Page 1 of Nothing to You (Nothing to… #7)

“OH MY GOD, do you even know what you’re talking about?” Roux Radley asked.

Wearing a wireless headset, she strolled back and forth in front of her home desk, running a pencil through her fingers over and over.

“Do I know what I’m talking about?” his deep voice came through her earpiece.

“The whole point of this group is to debate different points of view…” another voice, the moderator, said. “Respectfully.”

“Ha!” Hotshot got in before she could respond. Damn him. “Firefly doesn’t do respectfully. She’s loud and obnoxious—”

“And right every time,” she said, triumphant.

Hotshot snatched the victory. “Thus, I rest my case.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, her speed increasing. “Thus nothing. You don’t. If I’m loud and obnoxious, you’re brash and arrogant. You never rest your case—you go on and on and—”

“Please,” the moderator cut in. “Huddle rules are specific. There can be no name calling or bullying.”

“He started it.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to finish it by ejecting both of you from the group.”

“But I—”

Dead silence betrayed it was done. No arguments allowed. It wasn’t the first time. On a sigh, she tossed her pencil to the desk and went into the kitchen to retrieve fruit from the freezer. Definitely time for a treat.

Huddle was a sort of social media site. Sort of because it was like all of them and none of them. Profile pages didn’t exist. You were your handle on Huddle. Your handle and your level. Nothing else. No one came from anywhere or had any family… that the group at large knew.

The network consisted of temporary booths. Each one had a tier number, a color, and a topic. The tier and color of the limited time booths were determined by algorithms and employees based on their divisiveness. Users could pop in, join the conversation, and zip out whenever they wanted.

Booths were rooms, groups, where people got together to voice chat. No one had a face. No video allowed. Audio only. A user leveled up depending on their platform history. The higher their level, the higher tier booth they could participate in.

An actual human approved and monitored every member. They limited new admittance each week so the humans at the Huddle end could keep an eye on their charges.

Being disruptive or bullying at a lower level would get a member banned, which meant they never got a chance at the higher, more contentious, levels.

At level one, you got to join the most benign chambers. Like “Who doesn’t like puppies?” And “Air is good.” That last one quickly got boosted to a higher tier after the debates on climate change took over. Talk about a raucous.

Being ejected from a chat could get someone dropped a level, but the human involvement at Huddle kept a close check on users. Spot checks happened regularly. Twenty-four, seven. Huddle employees could be listening at any time. She should know. She was one.

Cutting up strawberries, she tossed them into the blender, popping the odd half between her lips.

A Huddle ring came through her headphone.

“Huddle, answer,” she said into the microphone.

“Been a while since that happened.”

She smiled. “It was your fault.”

“Want to find another fight?”

“Not tonight,” she said. “How’d the date with Red Shoes go?”

“Wasn’t a date,” he said. “How’s Darts Man doing? Break his heart yet?”

“They all have their hearts broken eventually.”

“Did you bring him home?”

“I never bring men home.”

“Distance from the crime scene. Smart.”

“Crime scene?”

“Your kind rips a guy’s head off after sex. Don’t worry, I won’t turn you in. You’re way too entertaining.”

She sucked the juice from her fingers. “Are you asking me for personal information, Hotshot?”

He groaned. “You’re making daiquiris.”

Sometimes his perceptiveness freaked her out. “How do you know that?”

She hadn’t started the blender yet.

“The strawberry juice on your fingers.”

“Sometimes I think you’re a stalker.”

But her blinds were shut and the desk on the wall by her bedroom door faced out into the room. No cameras on her.

“To stalk you, I’d have to know your name, or what country you live in.”

“It’s against Huddle rules to pressure a user for personal information.”

“Who’s pressuring?” he asked and exhaled. “There’s a high chance I’ll have to have sex this weekend.”

“Don’t pretend you’re not a player,” she said, collecting the rest of her ingredients. “You always do this, pretend you’re not smooth as silk or like dating is a chore. You’re gun-shy and I get why.”

“Can we not talk about Diva tonight?”

“You haven’t talked about her for a while. You know how I feel about you repressing stuff.”

“I told you months ago, Diva’s out of my life.”

“The break-up took its toll. And your feelings—”

“Babe, enough. Mix your daiquiri. Get some alcohol flowing through those veins.”

She put the lid on and did as he said.

When it was done, she retrieved a glass. “It messes with my head.”

“Relationships? I know. Don’t worry, you have to find me before you can jump me.”

“In your dreams,” she said, pouring her drink. “I can’t believe you got anyone to sleep with you. Was she drunk? Like just completely shit-faced? Did you blackmail her into bed?”

He laughed. “If she was drunk, I’d have made a sharp exit before we got to the bed… If I’d known what was good for me.”

“Men usually don’t when it comes to hot women and sex,” she said, taking her drink to the couch. “You don’t regret the entire relationship.”

“Put the lid back on and put the rest in the fridge.”

Rolling her eyes, she set the glass on the coffee table and went back to do just that. “You didn’t hear me licking my fingers that time.”

“No, but how many times have I heard you complain about losing another daiquiri or two because you didn’t refrigerate?”

“You know you don’t have to remember everything ever.”

Smug satisfaction bled from his words. “You’re lucky to have me as a friend.”

“Talking to you is part of my private research into the less fortunate,” she said because teasing was their way. “Are you on tomorrow?”

“Same time every day. You’re away this weekend?”

“Well remembered,” she said, because her work weekend hadn’t come up for like a month. “Thursday through Tuesday, but I’ll try to be on at our usual time.”

“You could stay home.”

She smiled. “Could I?”

After talking to each other basically every day for over a year, the missed days were significant. Neither of them would admit it, but without their daily vent, their playtime, other areas of their lives suffered.

“Stay home and we’ll moderate: do snitches really get stitches?”

“Not bad,” she said, returning to her couch and the drink. “You know when we moderate no one gets a word in.”

“You haven’t noticed no one gets a word in anyway? No one else worth listening to.”

“Who are you kidding? You don’t listen to anyone. Haven’t you noticed you’re always the one in the wrong?”

“Oh, am I?”

“Yes,” she asserted, her lips curling again. “You’re a chauvinistic bigot.”

“You’re a dandelion snowflake.”

“You don’t know how to be in the world.”

“My world’s just fine, sweetheart. Yours is the one with the problem.”

“Only when men like you open their mouths.”

“You’re too sensitive, Babycakes. You need a man looking after you. A real man.”

Gritting her teeth, she didn’t know whether to laugh or throttle him. “So not you then.”

“Baby, there are not enough hours in the day for me to treat you like you deserve.”

Ah, triumph. “Couldn’t have said it better.”

“Didn’t mean that as a compliment,” he said.

“You never do, Hotshot. God forbid you say something nice.”

“I like you better when you’re drinking.”

“I know you do,” she said, picking up the TV remote control. “Want to watch a movie?”

After a user reached level twenty, Huddle allowed one-on-one chat. Even then, the line would drop out after an hour. They knew to wait the required seven minutes, then whoever didn’t make the first call would call the other back.

“Something gory?” he asked.

“You hate horror movies.”

“Yeah, but I like it when you get scared. You know, weak and in need of my protection.”

“If I was being chased by a homicidal maniac, you’d be more likely to trip me than help me.” She smiled while scrolling through the options. “What about something romantic?”

“You hate chick flicks.”

“You know we’ll go back and forth and wind up on action. Just pick something so I can start it and get off this call faster. And don’t say Die Hard . We’ve watched it like fifteen times this month.”

“It’s a classic.”

“So is Snow White and you never choose that.”

“She lives with seven men. It’s pornography in disguise. The animators were a step away from drawing pedophilia in action.”

“Shh!” she said, stretching her legs along the couch. “How many times have I told you to avoid using keywords?”

“This would be a lot easier if you’d just give me your number… and send me a picture. You don’t even have to get dressed, I’m low maintenance, I’ll take just your boobs.”

“And now if our Huddle monitors are listening, they know you’re pressuring me.”

“No pressure,” Hotshot said to any ears that may be listening. “I know you’re joking. They don’t. One or both of us gets kicked, that’s it. Bye-bye, double act.”

She sipped her daiquiri and selected Die Hard on mute. “I’ll give you one trivial, if you hurry up and pick the movie.”

“One trivial? Is it my birthday?”

“Tick tock, Hotshot.”

“What are you wearing?”

Seriously? That was his question? Again?

She groaned. “That’s always your first trivial question. You should learn to mix it up. Shorts and a tank.”

“And you should try harder to tantalize me. Either it’s hot where you are or it’s night. Is it dark outside?”

“That’s not trivial. What’s the movie?”

“ Die Hard ,” he said.

“Oh, wow, what a surprise,” she said, unmuting the TV. “Are you going to quote the whole thing again?”

“Until you learn it word for word, yes.”

“Ready?”

“You know I don’t have to be watching it, I can just play it in my head.”

“If you’re not watching, I’m hanging up.”

“I’m watching. I’m watching, geez, Firefly. Thought your period didn’t start until next week.”

Hilarious? Nope, but she’d rise above it. Hotshot needed to work on his act.

Anonymity was their shield. They knew so many intimate details of each other and so few big things. They’d never exchanged names, numbers, addresses, yet she knew he wore silk boxers and drank his coffee black. Even their respective time zones were a mystery.

How had it started? Completely by accident. After facing off with him in half a dozen booths, Roux hosted her own, and, of course, he crashed. It wasn’t really crashing, anyone could join, but whatever.

By the end of that session, they were the only two left.

From then on, they met every day, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes the whole night.

They always met at the same time her booth had started that fateful night.

They’d met by accident. Though, if she believed in it, fate could’ve been at play.

“Shut up,” she said. “The movie’s about to—”

But he was already quoting the lines as the characters delivered them on the TV. Voices and everything. Yep, he was that guy. What a goof. Whoever he was, he’d made her life better. How had she survived without him?