Geeky, Freaky, Clueless: A Halloween Romance: Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish, #4

By G.G. Andrew

Phineas Harrington was Vina Penjarla's first real kiss. But when she discovers the gorgeous Brit is the new theater director she'll be working with, things get super complicated. After all, Vin knows nothing about this dating stuff. And as her attraction for the sweet and intelligent guy grows, so does her fear that he's keeping a big, dark secret.

But what if Vin has a secret of her own?

• Language: English
• Publisher: G.G. Andrew
• Release date: Oct 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9798201946074

G.G. Andrew

G.G. Andrew has written love stories about poets, ghosts, reformed mean girls, grammar nerds, kleptomaniacs, cops, graffiti artists, and many, many horror geeks, but what they all have in common is they’re filled with humor and heart. (And sometimes a Star Wars reference or two.) She writes about books for the BookBub Blog. An avid nerd, G.G. enjoys British comedy, black licorice, neon pink, frozen concoctions, monster movies, and any type of rom-com. She’s probably drinking tea right now. Join her mailing list to get free stories, scenes, and sneak peeks at new books.

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Chapter One

Vin

My friend Nora said that dating was just like running lines for a play, but she was dead wrong.

I’d thought about it extensively the past couple of days, ever since she and my other friends had gotten me drunk for the first time and found a guy for me to practice on.

We’ll extract you if it gets weird, I promise, Nora had said. We’d spotted a guy at the bar, writing in a notebook. He had the kind of hair color that couldn’t decide whether it was brown or gold or red. He was sitting alone.

Just think of it like a run-through, she added. You’re not even in rehearsals yet. It’s practice, no pressure at all.

Right.

Though alcohol had burned away my ability to think clearly then, I now mentally counted the reasons she was wrong as I drove to my university. I’d graduated last spring, but the theater department had invited me back to help direct a play alongside a visiting professor who would serve as the musical director. If there was one thing I knew, it was theater and running lines.

Which were not at all like dating.

First, and most important, there was no script in dating. So when I went on the dates my mother had set up, the ones where I’d meet nice, educated Indian-American men and gain the romance experience I needed, I had no idea what to say. Those men all seemed to know what to say. I have a master’s in business administration, they’d remark, or How long have you lived here? But when I opened my mouth, all that came out were a jumble of random factoids, like I’d dumped out a game of Trivial Pursuit and was picking up the cards and reading them aloud.

You're left-handed, I’d said loudly once I’d reached the practice guy at the bar, the one scribbling away. Did you know that means you’re statistically more likely to be good at visual-spatial tasks? Also possibly more successful in general. Four of our last six presidents were lefties.

He paused, looked up, and stared at me with light green eyes. I think they called the color seafoam in crayon boxes, which luckily I managed not to say out loud.

Still, practice was not going well so far.

Hello, he finally said. He had a slight accent, and as I watched, one corner of his mouth turned up. That’s about the weirdest welcome I’ve had yet.

I blushed and stared. At least the shots I’d downed earlier diluted some of the embarrassment. I probably should have started with a simpler way to establish connection. Like hi.

Hi, I said, forty seconds too late, and his smile grew.

No wonder I’d never had a real kiss.

But the practice guy gestured for me to sit on the barstool beside him, and I dropped to the seat, pushing my long dark hair out of my face.

The practice guy’s nose looked like it’d been broken at some point but not set properly. I couldn’t stop noticing. Also, the bar was loud with music and laughter and shouts, so when he told me his name, it sounded like Fish.

What?

Fish, he repeated. I had met very few men named after sea creatures. None, in fact.

You talk funny. Alcohol was making thoughts drizzle out of my mouth. So your name is Fish?

Fish? he shouted over the din. I don’t think they serve that here. And I’m British.

Oh. He had a nice, open expression, a mouth that smiled easily, but there was something else radiating from him that I couldn’t put my finger on. Something stranger and maybe sad. It wasn’t entirely unappealing. Maybe it was the busted nose. Up close, his crooked nose and strong jaw were set off by that easy smile and bright eyes, forming a face that was both boyish and manly—and probably a few years older than my twenty-two. It was a shame his parents hadn’t given him a more masculine nautical name like Trout or Perch.

You’re not, uh, a local university student, are you? he said above the music.

No! I just look twelve. I took off my glasses, like that would help, but then hastily put them on when the room grew blurry. I graduated last year, I added. Do you want to see a form of ID?

He shook his head and started laughing. No, that’s alright.

Over Fish’s shoulder, my circle of friends were clumped together, watching us. Nora twined a strand of long, dark hair around her finger while Brendan, her boyfriend and my best friend, wrapped an arm around her waist and gave me an encouraging smile—as did my good friend Samantha, who sat beside Zach’s bulky frame. Even Ryan, who almost never talked, was watching. Was I doing okay?

I met Fish’s eyes and tried to think of what to say next. Something about the bar... It was one of the oldest spots in town, I knew that. Maybe it was haunted. And then the words just oozed out.

Do you know anything about poltergeists?

I cringed at the memory, even though I’d been replaying what happened next over and over in my head. I was so glad that I’d likely never see Fish again. Pushing the memory aside, I parked in the lot at my old theater.

I was back in the place where I was most at home, the theater. I’d already been emailing the past few weeks with Professor Harrington—technically Professor Phineas Wainwright Harrington the III, which Brendan said was a name that came with tweed and a monocle, no doubt. We were putting on a production of Sweeney Todd, and I was thrilled to be helping direct it—between working part-time at a local costume store and experiencing romantic failures.

Directing a show about a murderous barber was vastly more comfortable than trying to chat with any practice guys. I was at ease in the theater. There were directions. It was usually okay to mention ghosts because of theater lore. There were costumes.

Oh, that was the second way dating wasn’t at all like the theater: you had to choose what to wear. I don’t have to break down the tragedy of that for you. I lived in jeans, campy shirts, and cardigans, which didn’t seem to draw the opposite sex my way (nor make my parents all that thrilled). Today I’d worn a Bride of Frankenstein shirt underneath a black cardigan, but no one would care on set.

Third, you knew who you were dealing with in the theater. The characters, I mean. Because you had a script, you knew who the villains and heroes were. Dating was far trickier. Some of the men at the bar Saturday night had probably been villains, some heroes, and quite a few of them funny sidekicks—but I hadn’t realized until later that Fish, though he’d seemed smart and kind, fit the profile of a mass murderer. My friends had to point it out later, after Nora had dragged me away from him for my own safety.

We thought he might be a serial killer, Brendan said. You know, he came here alone, he was writing in that notebook, he’s British...

Serial killers were often white, middle-aged men who were isolated and drank alcohol. The guy with the name that sounded like Fish wasn’t middle-aged, but he had been alone at the bar, drinking beer. He was really pale, too. Also, he’d had that broken nose, which was strange for a couple reasons. One, how did he break it? And, two, why hadn’t he gotten it set properly? Because it was obviously not a recent injury. His face wasn’t bruised, and his eyes— that mesmerizing seafoam green, probably good at luring victims—were clear.

My father is a doctor, and I’d spent those first couple minutes chatting with him barely aware of what we were saying and trying to remember the name of the bone in the nose.

Nasal bone! I exclaimed all of a sudden, while he was telling me something about his job teaching which I only half-heard.

Excuse me? he’d said.

Nasal bone, I’d said. "It’s the name of the bone