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“Can you believe this line?” Charlie played through the conversation she’d restarted as soon as she heard it. Anna watched over her shoulder.
Jennifer Hale’s voice came out of the speakers. “How about we skip to the tiebreaker round? We can test your reach… and my flexibility.”
Anna got it about the same time as Garrus, and she started snickering. “I dare you to use that. Tonight, at the bar. There’s this girl I think you would love, and you need to hit on ASAP, and if it goes badly I’ll tell her it was all my idea. Her name’s Jo, she teaches all kinds of survival training, and in her free time she likes to do yoga.”
“Survival training? Why would she be interested in me? All I know about survival skills is keeping characters alive in video games.” Charlie turned back to her game and finished the conversation with Garrus. “Which, not as easy as it looks sometimes!”
Anna shrugged and smirked. “She says she got into survival training because of her love of Return of the Jedi. I think you’ve got a couple things in common.”
“And I’m hitting on her instead of you because…? Sounds like you’re interested.”
“Because you’re the one she doesn’t know. Hit on her, ask if it’s cool if you invite me.”
“I knew there was an ulterior motive.” Charlie stuck out her tongue at Anna. “You’re on. If this doesn’t work, though… you owe me. Big time.”
“Deal.” Anna stuck out a hand, and Charlie shook it.
Charlie didn’t wait for Anna to point Jo out. She didn’t care. Even if it meant she lost the bet, she knew exactly who she wanted to go for that night. If it wasn’t Jo, she could try Jo again some other night. The blonde in the tight jeans and white tank top, though… who knew if she’d see her again?
“It’s just like talking to an NPC, unless it goes well. The worst that happens is things get a little awkward. You’re good at awkward. You can do this, Charlie.” Charlie checked that her shirt wasn’t on backwards and that she had both shoes and socks. She walked up to the blonde. “Hi, I’m Charlie. Haven’t seen you around here before.”
“Hi, Charlie!” The blonde’s face lit up in a dazzling smile and she held out a hand. “Jo Harvelle. Just moved to the city a couple weeks ago. I was starting to worry that I’d never meet any cute girls! At least, ones not wearing rings or whatever.”
So this was Jo. Plan was back on. Charlie could still win the bet and snag the hot girl. Now, how to get to the topic… “What do you do, Jo?”
“Survival training. I take a bunch of stuff I learned from my mom and dad and Uncle Bobby and Uncle John and his boys, and I teach it to a bunch of bored rich people who are worried about the zombie apocalypse or nuclear holocaust because of Trump getting elected or the downfall of society from the invasion of illegal immigrants and gays and women forgetting their place – although those last ones don’t tend to last long, not in my classes.”
Charlie giggled. “I can imagine. They assume Jo is short for Joseph, then?”
“Exactly. When they find out it’s Joanna…” Jo shrugged and shook her head. “What about you? What do you do?”
“I spend my days trying to figure out how to tell people they’re morons without them accusing me of calling them morons.” It sounded a lot cooler than what she really did, which was reminding people to see if things were plugged in, or that half of troubleshooting could be handled by turning off the device and turning it back on. Or checking that it was on to begin with.
“Oh. IT?”
Charlie’s turn to light up. “IT. How’d you guess?”
“My cousin Sam did IT for a while to put himself through law school. The stories he would tell…” Jo started giggling. “Not that Dean’s clients are much smarter. He’s a mechanic. You would not believe the things people bring their cars in for! They’re not all dumb, but ‘the heater isn’t working’ ‘that would be because you’ve got it set to blow cold air’ is a conversation he had more than once, he swears.”
“Nice. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, on the rare occasion there’s an actual problem I’m indispensable so I get away with a lot. Save the CEO’s computer from a ransomware attack, you get a lot of reach with the company.”
Jo twirled her hair and signaled Anna over for another drink. “You know, I do a lot of yoga. They say that makes you pretty flexible.”
“I’ve heard that…”
“What do you say after I finish this drink, you and I get out of here? We could test your reach… and my flexibility.”
Charlie’s jaw dropped as Anna burst into spasms of laughter. “Hope you’ve got a plan to handle dextro DNA. And some good lotion to deal with the chafing.”
“You’re a fan too?”
“Yeah.” Charlie turned to Anna. “How does this work for the bet, anyway?”
Jo blinked. “Bet?”
“Bet. Anna’s my girlfriend – open relationship, really, I wouldn’t hit on you in front of her without her permission – and she dared me to use Garrus’s reach and flexibility line on you!”
Anna put a hand over her mouth to calm herself down. “Well, you didn’t use it, but that’s because Jo beat you to it. How about we just drop it?”
“Okay. Jo, do you mind if Anna joins us? It’s okay if you do.”
“When do you get off, Anna?”
“I’m not even supposed to be working tonight. I just gotta tell Gabe I’m heading out.”
“Sounds good to me, then!”