?"
    If only she
could tell him she'd bought it because it was supposed to promote great sex,
but that would be intellectually dishonest and she'd never been capable of
that. "I read somewhere that if you want to spark creative ideas, you have
to shake up your brain, surprise it with the unexpected. So I ordered a round
bed."
    "Does it work?" He drew
closer to the bed.
    Want
to test-drive it and see? But she knew the timing was
wrong for a comment like that. "It did at first. I had some wild dreams
and came up with the hovercraft concept."
    "There's an
endorsement."
    "But I should probably
change to something else."
    "Trapezium?"
    She laughed.
"Wow. No two sides the same. That would shake things up."
    "Just draw up some specs and
I'll fool around with it."
    Now there was a concept. Charlie
making her a bed. That could lead to some interesting discussions. "Okay,
I will."
    "With
this one, though, I would think you'd fall off." He glanced from Eve to
the bed and back again.
    She wondered
if he might be picturing her in that bed. With luck he was also imagining a
sexy negligee. The brightness of his eyes made that a definite possibility.
    "The
dimensions feel strange at first, but you get used to them," she said.
"Then again, I don't move a lot in bed." Except
when I go there to do something besides sleep.
    He
swallowed. "I, uh, do. I thrash around something terrible.
Sometimes I wake up and I'm all tangled in the ..." His
voice trailed off as his glance met hers. "But I'm sure you don't want to
hear that."
    "I don't
mind." She held his gaze, which was fun because she had to look up. When
a girl stood five ten in her stocking feet, she didn't look up to a whole lot
of guys. Charlie was at least six five.
    And
he had such great eyes to look up into, especially when the light didn't
reflect off the lens of his glasses. Right now there was no reflection at all, and
she could study those intelligent brown peepers for as long as she wanted.
"There are lots of things we don't know about each other."
    "Guess
so," he said softly. His eyes got all warm and dreamy. He looked like a
man thinking seriously about a kiss. Then he backed off and took a deep breath.
"To tell the truth, I 'm
not very interesting."

Chapter
Six
    Whew. Charlie wasn't sure what had happened, but he'd been damned
close to kissing Eve at least twice. It was that mouth of hers, those
incredible lips that had helped make her famous.
    Obviously
he was as susceptible to that mouth as the rest of the world, especially when
she used it to explain her theory about sleeping in round beds to shake up her
brain and promote creativity. He'd also allowed himself to stand next to that
round bed of hers for way too long.
    Then he'd made the colossal
mistake of offering to build her one in the shape of a trapezium. When was he
planning to do that? He had places to go, jobs to interview for. He needed to
forget about beds and sex and get his hands on something mechanical fast.
    He
tucked the pamphlet on rotary engines in his hip pocket. "So where's your
washing machine?"
    "Down
this way. The washer and dryer are in a closet in the bathroom." She led
the way down the hall.
    The
hardwood floors felt great under his socks. He was renting an apartment with
the standard beige carpeting, and he'd never realized how much he hated it
until now.