“Just more?” I suggest and she gives a soft laugh.
“You’re very good looking. Are you single?”
“Thank you, but if you want me to make a move on Lily, I’ll have to pass.”
“You can wait a few years, then put the moves on me instead.”
Her eyes light up so adorably that I almost agree, then turn to see Mr Cameron’s gaze is seriously in danger of scorching me.
“Maybe when you’re in your twenties. I think it takes at least until twenty-one to give enough buffer for a seven-year age gap.”
“You’ll be taken off the market long before then,” she says with a face full of misery, which soon brightens. “But you might also be newly divorced.”
“Wonderful. I’ll be sure to send you a text the moment my imaginary marriage dissolves.”
“Deal.”
There’s little more we can do without access to a desktop and a server with lots of grunt, and I write out a list of equipment that she’ll need and that Leonard or Zach can easily afford to buy.
“Can you show me those forums you were talking about?” she asks me when I’m thinking that’s enough for the day. “The ones where you can earn money.”
“You’ll need a wallet,” I hedge but her smile says she’s already got that sorted. “Sure,” I agree instead, leading her to the right place.
“There are probably hundreds of others, but this one’s easy to navigate and folks look out for each other. What’s your handle?”
The narrowed eyes give me pause for a second, then her face relaxes back into its charming smile as she recites it to me. The longer I spend with this girl, the more I appreciate her. When Zach said she was like me, he was one hundred percent on the money.
Perhaps if things with Em work out about as well as they’ve gone so far, in another decade, I will hunt her down and see if she’s still keen on a date.
“You can filter it using keywords, but you might miss some opportunities just because the people who request things don’t always know what they’re talking about.”
She rolls her eyes and I give her a nudge with my elbow. “Careful. It’s only because they don’t that there’s an opportunity to make money. If they knew enough to ask correctly, chances are they’d know enough to do it themselves.”
“People are so lame.”
“Absolutely true.” I scan through the list quickly, scrolling down the page as I do so, forgetting there’s a pair of eyes newer than mine to the scene also reading.
When I pause, and try to be a good host, she nudges me back with a sharper elbow than the one I used. “Don’t be insulting.”
“Just giving you a chance to get accustomed to the layout.”
“I should take over scrolling,” she mutters with a wicked smile. “But your eyes are so old they probably wouldn’t be able to keep up.”
“Ouch.”
I speed up to where I can barely make out the keywords, feeling a quiet satisfaction until Sierra points to the screen, obviously coping just fine. “There. What’s that?”
I stop and pull up the conversation thread. “Creating anonymous social media accounts is completely beneath you,” I say, scanning the subtext more than what’s actually written. “This guy must be—”
“How d’you know it’s a guy?”
“Choice of words. Phrasing. Who-knows? He just is. My point is—”
“I got your point. Who d’you think explains the finer details of every new device that comes into this house?”
Leonard gives a low chuckle at that, betraying his eavesdropping. “Way to make me feel like a grandpa.”
“It’s not an insult to be old,” she says and might even believe it. “I was just saying I understand.”
