The Summer I Became a Nerd - By Leah Rae Miller Page 0,16

you want to read?” Logan asks.

“Where’s your boss? He wouldn’t like me being back here, I bet.”

“Actually, I’m kind of my own boss. My parents own The Phoenix. All you see before you will one day be mine.” He spreads his arms wide.

Talk about a dream job! I’d never leave. They wouldn’t even have to pay me. “That is so awesome.” I let my fingers slide over one of the boxes. I can almost hear the thousands of voices inside begging to tell me their stories.

“It’s okay, I guess.”

“What do you mean ‘I guess’? You get to come here every day.”

“Well, the shop isn’t doing so well lately.” He leans one shoulder against the wall.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize.” Now that I think back over the many times I’ve passed by the store, I can’t remember ever seeing more than one or two cars out front at one time. Rather than think about what that meant to the store, I was more concerned about whether the people driving those cars would notice me ogling the displays in the windows.

“Don’t worry about it. Things will pick up soon. So let’s see. You like The Super Ones so you’d probably like The Midnight Judge.”

“I’ve already read that series.” I wait for his inevitable response of disbelief, but it never comes.

“Great! I mean, the earlier issues were kind of cliché, but when that new writer took over, wow. Just wow. He took it in a whole new direction.” He starts shifting boxes, reading the labels as he goes.

“I know, right? Issue #249 almost made my brain explode when he killed that cop on accident, then totally lost it.”

He stops in the middle of picking up another box, turns to me, and there’s this moment where I feel like I’m being seen for the first time. I can’t quite interpret the look on his face. It’s kind of like before when his stare made me feel almost naked, except this time his head tilts to the side and the corner of his mouth turns up just a tiny bit. It’s like he just caught a glimpse of something fascinating, but he’s not sure what it is.

“I thought the same thing.” He takes a step toward to me. “That whole story line was revolutionary, in my opinion.”

I smile, and he smiles more. The question I’ve asked myself at least a million times since I first saw Logan pops into my head: What is it about this guy? He’s not “movie star” hot. He wears one of those old calculator watches and has a scattering of freckles, for goodness sake. Then, he checks the time on that silly watch, and my stomach goes all wibbley-wobbley. I have to bite my lip to suppress a giggle when I picture him tapping away on that tiny calculator, working out complicated equations. He would have a crease between his eyebrows as he concentrated on the numbers. I would smooth it away with a kiss, and he’d look up at me and…

I put a chokehold on my thoughts before they get any further. No fantasizing about kissing adorkable nerd boys for me, no matter how kissable they look. Especially right now.

Suddenly, I realize we’ve been standing there smiling at each other for way too long. “Oh, and when his best friend is taken and brainwashed into becoming a super assassin and Judge has to kill him, too, only to find out about the brainwashing thing later.”

He nods at my rambling and takes a few more steps closer. I step back. Sort of.

“It was so sad when he found out he could have reversed the effects of the brainwashing and saved him,” he says in a near whisper. He leans forward and reaches around me to tap the box I’m propped against. “I think that run of issues is in this box.”

We’re so close now I can feel the leftover heat from the sun as it leaves his clothes and skin. He’s wearing a worn gray T-shirt that’s kind of tight on his shoulders. He’s not buff like Eric, but he’s not skin and bones, either.

“Neat.” I could smack myself in the forehead for such a lame response. But it’s like my brain has given up trying to supply me with intelligent words and has switched to “grin like a fool” mode.

“We could, uh—”

He stops midsentence, glances down at me, and swallows hard. When his lips part, I get the same light-headed feeling I do when I complete a triple back