Trade Me (Cyclone #1)

Tina, I could say, I have a problem. That would be the truth.

Instead, my smile is a falsehood, denying those roots that run deep here. “If you think I was bad in the restaurant, you haven’t really seen me lie at all.”

It’s weird having her here, almost like I’m afraid that my memories will infect her. I straighten beside my car, and I make myself find that smile I need to wear. I try to erase every unfortunate memory I have. Watching Dad and Peter tromp over this land when it was nothing but weeds and aging strip malls. Pointing, sketching out the place it would be when their joint imagination gave rise to concrete and glass.

I push away the time when Dad told me that Asiv in interfaces was fucking with my design. I rushed over to that building, there, on the other side of the lawn, heart in my mouth, to find half the Cyclone campus lying in wait with Peter and a massive cake for my eighteenth birthday. I delete my memories of Peter altogether, one by one, until these are just buildings and I’m just here on an errand.

No matter how I try, he’s present, lodged under my skin like unshed tears.

I inhale and smile harder. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go in and I’ll show you Fernanda.”

She takes my hand in hers. Here’s one thing that’s not a lie: Touching her makes me feel better. My smile comes a little more easily.

“Hey, Blake!” someone calls from the field as we pass.

I wave, smiling. “Looks like you’re getting creamed again, Steve.”

“What? We’re only down by two.”

“For now,” I call back with fake cheer.

Any further reply is lost in indistinct trash-talk. We walk to the main building side by side, and I can pretend that this is nothing more than a nice, sunny afternoon.

On my way to my dad’s office, I stop at every occupied cubicle. I smile. I greet. It’s been weeks since I last stopped by.

“When are you coming back?” everyone asks. Half of them add, with conspicuous glances down the hall in my dad’s direction, “It’s not the same without you.”

I don’t answer. Instead, I introduce Tina.

The door to my dad’s office is open by the time I get there.

“Hey.” He glances up at me and slides a stack of papers as thick as his thumb across the table. “Legal sent these over. Walk her through this, will you?”

“Sure thing.” I give him a cocky smile.

Maybe too cocky. Dad raises an eyebrow. “Don’t get frisky, kids,” he growls.

I’m not sure what he imagines we will get up to signing NDAs. But Tina smiles at him. “That’s what disinfectant spray is for,” she says.

Dad chokes. My imagination jumps instantly to all the many ways that might work out. Dad stares at her for a moment in disbelief, and then realizes that she’s joking. He bursts into laughter. “Get out of here. And no, Blake, don’t you dare. There are interior windows. I can see into your office. There are some things I don’t ever want to know. Ever.”

We go three doors down to my office. Someone must come in here to clean regularly. There’s no dust on the glassed picture on my desk. The plants are lush and green, newly watered. There are fresh pens in the holder.

I don’t close the door. I can see my father across the way, and even though his attention has wandered elsewhere, I still feel like I’m on display.

Look, Dad. I’m okay. I like this girl. Everything’s normal.

“Only my father,” I say to Tina, “would imagine that anyone could find paperwork arousing.”

“What?” Her smile is a touch too wide, a little too faked. “Don’t tell me your media training didn’t cover this, either.”

I set the stack of papers on the flat surface of my desk and gesture Tina to sit in the leather-bound executive chair.

“What am I supposed to say, then? Come on, baby. It’s a nondisclosure agreement. You’ll like it. I promise.”

She gives me an unimpressed look. “God,” she says. “And I thought you were supposed to be a good liar. That’s not how you do it.” She bites her lip and then she leans toward me. Her eyelashes sweep down, and when she talks, she lowers her voice toward sultry.

“I don’t know, Blake.” She bites her lip and reaches gingerly for the papers, stroking her thumb along the edge. “It’s so…big. I’m not sure it will fit.”

I almost choke. She looks up with a touch of a smile.

Fuck. I started this.

“We’ll go nice and slow.” I pull a chair beside her and sit down, and very slowly take a pen from the holder. “Tell me if it hurts and I can stop anytime. I promise.”

“Be gentle.”