Nerds Are From Mars Read Online Free PDF

face. Talk about sheer terror!” She laid her hand on his coat sleeve. “I wouldn’t torture you by putting your chart on a public bulletin board in full view of all your colleagues. That would be mean.”
    “But I didn’t tell you not to.” He didn’t fail to notice that this time she’d touched him. Too bad he had a dress shirt and a sport coat blocking the warmth of her hand.
    “No, you didn’t, and you get points for that. In fact, we’ll do the reading somewhere private, maybe in my room after dinner. Would that work for you?”
    “Yes.” He hoped that he hadn’t injected too much eagerness into that reply. He adopted a more businesslike tone. “That would work.” If she’d told him earlier that the reading would take place in the privacy of her hotel room, he’d have agreed to the whole program a hell of a lot faster. To spend that kind of alone time with Darcie, he’d agree to paint zodiac signs on the walls of his lab. Okay, maybe not on the walls. But he’d paint them on the fuselage of the model rocket sitting on his desk.
    “Then I’ll get to work. We should exchange cell phone numbers so I can text you when I’m done.”
    “You bet.” He heard himself and cringed. Once again, too eager. Oh, who was he fooling? He’d admitted that she’d been his dream girl and if he loused up this reunion he’d regret it for the rest of his life. She had to know he was still nuts about her.
    They each hauled out their phones and exchanged digits. That was when it dawned on him that she’d mentioned meeting after dinner to read his chart. The conference wasn’t providing tonight’s meal, so people were free to make their own plans. Idiot that he was, he hadn’t picked up his cue.
    But he could still fix that slip-up. “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”
    She finished keying in his number and glanced up from her phone. “I’m not sure when I’ll be finished with your chart. Tell you what. If I’m running late, I’ll just order room service and let you know when I’m ready for you to come over for the reading.”
    “Would it bother you if I’m there when you’re still working?”
    She laughed. “No. When I’m concentrating, you could stage a football scrimmage in there and I wouldn’t notice.”
    Yeah, he related to that. “Then why don’t I come to your room around six and we’ll order dinner whether you’re done or not? That way I know you’ll eat. If you’re anything like me, you might forget food completely.”
    “I’ve been known to.”
    “What’s your room number?”
    She gave it to him and he keyed it into his phone. “I’ll have some lunch sent over in about an hour so you won’t skip that meal, either. What do you like?”
    “You don’t have to do that, Nolan.”
    “I don’t have to, but I will, especially since you’re creating my chart for free.”
    “I should hope I’m doing it for free, since I’m forcing it on you.”
    “I’ll be a better man for facing my fears. Now tell me what you want for lunch or you’re liable to get something I like and you hate.”
    “Highly unlikely. I’m a Sagittarius, so I like nearly everything, whereas I’m guessing that you are –”
    “Don’t even say it.” His last girlfriend had ridden him unmercifully about being a picky eater. “And I’m better than I used to be. Harcourt is forever taking me to ethnic restaurants to, as he says, educate my palate .”
    “Let me take a wild guess. Fagan Harcourt was born sometime between July twenty-second and August twentieth.”
    “Good guess. August tenth.”
    “If I’d been wrong on that, I’d have to get him to let me do his chart to see where I messed up. He’s such a classic Leo.”
    Nolan had a moment’s panic. “You’d . . . uh . . . ask to do his chart?”
    “I absolutely would if I had the opportunity, and I can guarantee he’d get a kick out of it because the chart would be all about him. Leos love that kind of attention.” She patted