Double Digit Read Online Free PDF

were edited just for me, and it occurred to me that there is nothing nicer than when someone has taken the time to know you.
    “Send me that one, for my phone. It’s perfect.”
    “Sure. It’s probably good to have backup in case your reliable oak tree photo doesn’t work. How is all that since you’ve been here?”
    At first I thought he was teasing me. I mean, it’s not hard to mock a girl whose brain has an unreliable Off switch. But the look on his face was more serious, and I could tell he really wanted to know. Believe me when I tell you, there are not a lot of people I’d have this conversation with. Maybe three.
    “It’s okay. I was a little overwhelmed when I first got here, so I felt a little on edge. A couple of times I thought I was going to slip into the overcomputing place. There was this towel with an irregular stripe, and Tiki tried to hang this poster that was . . . I don’t even want to talk about it. But since classes have started, I feel like my brain has so much data to process that it kind of naturally shuts off when I’m done. I haven’t had to pull out the oak tree photo to quiet my mind since I’ve been here. It’s kind of like when Danny was little and we had to let him run around for an hour before dinner so he could sit still and eat. I wonder if there’s really nothing wrong with me, but that my brain just needed more exercise.”
    “There’s nothing at all wrong with you.”
    “Thanks.” I fiddled with my napkin, completely nervous again. When I looked back up, John was staring at me.
    “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad there’s a place like this for you. Even if I miss you all the time. It’s just right that you’re here. You need it.”
    “Yep, the hamster needs her wheel.” I’m embarrassed to report that he kissed me right there in the restaurant and that we sat so close to each other in the booth that we could have fit eight other people around us. It was a perfectly romantic date for two perfectly normal people. That was all I wanted.
     
    The pit in my stomach returned as soon as the cab brought us back to campus. “So, really? Are you really ready to do this?”
    “C’mon, Digit, I want to meet Tiki and the hackers and see you in your new natural habitat.” He was totally relaxed and thought this was hysterical.
    “Fine. Bass’s band is playing at the coffeehouse; Tiki and those guys are definitely there. We’ll go for an hour.” I moved like I was taking the recycling out, in a hurry to get a necessary but annoying task out of the way. “C’mon.”
    When we walked into the coffeehouse, the band was so loud that I immediately stopped worrying that my friends and John would have nothing to talk about. They were a cover band with two guys on guitar, a keyboardist, and a drummer. Seeing Bass like that, totally in his element, I couldn’t remember what he was like without a guitar in his hands.
    Clarke, Ella, and Scott were crowded around a small cocktail table by the stage, alternately arguing about something and bobbing their heads to the music. The whole scene was like a silent movie, with arms waving and mouths moving but no words at all. Just really loud background music.
    Tiki and Howard were at the bar. John and Tiki exchanged waves and
hello
s. John and Howard shook hands. John had his arm around me and seemed to be taking it all in like an anthropologist. I was just starting to relax when the band quit for a break. Silence.
    “So, hey, you’re the older spy guy I keep getting compared to.” That was typical Howard, a little humorous and a little hostile.
    “Yes. That’s me. How are you measuring up?”
    “Pretty good, not bad.” Howard gave Tiki a little smirk. Ick.
    Tiki likes to cut to the chase. “So is it weird to be back at college? Is this what Princeton was like? I mean, you should still be at college—you’re only twenty-one, right? Do you feel like you missed out by finishing school so fast?”
    “I don’t even know what