course. Your geek will probably
eschew the manual in favor of trial and error. He will
make mistakes and possibly even crash the system before
he's through. Be patient with him as he absorbs the
information you are providing him.
2.1
No new messages. Ash sighed, exited out of the
browser on his laptop, and shut the screen with a
quiet snap. Same as the last three times he'd
checked. It had been days since he'd tried to send
Fee a message through the RTFS blog. After some
searching, he'd found out it stood for "Read the
Fucking Source." The guidebook had worded it a
little differently, but the interpretation was the
same. Ash thought it was kind of hilarious,
especially when he considered how rarely anyone
he knew actually read directions. Most of his
friends were in the "experiment first, ask questions
later" camp.
Despite Ash's message expressing interest in the
blog and concern about whether or not Fee's hand
had healed up properly, there hadn't been any kind
of contact from Fee—not a message, a text, a
phone call. Ash was starting to feel desperate, and
that wasn't something he was used to feeling. Why
were things so easy with everyone else? He'd
never had to work so hard to get someone to go out
on a date before. Hell, getting people into bed or a
bathroom stall for a quick one-off was easier than
trying to get Fee to talk to him. It was baffling.
Could it be that maybe Ash suffered from a
misguided sense of vanity? Was it possible he
wasn't as hot as he thought he was? Ash had
always considered himself well above average in
the looks department. He'd rarely gotten turned
down in his life, and only then by people who
were already involved with someone else and
actually gave a crap about faithfulness and
monogamy. In the club scene where he spent most
of his free time, people were judged on their looks
first. Everything else was secondary. Things like
personalities
and
shared
interests
were
afterthoughts in the face a hot guy with a tight body
offering a fun time with no strings attached.
Judging by Fee's interests and the way he'd
turned Ash down without any real hesitation, Ash
got the feeling Fee wasn't an anonymous fun kind
of guy. What made the whole thing puzzling was
that Ash actually cared enough to want to find out
what kind of guy Fee really was. Fee had to be one
of the best looking men Ash had ever seen in
person, if not the best, and Ash could admit a lot
of his attraction was purely, basely physical, but
there was more to it than that. Fee intrigued Ash
for several reasons. Ash knew how to tell when
another man was interested in him—years of
experience had taught him that—and in the very
least, he knew that Fee found him attractive. So
why the refusal? Had Jackson or Marisol told Fee
about Ash's rep? It was the only explanation that
made sense to Ash. Otherwise, why fight the
attraction? It wasn't as if Ash had asked the guy to
move in. Dinner, drinks, maybe some dancing.
Totally casual, nothing major. If they didn't like
each other by the end of the night, they never had to
see each other again. All he wanted was a chance.
But how to get it?
Ash eyed his laptop contemplatively. The RTFS
book club had a meeting coming up toward the end
of the week, on Thursday night, one of Ash's rare
evenings off. They would be discussing some new
Star Wars hardcover. Ash couldn't remember the
exact title, but the website had said the discussion
would be led by Fee N. and some guy named
Donovan S. If Ash read the book and showed up at
that meeting, well, Fee could hardly ignore him.
Then afterward, maybe Ash would be able to catch
Fee alone and strike up a more private
conversation, possibly even ask Fee if he wanted
to go grab some coffee. Maybe if it seemed
impromptu instead of like a formal date, Fee
would be more likely to agree. It was worth a shot.
Ash flipped the laptop open and signed in again.
He'd get the title, and then he