AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh really? Someone thinks highly of herself,” I say with a big smile.
“If I do, it’s only because you’re as hard as a rock right now,” Allie tells me.
I burst out laughing, then say, “Okay, you got me there. Now, out with it. What’s your question?”
“I know for a lot of people with dyslexia, the words seem to jump around on them. And I’m wondering if that’s what it was like for you when you were trying to learn to read.”
“You do know this is the worst pillow talk of all time.”
She winces, then says, “Scientists, right?”
I snort laugh. “You’re a strange bunch. Okay, fine. You know how there are twenty-six letters in the English language?”
“I’m familiar with the alphabet, thank you.”
“Well, those twenty-six letters make a whopping—and if you ask me, an unnecessarily confusing—forty-four sounds. So before you can learn to really read, you have to be able to figure out which combinations of letters make which sounds,” I say. “That’s hard for anyone, but imagine if you’re doing that while the letters are switching themselves around on the page, and your super-impatient father is staring over your shoulder shouting at you to ‘try harder.’”
“That sounds awful,” she says, looking like she might start to cry.
“Can we change the subject now? Because I’m definitely losing my erection.”
“Of course,” Allie answers. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
She kisses me hard on the mouth, and within a few seconds, I’ve completely forgotten about what I was just saying, and apparently she has too, and she’s super turned on, because she just gasped and shouted, “Oh my God!”
“Wow, already?”
“No, not that,” she says, sitting up suddenly. “I definitely loved what you were just doing, but the letters and the sounds and the decoding…”
“That’s what turned you on?” I ask. “I’m not judging. I’m just asking for future reference.”
“Frank. I just realized why he hasn’t figured it out yet!”
“Seriously?”
She nods, her eyes wide with excitement. “It’s what you said about decoding the sounds. Frank’s struggling because I haven’t broken down the signals enough for him. I’ve been feeding each one as a whole unit.” She laughs a little, covering her mouth with one hand. “Sorry. I’m totally killing the mood.”
I grin at her, thrilled to see her so happy. “Don’t be sorry. You gotta go.”
“Really?”
I detangle myself from her. “Of course. We can pick this up later. Right now, you’ve got a world to change, and you’ve got a total shitbag to vanquish. Come on, let’s get dressed.”
She gets up and kisses me hard on the mouth. “Best. Boyfriend. Ever.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, her mouth drops. “Oh, not boyfriend. Pffft. You’re leaving in a few days. I meant ‘guy I’m sleeping with.’ No, that doesn’t sound right. Friend with benefits? Best friend with benefits ever. Oh wait, that’s too much pressure, I didn’t mean you’re my best friend. Gwen is, but not with the benef?—”
I kiss her to shut her up. “If we were going to label it, I would be in favor of the word boyfriend.”
“You would?” she whispers.
“Yeah, it’s got a nice ring to it. Now, you have to get going. There’s no time to lose.”
30
The Vanquishing of the Shitbag…
Allie
“We did it!” I say, patting my monitor, you know, like a crazy person. Tears fill my eyes and I let out a single, happy sob. Late last night, Frank sorted the fake alien signals from all the other noise from space. Every single one of them. So I quickly whipped up a new batch of fakes, and he found those too, with no errors. Just perfect detection of unusual anomalies. “We fucking did it, Frank!”
