<lj-cut text="Chapter 3">

“Ah, another Star Wars fan,” he said. “How unexpected.”
Caroline looked at him over the table, planning a snappy reply. “Why, cause I’m a…” she stuttered, as his soft brown eyes met hers.
    “Girl?” he finished. “No, because I wasn’t sure there were any fellow nerds here. This crowd seems more like the Grey’s Anatomy/Jackass type.”
    “First, I’m not a nerd or a girl. Why would you start off a conversation with a woman,” she emphasized, “by accusing her of being a nerd?” Caroline had recovered from her stumble but was having trouble staying indignant as she watched him smile.
    “Because it’s a compliment in my book,” he answered.
    “Oh.” Caroline cursed her Irish blood, and felt the blush sweeping over her fair skin. She waited for him to say something about her skin matching her hair, as if he were the first to think of that line.
    “Let’s start over. My name’s Xander.”
    “Hey, nice to meet you.” Small talk was easy as long as she didn’t look at him. “I’m Caroline.” She looked at him. Brown eyes, brown hair, just an inch or two taller than she was. Just the right height for kissing. She gave herself a mental shake. Kissing? Where did that come from? “Wait, Xander, as in Buffy?”
    Xander chuckled. “See, I knew you had the heart of a geek under all that hotness.”
    “Um, I may have…” Caroline said distractedly, “a few action figures.” I may have a few action figures? What am I saying? That’s almost as bad as ‘I carried a watermelon.’
    “…so I have some original GI Joes, but I never got into any other action figure collecting. Do you like comic books too?” Xander paused. He’d lost her. Her eyes were glazing over because he didn’t have the sense to keep his mouth shut about his lame hobbies. Time to bail before things got worse and she actually fell asleep. “Ok, well, I need another beer. It was nice talking to you.”
    He turned and was swallowed up by the crowd around the keg before Caroline realized he was leaving.
    “Wait,” she called out, but the music was too loud. Hmm. Did I read him wrong? she thought. Whatever.  There are a lot of guys at this party, even a few I’ve never met. She paused. But, he was kind of cute, in a Lloyd Dobbler way. Ah, the perfect boyfriend. How many men around the world had been rejected because of the Lloyd Dobbler standard? But Caroline knew that was a myth. No man had ever stood in the rain with a boombox to win her or gone to Paris for her. And it was seriously unlikely that this man would either. Although, Caroline admitted to herself, her standards weren’t really that high. A boyfriend who wouldn’t cheat on her; that’s all she was looking for. Not that she was looking.
    “So, Caroline,” squealed a voice to her left, “what did you think of Xander?”
    “Oh, hey, Zoe, how’re you?”
    “Isn’t he a doll? Of course, he is way too young for you. A baby, really.”
    Caroline wasn’t sure if she should pull her hair over her forehead to hide the crows feet or push it back to hide the grey.
    Zoe nattered on, smiling a little too sweetly, “If you like I could introduce you to one of the men I work with. They’re all too old for me, but I know they’d love to meet a nice woman their age.”
    Wow, Caroline thought, that was a bit obvious even for Zoe. “Zoe, it is just so sweet of you to look out for me like that,” she sugared back. “You are such a good friend.” She held on to her smile as she added, “And I think you’re so brave and sensible not to worry about your hair. I should take a lesson from you and not think about how I look so much.”
    Zoe’s face fell as her hand went to her hair. Caroline felt a little bad when Zoe walked off without a word. But only a tiny bit bad, she thought. Zoe’s deserved that for a long time, and her hair could actually use some work, so it was for the best. Grabbing a jello shot off the counter, Caroline headed over to the pool table. She was pretty sure she’d seen some wide shoulders and brown hair over that way. Mmmm, red, my favorite.