Transitions (A Thousand Words Book 1) (2 page)

She stared at Dev’s shy smile. Maybe seeing a shrink would be good for him. That was part of Flynn’s condition to let him leave for college early: the shrink, and that Dev come home for breaks when he wasn’t on tour with the band. Dev didn’t turn eighteen until April, and didn’t have sufficient access to his trust fund to cover expenses until then. That gave Flynn the leverage to set terms, and build more layers on that wall between them. It was a mistake, but Lindsay hesitated to get involved.

No, as much as she’d like to help, Flynn had to fight his own battle to earn Dev’s trust back. It’d take time. Lindsay would give Dev a nudge when appropriate, but she wasn’t going to risk her own relationship with him. Besides, Flynn kept screwing up on his own. Dev already cared about Sophie and Flynn didn’t need to threaten Dev to keep him in her life. Seeing Gunter was a given if Dev came home to see his little sister.

Making Dev agree to come home for breaks wasn’t unreasonable. It was just being forced to do anything that rubbed Dev the wrong way. That and being told that Flynn and Teri had been consulting a shrink about him for years behind his back. Lindsay wouldn’t have thought it was something Teri would do. Her own mother was a psychologist, and she’d been in therapy most of her life herself, so she thought she had a grasp on overprotective parental figures. Teri didn’t strike her as the type. Neither did Flynn, he was just desperate to keep Dev on the line, even loosely. Telling Dev they’d been going behind his back was the worst thing Flynn could have done in Lindsay’s opinion. Honesty simply wasn’t the best policy. Not complete honesty anyway. People got hurt when you told them things they didn’t want to know and didn’t need to. It was irresponsible.

Flynn shouldn’t have let him go at all. If he was going to make an enemy of Dev anyway, he should have just made him stay. Another tear fell from Lindsay’s eye as she stared at the poster of her shy, naïve boyfriend. She wasn’t fooling herself. It wasn’t that she wasn’t ready at all, he wasn’t.

○ ○ ○

Dev’s nightmares about school turned out to be overly pessimistic, if not dramatic. As Flynn predicted: it caused a stir every time Dev walked into a new classroom, clearly demonstrating how much of the student body listened to A Thousand Words. Dev hated that his stepfather was right and ignored it. Students whispered, he ignored it. A couple of the professors seemed distracted, maybe even confused by his classmates’ reaction to his presence. He ignored it and put an innocent expression on his face.

After the first few days, some of the girls waited to enter classes after him and sat closer. The guys the girls had been sitting by previously seemed annoyed, but not as annoyed as Dev. In response, Dev started walking into class just seconds before the bell rang and sitting with other men no matter what other seats were available. If any of his professors noticed the seating dramas, they ignored it.

As promised, Dev texted Lindsay several times throughout the day and called when she got home from school. They promised to save video conferencing for weekends as dates. To try to keep her from crying about missing him, Dev decided to send Lindsay flowers, balloons, or chocolate for the smallest of occasions. That should keep her happy. Jess said girlfriends required maintenance, Dev was willing to do what was necessary for Lindsay to feel secure in their relationship. The time investment after the first week was enough to make Dev cringe, however, and he realized he was going to have to monitor his time carefully.

Despite his job with the band, Dev still modeled for Oskar Viktor. He had photo shoots scheduled for Oskar’s new men’s line, and had to rearrange them upon seeing his midterm and project schedule for his classes. There was no way the three sessions fit neatly into his class schedule, but Dev figured he’d do what he could and that was what caffeine was for. Oskar was usually pretty easy going. Dev hoped that he’d understand that he couldn’t do as many events as he did in the previous six months. It was too bad that, just when he was finally getting control of his shyness, his schedule made him slink back into the shadows again.

Bryan reported Kenny was ranting about Dev’s webcam and amp setup before they’d even tried it. Unfortunately, Dev wasn’t surprised when Bryan confirmed Kenny and Jess were
both
complaining about it after their first session two weeks later. It didn’t work out as well as he’d hoped. The sound was great. It was the concept that was, well, awkward.

Dev did what he could to alleviate Kenny’s concern when their high-strung leader called to tell him off personally: Yes, he understood. Yes, he was taking it seriously. Yes, he knew the band was important. Yes, of course he knew they would tour this summer. Kenny, get bent and drop it. Dev hung up on him after an hour and refused to answer his calls the rest of the day.

By the end of January, Dev came to a conclusion: juggling modeling, the band, and Lindsay for the next four years was going to be as challenging as college itself.

○ ○ ○

“Hey, Becky, can I talk to you a minute?” Lindsay asked, pulling her older sister into her bedroom.

Becky watched her close and lock the door with a raised eyebrow. “This is going to be good, I can tell.”

“It’s about Dev.”

“Missing him already? He just left a month ago.”

“We text all day, and email, and he calls every afternoon. I do still miss him, actually.”

“What can you possibly find to talk about? That’s more communication than when he was local.”

“What we talk about isn’t the problem, it’s what we
don’t
talk about.”

“I’m game.” Becky sighed and folded her arms. “What don’t you talk about?”

“Sex.”

“Phone sex? I can’t see Dev getting into that.”

Lindsay either actually. “No, real sex. Phone sex can come later.”

“He’s on the other side of the country, Lin. That’s not happening no matter how determined you two are.”

“That’s just it, he’s determined
not
to,” Lindsay huffed.

Becky raised an eyebrow again and stared at her. “I hope you took that well.”

“I didn’t throw a tantrum or throw myself at him if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay, what do you need me for?”

“I want to know how serious he is,” Lindsay said finally, hinting at Becky’s status as a hacker in Dev’s online group. Becky knew him first. Sort of.

“
You’re
dating him.” Becky laughed at her.

“Yeah, but you know him in a different way,” Lindsay pleaded and Becky sighed as she sat down on the end of the bed. Her older sister glanced around the room, her eyes falling on the poster of A Thousand Words behind her door. Darts were sticking out of Kenny’s forehead and Jess’s crotch. Becky clearly saw that and Lindsay stood her ground as her sister’s blue eyes met hers and held them. Lindsay won. Becky knew about the animosity between Lindsay and Dev’s friends and she let it go.

“We don’t talk sex in the chat room,” Becky finally said. “I take that back, there’s a lot of sex talk in the chat room when nothing’s going on, but Dev doesn’t participate. Actually, he usually leaves, so I’d say he’s not going to budge. What’s his official position?”

“Abstinence.”

Becky doubled over in laughter. Lindsay wasn’t amused by her sister’s enjoyment over her predicament and stomped on Becky’s foot in retaliation. Becky sobered almost immediately.

“Okay, he might budge. He’s young and that’s lofty. You missed your window of opportunity though. He’ll be eighteen soon – an adult, and you’re not. The age of consent is sixteen, I know. But if he won’t touch you now, I suspect he’s too uptight to budge on that one.”

“Two years?”

“Sorry.”

“Becky! He’s a guy! He can’t be seriously thinking he’ll wait two more years.”

“He’s waited nearly eighteen, what’s another two to him? Besides, that’s assuming he’s thinking marriage the day you turn eighteen, which he probably isn’t. Also assuming you stick it out and he marries you.”

Lindsay groaned in frustration and threw herself on the bed. “I think he’ll stay with me. I have needs too, and Dev says he understands that. I need him to understand two years isn’t going to happen. I won’t make it
.
”

“Wait, you told him you’re a nympho? Really?” Becky looked at her with wide eyes.

“Yes,” Lindsay admitted softly.

“Honestly?”

“The whole story.” Lindsay nodded.

“Wow.” Becky just shook her head. Lindsay wasn’t sure what her sister was thinking, and it scared her. She knew Becky and Dev were friends, and their friendship was different. Lindsay felt almost threatened by her sister’s access to her boyfriend through the hacker group they were both part of.

“How did he take it?” Becky asked after a long moment of silence passed.

“He was shocked by the abuse. By my age,” Lindsay answered. “He wants to fix it. That’s how I left it, with him being the only one who might be able to help me.”

Becky gave her a low whistle. “Bold. And manipulative.” Becky frowned. “You shouldn’t be this good at sixteen.”

“Hey, I’ve been honest with him about how I manipulate Mom – showing her what she expects and all that. He’s good with it.”

“Okay. Listen, Lin, Dev’s one of the best hackers I’ve seen in a long time. He’s smart, he’s got heart, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s rich and cute as a button. You could do worse. Unfortunately, that he’s a
rock star
and rich and cute as a button means other girls will try to take him away from you.”

“Why do you think I freaked when he told me he was leaving for MIT early? I threw together the ‘save me from myself’ plan on the fly!”

“Relax, Dev likes you. I doubt you needed to draw him in by playing the damsel-in-distress card. It’s amusing he’s willing to play your knight-in-shining-armor when he’s so ill-suited to what you really need.” Becky shook her head to dismiss that thought. “Putting that aside, do
not
mess this up by pushing him on something that’s important to him. I’ll buy you some toys to keep your libido in check, but go easy on him.”

“Becky, I have toys, I want
him
. On me, in me, now. Like yesterday.”

“Well he’s safely in another time zone, so get over it. Wait two years and wash the dye out of your hair. That goth thing’s a turnoff for him and you know it. You’re not going to get him dressed like that. Show him what he’s getting and maybe he’ll come around on his own. Until he does, go online and make me a list of what you want. Just no porn sites. There’s evidence streaming porn causes erectile dysfunction in men, so who knows what it does to women?”

Lindsay looked at her sister and shook her head in amusement. “You know, for someone who’s pathologically anti-porn, you spend an extraordinary amount of time researching it.”

Becky glared at her. “Fine. How about it’s just that I’ll only go so far in corrupting a minor?”

“You draw the line at advice on how to seduce my boyfriend who’s committed to abstinence and buying me sex toys?” Lindsay raised an eyebrow then nodded. “Okay.”

Dev couldn’t watch Lindsay’s expression on his screen when he told her he had to stay at MIT for spring break. A last minute disaster with a group project meant they simply had to take the time to do the work over again. Lindsay was crushed, but her disappointment didn’t hold a candle to Sophie’s tantrum. Little sisters were like bizarre mini-moms. Dev promised to make it up to both of them when he got home after the semester ended. He didn’t know how, but he would.

Flynn forced an agreement that Dev would spend breaks at home with Sophie and Gunter unless he had work, like the upcoming tour. It was a deal with the devil as far as Dev was concerned. When Dev left for college, he was a minor and Flynn held all the cards. He couldn’t legally sign a rental agreement, or access enough of his trust fund to finance his venture without his stepfather’s approval. Dev was also forced to see a shrink on a regular basis, per the agreement, although at least Dev knew Dr. Braithewait couldn’t report her observations back to the nosy bastard. His new shrink zeroed in on Dev’s dislike for said nosy bastard in their first meeting. To Dev, it implied Flynn had given her information, and probably a bias that Dev now had to overcome. It did little to decrease Dev’s stress if the exercise was meant to.

His stepfather’s unspoken disapproval of Dev skipping a trip home made it almost worthwhile to endure the collective guilt trips from Sophie and Lindsay. Actually, their guilt trips were well coordinated, Dev reflected. A wave of paranoia crashed over him when he considered the possibility they could be working together. Again. Lindsay initiated a pact with Sophie before, with his knowledge and consent, meaning it was really his own fault if they continued now. He’d have to watch that. No, there wasn’t anything he could do, so why bother?

Everyone in the group was pretty upset about staying behind over spring break to do two months’ worth of work over again in a week. Dev took it upon himself to play host and put his family room and baking-happy housekeeper to good use. In the first two days, the six of them became good friends: discussing other classes, assignments, and how to handle an obnoxious professor. Dev didn’t have trouble with the one the rest of them did, and they didn’t have a problem with the one who seemed to single Dev out as unworthy to be there. They even tentatively planned fall semester together. Everyone else started MIT the previous fall, so Dev was a semester behind. Despite Kenny’s displeasure, Dev would have to take a couple online courses while touring this summer to be eligible to take the same classes as the rest.

“So how’s college compared to high school, Dev?” James asked as the group sat around Dev’s dining room table. Everyone was hunched over laptops with discarded plates of strudel, cake, chicken salad, and pizza everywhere. Dev knew Frau Schmidt was insulted that he ordered pizza, but he also knew pizza was a staple of college all-nighters for those who didn’t have a housekeeper and cook. She was going to have to get used to it, he wanted to fit in.

Dev shrugged. “Harder I suppose, but not as much as I expected. I took almost all Honors and AP classes in high school, so this isn’t so bad. Fewer distractions without the band makes it easier I suppose.”

“Weren’t they just here?” George asked. Georgia Bancroft, AKA George, was a ‘wild redhead trapped in a brunette’s body,’ by her definition. Dev wasn’t exactly sure what that meant and gave her a wide berth. He would have preferred not to have her in the group at all, but Noah swore she was the best programmer he’d ever seen. Dev thought Noah was just trying to sleep with her. His behavior reminded him vaguely of Jess, until James quietly agreed that George really was that good.

Dev was determined to show her up as the ultimate programmer until he told Lindsay he had to stay for spring break and her eyes brimmed with tears. He watched her struggle to hold them back as he denied ‘some coed had her hooks in him.’ Dev told her the group line up, and Lindsay zeroed in on George as the likely culprit. He didn’t stop himself from laughing at the absurdity of it in time and Lindsay hung up on him.

When Dev finally got Lindsay back online and calmed down, he promised to steer clear of unnecessary interaction with George. Challenging her for the title of best programmer probably counted as unnecessary interaction in Lindsay’s mind, Dev decided; plus it might draw unwanted attention to himself. Noah could have her, she could keep the title. In the future, he would break unpleasant news to Lindsay over the phone instead of webcam.

“Yeah,” Dev answered George, trying to ignore the way she watched him as she flipped her long dark hair back over her shoulder. “Bryan and Brenda just left a couple days ago.”

“Must be tiring to have people traipsing in and out all the time,” she said with a look on her face he assumed she meant to be sympathetic.

“Not really. I miss having them close.” Dev turned back to James, leaving George to Noah and ignoring the snickers of Kevin and Krista.

Krista was a weak programmer, but that wasn’t why Dev didn’t want her in the group. Kenny and Jess were irritated that Dev had returned to avoiding girls. He avoided them in high school because they were annoying and freaked him out. Now he avoided them in college because they were annoying and freaked Lindsay out. In Dev’s mind, not much had really changed. George had been hitting on him for nearly twenty hours straight and Krista hadn’t been much more subtle. She was only here because Kevin, her twin, was and he was a decent guy. In fact, all the guys seemed cool, it was just the girls Dev had to get rid of.

“James, can I see your variable list?” Dev asked. James handed Dev a list as Dev’s computer sounded a quiet fanfare.

“What was that?” James leaned over to look.

Dev wasn’t worried, he knew nothing would show on the screen from the special alert. “Nothing important. Just an update.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened the browser.

Across the table, George closed her laptop and excused herself. Dev glanced at her briefly as she wandered into the kitchen. He scanned the news article the alert was for, trying hard to suppress a smile. Dev had been a hacker for years, but he didn’t have the stereotypical mentality that accompanied his passion. He was grateful to be accepted into a group of like-minded hackers who called themselves The Web Wizards. They were a structured organization who saw the hazards of the Internet and dangers posed by the more criminally minded computer geniuses out there. The Wizards took it upon themselves to correct the problem in their own unique way. In short, they wrote viruses, worms, and trojans to take down malicious viruses, worms and trojans. They also wrote programs to fix security holes, attacked botnets, and watched for other malware.

Their avatars all wore white hats, although technically Dev knew The Web Wizards would be classified as gray-hat crackers because they didn’t report their findings, like true white-hat crackers did. Yes, they exploited them, but they only did it to fix the problem. To Dev, the distinction was important. The technicality was enough to land the group on the FBI’s most wanted list, however. Personally, Dev had doubts the FBI was really that interested in the group. They were on the list because they met a set of definitions and had to be, but they weren’t causing trouble. The FBI had bigger problems. 

Within the group, Dev had a knack for security and this article had his appreciation because it concerned a program he helped write. It seems a program was discovered in numerous corporate systems during a routine software upgrade. Specialists were brought in, but they weren’t sure where the program came from, or that it had done any damage. In fact, in one system, the small piece of software built a selective quarantine and isolated over thirty pieces of malware the company’s traditional security systems failed to catch. The unnamed company was still unsure how to uninstall the software, or if they will.

“Something funny?” Noah asked.

Startled, Dev looked up to find Noah was talking to George. Dev stood up and leaned over the table to see into the kitchen better. She stood, leaning against the counter laughing quietly and looking at her cell phone.

“No. Well, yes, but you’d have to know the backstory.” George shook her head.

Dev sat down, almost swearing in the realization that she was reading the same article he was. Another Wizard? Here?

Why not here? Why not MIT? It made sense, Dev thought. The Wizards were all smart and most of them seemed fairly young.

Dev waited for George to return and posted a comment to the article. He quietly listened for some alert on her computer, but missed it in the background conversation. George got up almost immediately though, closed her computer, and retreated to the kitchen again with her phone.

She came back again a moment later and looked carefully around the table. Initially she skimmed over Dev. He leaned back in his chair, not even trying to disguise his amusement. Dev glanced around the table, eyes following where George was looking. Everyone was busy writing code and eventually George’s eyes came back around to Dev.

“No,” she shook her head in denial.

Dev laughed and returned to his program. He had a big part of the program to write and didn’t have time to waste on George. Besides, he promised Lindsay.

A fanfare played on his computer. “Scheiße,” he swore as he involuntarily glanced at George. She was watching him, a smug look on her face. He could ignore it, but it was really too late now. Of course he knew she was one of The Wizards, and he already gave away that he was too. With his comment, she knew who he was, with her comment at least he’d know who she was. He might as well check.

Pulling out his phone, he typed in the website again.

“What is it with you two and your phones?” Krista asked, leaning over her brother to try to look at Dev’s phone.

“Technophiles,” Dev answered, angling away from her. James snickered behind him, and Dev realized he could see the screen now. Dropping the phone under the table, Dev hunched over and logged in.

A direct message from Rhys the Red to Pugmire the Purple – him. Dev opened it.

Hi, Puggy. Busy tomorrow night?

Figures. She meets another Wizard in real life and hits on him. Although it shook Dev more than a little that George was Rhys the Red. He always assumed Rhys was male. Of course the only openly female Wizard was Terese the Teal and that was Lindsay’s sister, Becky. So in theory, he knew George had to have a male avatar. He wondered how many other ‘guys’ he knew online weren’t guys.

First things first, Lindsay was going to have a breakdown when she heard about this. The smart thing would be not to tell her, but Dev was confident she’d pry it out of him, so he’d better do the right thing.

Of course I am. I’m writing two months’ worth of code in a week. So are you.

Master of the obvious, Dev thought as he sent the message and set his phone down. He was pretty sure Lindsay would have come up with something better and he felt he was missing something. Something obvious.

“A better answer would be that you have a girlfriend,” James whispered in his ear.

“Scheiße,” Dev muttered, picking up his phone again.

James took the phone from Dev and set it back on the table. “Too late, let it play.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re safe. Lin’s going to cry me into oblivion,” Dev snapped.

“Seems to me your girlfriend doesn’t do anything but turn on the waterworks to keep you in line,” George said, not lifting her eyes from her screen.

“You’ve never met her, George, not fair,” James said, cutting off Dev’s response.

“Neither have you,” George answered.

“So, Dev, tell us about your girlfriend.” Krista leaned around her brother to get an unimpeded view of Dev.

Dev looked at Krista, then George. No good could come of this. What would Lindsay do? Bitch slap them both probably, but that wasn’t an option for him. Bryan and Kenny wouldn’t be in this position to begin with. Fine, what would Jess do? Have a threesome – also not an option. His mind raced and landed on Flynn: give a non-answer, the briefest possible answer, or in the worst case, decline to answer at all. He looked at the mascara-rimmed eyes staring at him. No answer wouldn’t shut them up, they’d just wait and ask again.

“Her name is Lindsay,” Dev said, returning his attention to his computer and refusing to meet the gaze of the two predatory women at the table. “I’m extremely fond of her.”

Silence fell across the table broken only by Dev’s fingers striking his keys. Noah chuckled to himself after a moment. Dev assumed he caught on that the description of his girlfriend was over. James followed suit, and finally Kevin joined in. He appreciated their support, remembering yet again that he never got this kind of support from Kenny or Jess.

“That’s it?” George demanded.

“Yup.”

“That’s not fair.” Krista pouted.

“Sure it is.”

George sat back and studied Dev. He glanced up at her briefly, then again when he didn’t like the look on her face. Noah was looking at Krista with a disturbed expression, which Dev also didn’t like; he liked Noah. He couldn’t see Krista with Kevin between them now that she sat back in her chair, which Dev preferred actually.

Dev’s phone beeped, breaking his concentration. A text came in from James:
Don’t cave and give them any more info.
Good advice. He’d have to make an effort to keep James around. Dev forced his concentration back to his program.