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“No problem.” The guy takes the laptop case and keeps walking.
Persistent Fantasy-Hero-Name Alaric’s shoulders sag, and he shakes his head. “I’m so stupid,” he mutters to himself.
Clearly he has no filter, because I’m standing right here.
The second it occurs to me to ask, I know I shouldn’t. It’s rude and nosy, but this is a guy who just apologized to me sixteen times in a row, by my count, and I’m going to bet that he won’t even recognize that it’s a rude, nosy question. “Are you on the spectrum?” I ask abruptly.
He looks startled. “No.”
“You know that for sure?”
“Yeah.” His expression is still open and surprised. “My mother had me tested.”
This guy is better-looking than Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory,” but the exactly quote makes me laugh. Or rather, I snort through my nose. In my mind, he’s gone from “annoying, pushy, won’t-take-no, potential threat” to “cute and doofy but basically harmless,” in about two minutes. I’m not sure I could explain it, but my stranger-danger alarm has stopped beeping.
“Is that funny?” he asks, voice curious rather than offended.
“A little,” I say, not explaining. For a minute there, when he said his name, I wondered whether this could be the man I’d wished for. But no. This is not what I ordered. Not at all. “So you’re not on the spectrum?”
“I have ADHD,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Socially awkward, but not autistic.” He looks at me again. “I thought you wanted me to back off.”
I sigh. “I did. You were scaring me.”
“You have to tell me if I do that,” he says, earnestly. “And I’ll stop. Do you want me to walk you to work, or not walk you to work?”
“Where’s work for you?”
“TechBridge,” he says, and a big smile breaks through. “I started there yesterday. Big career move for me. I like Rivertown so far.”
Okay, the doofy behavior is starting to make more sense. ADHD, misses nonverbal cues, and some kind of computer geek? And he just started yesterday? No wonder he’s like a brand-new kindergartner.
“I’m at Valley Medical Imaging, which is on the block next to TechBridge,” I explain. “We can walk together.”
He smiles, and I appreciate the sweetness of it…but it’s nothing like the knowing, pirate smile that my imaginary soulmate wears. No way is this guy the answer to that love spell.
I head toward Campbell Avenue, and he walks next to me. “So,” I say, “Nice to meet you, Alaric. I’m Rochelle Duncan.”
“Rochelle,” he repeats, and gives me that cute little-kid grin again.
“Your name’s pretty unusual,” I comment. “You could be a fantasy novel hero.”
“Probably not,” he says. “I’d just walk around accidentally banging innocent people in the head with my sword, apologizing every other minute.” He snorts. “My life would be easier if everybody just called me Ric.”
“I like Alaric better,” I say immediately, because I do.
“I wish I’d been named something boring,” he says. “Or after a real fantasy hero. Kaladin, maybe, that’s cool. Or Deornoth. Or Faramir.”
Unbelievable, he knows Deornoth and Kaladin. I’m reminded again of the wish list I presented to the Goddess. You could fake knowing Faramir, from the LOTR movies, but the other two you’d only know from the books.
“Faramir’s my favorite,” I confess. “Aragorn’s cool, but he’s a little…unreal? Too good to be true? But Faramir notices the little things. I always liked that about him.”
“Actually, Deornoth takes care of the prince like that,” Alaric notes. “But Kaladin has too much personal shit going on to really notice how other people feel.” We turn the corner onto Campbell. “I probably identify too much with Kaladin’s moods,” he says.
“You really do read fantasy novels.”
“I’m a huge Sanderson fan. You?”
“Yeah, I love high fantasy,” I admit. “I adore Tad Williams and Stephen Donaldson. And Tolkien, of course. Sanderson, I think, explains too much. He goes ahead and tells readers what his characters are like instead of letting us figure it out on our own.”
