The Nemesis Affair

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Oh, he knew exactly what she meant. But he was trying to keep it professional. Damn it. He texted again.

Since I’m done with my run, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Thanks.

He clearly didn’t need or want a flirt buddy the way she apparently did.

Roger.

Samantha saluted her phone. It felt necessary.

She looked at the shirtless picture of Liam again and resisted the urge to send another text, poking further. Instead, she just saved the picture to her camera roll so she could look at it frequently and repeatedly.

And this was her Friday night.

Wow. She really needed to get a life.

* * *

“I’m uncomfortable with all of this.” Liam tipped back his glass and took down a third of his Guinness. “Taking this ad out was a fucking mistake.”

“You’re getting drunk,” Travis told him with an amused look. “Your accent is so thick right now I need an interpreter to understand you.”

“Fuck you.” That’s how he felt. Fuck you. Just fuck the fuck out of all of it. “Maybe I’m drunk, but that doesn’t change the fact that I never should have listened to you. I should have just signed up for a decathlon, not put a bloody ad out on Craigslist. I’m not comfortable texting someone I’ve never met, but pushing this guy to meet me feels like I’m asking for a date.” It was all just not him. He couldn’t do it. “I’m going to fire him.”

“You just hired him like five minutes ago.” Travis shook his head and reached for his own beer.

They were in a pub they frequented around the corner from their apartment. It was unusual for Liam to have more than one or two beers but on last count, he’d gotten up to four tonight. He couldn’t shake the vibe of being put off by texting with someone who could be a convicted felon or a con artist looking to steal his identity or something. “I want to ask him to send me a picture of himself, but that sounds like flirting, doesn’t it?”

Travis nodded. “Yes. Yes, it does.” A day trader, Travis was still wearing his work clothes, and with his expensive taste in business wear and his dark good looks, every woman in the bar was checking him out. Liam had a feeling his buddy was going to go home with a few phone numbers whereas he was just going to go home with a massive bar tab.

“So what do I do?”

“Nothing. Just let him give you shit about slacking off on your workouts. That’s all he’s supposed to do, right? He’s a nonperson. Just an app with free will.”

Travis had a point, but it didn’t sit well with Liam. “That’s not how I am. I just can’t be impersonal with a person.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and put it on the bar top. The pub was dark and murky, atmospherically intending to emulate dives back in the UK and Ireland, but it felt too upscale to really remind Liam of Kinsale. Maybe Dublin. But definitely not like home.

Are you in shape?

Okay, that sounded even worse than asking for a picture. God, he was bloody bad at all this nonsense.

I only run if someone is chasing me.

Liam looked at Travis. He looked at his phone. “I’m in this far, I might as well make a complete and total ass out of myself.”

“What are you going to do?” Travis adjusted his tie. “Please don’t embarrass yourself. That will embarrass me.”

But Liam figured he had nothing to lose. If the whole reason behind a nemesis was to prove he was manly, then fuck it. What did he care what some random stranger thought? Balls. He was reclaiming his.

Let me see what you look like.

That might not be a good idea.

It doesn’t matter. I just want to put a face to the guy giving me a hard time. No big deal.

It shouldn’t matter, but it did. But something was off and Liam wanted to know what the hell it was.

Okay.

A picture of a woman popped up in the text box. A very cute woman with dark brown curly hair and glasses. She looked like a librarian or a writer. A kindergarten teacher. A cupcake baker.

“What the fuck?” He turned the phone to Travis. “This is Sam, apparently.”

“Sam is a girl.”

“It would seem so.” Liam was gobsmacked. But...not surprised. In retrospect, Sam sounded female. Feminine. Flirty. All the f words. “No wonder I was feeling squirrelly. I knew something was off.”

“She’s cute. Doesn’t look like a ballbuster, but she is cute. If that’s who she really is.”

Liam frowned, taking his phone back and studying the picture again. She was cute. Midtwenties. Adorable smile with dimples. She was wearing a floral sweater that his mum might fancy, though he’d never found himself gazing at his mother’s chest. With Sam, yep, he looked, noticing there was a perfect tight pull across a lovely set of breasts. She was nerdy and sexy all at the same time. “You think she or he lifted a random picture? This is why I don’t like this stuff. I have no idea who I’m actually contacting. It’s weird.”

I thought you were a guy, he texted.

Nope. Sam is for Samantha.

How do I know it’s really you?

If it was really her, what was he going to do? “Man, I don’t think I can do this if this is what she looks like.”

“Why?” Travis asked. “She’s not your type. She doesn’t look like someone you’d want to date or anything.”

What did Travis know about his type? He didn’t have a type. But if he did, why wouldn’t it be adorable girls with glasses? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I see you with a guy’s girl. The chick who can go to the gym with you and who wears a lot of spandex. This girl probably has a bearded boyfriend who wears a beanie and skinny jeans.”

“I could wear skinny jeans,” he said, because he was drunk and feeling contrary. Then he looked at Travis, whose jaw dropped, and they both burst out laughing. “Okay, so that is a false statement. I’d look like a complete idiot in skinny jeans.”

“You’d look like a twenty-pound sausage in a five-pound casing. Some things just can’t ever happen and that’s one of them.”

“I don’t want to wear skinny jeans. I just am wondering why you think I can’t attract the interest of a girl like this.” It offended him, he had to admit. Plus he was attracted to the mysterious Sam, for whatever reason. It was partially her smile and overall appearance, partly her sassy attitude with him.

“Man, you’re a fucking mess tonight,” Travis told him. “I am so sorry I suggested any of this. Next time I’ll just let you punch your boss and get fired.”

Whatever. A text came from Sam. It was her, smiling and pointing to the TV screen behind her. When he enlarged it, he saw it was a Yankees game, the score flashing across the bottom. Glancing up, he looked at the screens displayed over the bartender. Yankees. Playing the Toronto Blue Jays. The score and even the ticker with a news story underneath was the same. It was clearly a live shot. “I think this is really her.” He showed everything to Travis.

“It would appear so. Huh. Not what I pictured a nemesis looking like but maybe she’ll smack you with a ruler if you don’t toe the line. It could be fun.”