CHAPTER 4
Last night he was fending off ninja assassins in Ellie's living room, the next morning he's escaping Serbian bombers in the Large Mart. What the hell was happening to his life? Was this because of those weird headaches? Was it some kind of brain tumor messing with him?
Yes, he was thankful they hadn't got his laptop, but his desktop still cost him almost a thousand dollars. He'd even sold some parts off his old laptop to pay for the desktop parts. Not to mention all the games, pictures and other stuff he had on the drive, which even the other Herders agreed was toast. It wasn't just broken but seemed burnt out, fried like one of those corndogs at the Wieinerlicious across the parking lot.
Resting his head on his crossed arms he thought to himself, this is proof the curse is real. How else had his life become full of weird flashing images, Serbian bombers and ninjas. How the hell do Ninjas even exist? Why would someone dress like a ninja? What is the point of a ninja who looks like a ninja? It'd be like a Terminator walking through a camp with the skin on his arms peeled off.
Hearing the bell ringing in his ear he reached out to stop it. "Jeff go bug Lester or…"
Wait. The hand was too soft, too slender to be Jeff's. Maybe it was Lester? No hair, so maybe Anna? No, the fingers were too long, the nails not long enough. Instantly he thought of long legs and blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes, and his head shot up.
"Hi!" Not only was she here again, but he'd groped at her hand for a solid four seconds like some kind of creep. At least she was smiling at him. God, can she just smile at me forever, please? He could accept the curse forever if she smiled at him forever. Or even just a few minutes every day. "Hi," he said reaching back for his screw driver. "Uh, phone trouble again?"
"Uh, yeah. I'm not sure I'm able to receive calls cause," she lowered her gaze as if shy before looking back to him, "I never got one from you."
Chuck gaped at her. Just gaped, his mouth hanging open like a fish. Maybe Piranha was more fitting than he thought.
"Bold," Anna said with an approving nod, earning a glare from Chuck before she turned and skipped down an aisle.
Sarah watched Chuck turn back to her before continuing. "I'm sorry I left so quick yesterday. I had an appointment with a realtor. I just moved here." She made sure to play up excited and perky. She was almost channeling Amy, but not that perky. It would be too much for a guy like this.
"Welcome," he offered, waving his screw driver and pocketing it as she gave a quiet thanks.
"And I don't really know anyone," she said, holding back a smirk at how he nervously put his hands together, tapping the tips of his stretched fingers and lowering them before settling on pocketing them, as if he didn't know what to do with his hands. With a tilt of her head she declared, "I was wondering if you would show me around."
He stared at her as suddenly it felt like the slightly shy, almost demure tone of her voice took a coy note while saying, "That is… if you're free."
"Chuckles is free," Anna said bending forward slightly with a smirk. "He's never not free."
Chuck turned to shoot her another glare as she skipped away again, humming innocently as if she hadn't just said he didn't have a life. Licking his lip he turned to Sarah, making himself smile. "Apparently my schedule is wide open."
With a big, toothy smile she nodded. "Great."
After a quick suggestion of time and where to meet he watched Sarah leave, finding himself smiling as he did so. Yeah, it didn't hurt to watch her leave, those legs led to some pretty nice parts hidden under her tight gray skirt, but he liked watching her hair bounce on her shoulders just as much. The odd thing though was how her gate shifted as she was a second from the door, going from that of a perky young woman to a more steady, firm stride.
"Business ladies," he said with a shrug. He had no idea what she did, but she definitely seemed like a classy type of woman. Probably worked from high stress job, the kind that guys mostly worked until about twenty years ago. He could see a woman like that having to divide herself in a way, split between her normal self and her business self.
But if that was true then wouldn't that mean he just saw the real part of her? Normally when people came to them they were all business. Fix my phone or I'm going to start complaining, but she wasn't. If that was how she was supposed to be, maybe she really felt some thing for him that let her real side come out… Oh who was he kidding? She was just being nice. Probably worked a service job before and promised herself she wouldn't be an asshole to people.
Still, Chuck had a date. It wasn't a setup, it wasn't pity, hell he didn't even need to be the one to risk it all and ask, she'd asked him. For the first time in… years, actual real years, he didn't feel like a loser. Not a single bit. If a woman who smiled like that and had eyes like that and had a voice like that and hair like that and a face like that asked him out, how the hell could he ever be a loser? Devon was probably one of the most attractive guys he ever knew, and as pretty as Ellie was even a guy like Devon would be lucky to have a girl like that listen to him, let alone ask him out. She was… She was Vicky Vale!
Ellie practically leapt off the couch when he told her he had a date, all but dragging him to his room to help him pick out clothes. "So Sarah… She's nice? Pretty?"
Chuck shook his head. "More than that, El. She's…I don't know. I saw her and she has these eyes…"
"People tend to have those," Ellie said grinning as she came out of the closet with some clothes.
"Not like these, El. And her smile was like…"
"Must be something to make you speechless, Little Brother," she said holding out her clothes. When he protest she chided, "I'm a girl. I know what girls like."
"I'll go change," he relented, making his way to the bathroom to begin his prep.
It felt like he was getting ready for some kind of mission, checking his arsenal. Clothes, Ellie approved. Hair? Toned down. Attitude, definitely not cocky. He could maybe put it on, but he doubted he could pull it off, and there was no way it would work with Sarah. Lips? Attached to his face. All in all he felt as nervous as he did setting up the Orion search.
He winced remembering the laptop in his closet, deactivated days ago. Days he could have had the search running. Ellie was too into things for him to do anything now, so he left to go meet with Sarah until Ellie came out with a bouquet from the party.
"No mention of Jill," he said after she reminded him of the no ex-girlfriend rule.
"Aces, Charles. You're aces."
"A dad quote, I'm impressed." It was rare. Something he never could have imagined she could say years ago when he first left. Back then it was all too raw for her, but she was always better at dealing with that stuff. Not that it didn't effect her, but she was always so solid. Maybe it was just her, or having to be half a single mom through her teenage years, either way Ellie was a rock, his rock. Even if everything went to hell he could rely on her. Besides, how bad could a date go?
She could not open the door, but she did and found him waiting with the bouquet of flowers waiting for her. If he was that far then he could enjoy it. Whatever happened would happen, so he would just let it happen so they could enjoy themselves. He'd planned as much as he could and knew enough to not let his nerves ruin him. Though she did seem a bit shocked to see him after opening the door.
Leading her back to the parking lot he spotted the expensive cars and felt a pang of dread as he realize he was leading her to a Herder when she lived in a place with a Porsche just sitting in the parking lot. Wow she was swinging low with him, wasn't she? Maybe the curse was worth it if this was the upside of it all. At least it wasn't like it was her Porsche and she was really slumming it with him. She just moved into town so probably just took cabs and buses, and he kept the Herder in better condition than either of those.
Not long ago he'd felt shame retreating back to Ellie's home, but as he told her he lived with his sister and her boyfriend Captain Awesome he realized that somewhere along the line he stopped. He liked living with his sister, as odd as it was at times. They had lived together almost his entire life so knew how to be pretty good roommates for each other, and Devon was an easy fit. Sure, it had seemed shameful at the time, but never because it was Ellie. It had felt shameful because he was forced back there after Stanford. If he could, if they had some huge house where at least he didn't have to put on headphones some nights, then he'd be happy living with her the rest of his life if it meant being close to the only family he had left. Really, the only important people left in his life.
She was talking about her baggage when he found himself saying before he could stop himself, "Well I could be your very own baggage handler."
Suddenly all the nerves he hadn't felt since she took the flowers from him came back as he fought a wince. He'd said that as if it was the smoothest line in the world. Even she looked around, though seemed to keep herself from laughing, sticking to a smile long enough for him to bring his hands together and try to recover.
"Uh, so the gu-the ex-the guy… The ex is the reason you moved here from…"
"Uh, DC."
"Right."
"Yeah. After I realized all of my friends were his friends," she said, trailing her eyes along the ceiling while he marveled at them, "and that everything about Washington reminded me of… Bruce… I needed change. A big one."
As if he couldn't hate the name Bruce more. Not only was it too close to Bryce for his liking, and a reminder of his whole insecurities with his Piranha person, but it was the name of the jerk who broke this woman's heart and basically drove her away from her home, probably her family too.
"Bruce?" He let humor fill his voice. "Yeah, you give me crap for being Chuck and you went out with a Bruce?" She laughed and gave another toothy smile which instantly washed away the shadows creeping up in his stomach whenever Bryce crossed his mind. "That's nice. That's real good."
The laugh had been real, almost too real for Sarah, so she reminded herself to get back on mission. She had a job, and though she was sure he wasn't involved with Bryce she had to be absolutely clear. "So what about you? What skeletons do you have in your closet?"
I have a two thousand dollar computer specifically designed to covertly hack into and mine data from every major government agency I can slip into. I am one of the most wanted hackers in the world, and there is a report on the television screen in the corner over your left shoulder about the Cartel whose bank accounts I emptied last week to pay for new MRI machines in a few hospitals in the midwest.
Seeing his slight shake of a head she fed him some bait. "Any secrets? Any women?"
"Uh, yeah," he offered, thankful he managed to keep his cool. "Yeah, um, actually, well back in college there was someone…" He met her gaze and found it actually inquisitive. Some times girls asked and didn't really want an answer, but it almost seemed like she was actually interested. Even so, he knew better, and followed Ellie's rule. "But actually that's all over with now and her restraining orders are very specific. So…"
Seeing her laugh was a relief, and a sign he'd made the right choice.
"I like you Chuck," she said barely holding back her smile, which grew to a toothy grin.
Her proclamation felt like it might have been the single greatest thing to ever happen to him. She liked him, and not just liked him like Angie Damero third grade liked him, but she liked him. He was sure she felt it too, whatever it was between them. There was something there and she liked him, really actually liked him. Not the Piranha. This beautiful, incredible woman who said she wasn't funny yet kept him smiling the entire time liked Chuck Bartowski.
She didn't even seem to mind when he zoned out on the bridge, getting flashes of some kind of secure route for a car pool. She wasn't embarrassed when he slid down the rail at the club. She even dragged him out onto the dance floor and seemed to be super into him. At first he'd thought it was just her being into dancing, but then she grabbed his butt and suddenly this was the greatest night of his life. It had to be. If she was already doing this kind of stuff, she had to be into him enough to kiss by the time he dropped her off at her place, right?
Wait, she was dragging him out of the club. Maybe she'd want to do more than kiss. Normally he was reluctant, but the things he was feeling with her, he was sure it wouldn't be some casual thing. He'd made sure to go nowhere near the Morgan thing, so she had no reason to pity him. She knew about the Buy More and the Nerd Herder and had even been the one to ask him out knowing all of that. For the first time in years he felt for a moment like maybe this was the beginning of something good, that his life could go in a new direction again. Maybe the Bartowski Curse wasn't going to drown his life in misery.
And then everything went to shit.
AN:
Sarah's bit about channeling Amy being too much for a guy like Chuck is meant to be a play on him saying no one can be that perky. It was one of those things that always stood out to me. He didn't trust her and she turned out to be the mole. It was like how Morgan was right about Sarah talking to him bringing Chuck out of the Phase Three.