Chapter 1
INDIA
TechCrunch Disrupt, San Francisco
The first time I met Jon, he tried to pick me up.
He almost succeeded. If he had, I doubt I’d be here at TechCrunch Disrupt today.
Picture it – one of my first beach parties of the year, Friday night before a week of midterms, and I'm with my best girlfriends. We're crazy in the way that only geek girls can be crazy – letting our hair down when we're usually buttoned up tight. Tequila shots, pitchers of beer, nachos. Music blaring, we're all half-drunk sitting on stools at the beach bar, and up walks this gorgeous hunk of a man I recognized from my English class.
I watch as Marina's eyes widen when he stands next to me.
"Hey, India right?" he says, his arm on the back of my chair. "You're in my English course. Great name, by the way."
"Thanks," I say, used to getting ribbed about my name. "I recognize you." I turn to him, my drink in hand. "Professor Gardner's class. We're reading Tess of the D' Urbervilles."
"Yeah," he says and gives me a brilliant smile. "Or at least, we're supposed to be. I'm a bit behind. It's a romance, right?"
I shake my head. "Oh, it's not romance, believe me. More like a tragedy, and a warning about Britain's crumbling feudal system, the decay of the rural way of life due to industrialization and the oppression of women."
"Whoa." He makes a face of horror. "Deep. There was a movie made about it," he says. "With Nastassja Kinsky. Didn't Polansky direct it?"
"He did."
Jon nods his head thoughtfully. Then he smiles. "Wanna dance?"
Now, you have to realize that Jon Anders Thorson is perhaps the hunkiest hunk on campus. Not only is he a bit older than the rest of us, due to his having been in the Army for five years, he's beautiful in a masculine way.
That night, he wore a pair of swim trunks because he’s been surfing and he’s tanned and ripped.
He’s gorgeous.
The three of us are sitting there, practically drooling over him, and he asks me to dance.
I glance over to the small space beside the DJ's table and sound system.
"There's no one dancing.”
He holds out his hand, smiling. "Then we'll be the first."
"I don't dance very well," I say, making a face.
"Neither do I. We'll be a pair."