“Go? Where?” Matt followed me, shoving his hands in his pockets. “We’re not finished yet.”
“We’ll have to meet another time. I don’t want to be late.”
“Fine.” Matt frowned, grumbling. “Go if you must. Let me print out those graphs for you.” Matt crossed back to the computer and began clicking through the screens we’d been reviewing.
I moved to step forward but Dr. Merek stepped in my path. “Listen,” he began softly. “I’m sorry about your subject interview. I was sick and Matt had to fill in. We really do have good intentions here. We’re trying to make a difference.”
“I believe you, I just don’t know if I agree with you. At least, not yet.”
“Fair enough.” Derek’s gaze moved over my face again. “You know, you’re not what I expected.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Matt told me about what happened, between the two of you, I’d expected someone . . . scary.”
I grinned. “I am scary.”
“I bet you are.” His voice dropped and his eyes seemed to sparkle.
A few seconds passed, then a few more while Dr. Derek Merek continued to gaze at me and I at him. I realized, to my very great surprise, we were in imminent danger of flirting.
“Hey, so. Here,” Matt said, then cleared his throat very loudly and came to stand next to me, shoving papers into my hands. “Thank you, Dr. Merek. But neither of us have time for lunch.”
“Oh? Where are you off to?” the tall scientist asked, like he didn’t believe his coworker.
“I actually do have an appointment.”
“That’s right. She does,” Matt added unnecessarily. Then he bent near my ear and whispered, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to a professional cuddling studio.” I lifted an eyebrow at Matt. He was standing very close to me, his large brown eyes wide and watchful. He was acting strangely. At least, based on the short amount of time we’d spent together, he was acting strangely.
“What’s that?” Derek asked, clearly confused.
“Are you going to the one on Broad? I’ve been meaning to check it out.” Matt dashed away from me, grabbing his wallet, keys, and sunglasses from his desk.
“You have?” The intensity of Derek Merek’s confusion quadrupled.
“I have,” Matt responded curtly. Then odd Professor Matt bumped my arm with his and tilted his head, saying, “Come on, Valkyrie. Let’s go.”
8
Dpe
The world's first disaster prediction engine, the goal being to make terrorism impossible.
Source: Banjo
“Do you watch Jack and Grace often?”
“Not as much as I’d like. I used to. I guess it’s not unusual for me to watch Grace and Jack. But I haven’t been babysitting much since Greg stopped traveling this spring.”
We were just two blocks from the cuddle studio. I still didn’t know why he’d decided to join me, but I didn’t mind the company. In fact, I liked the idea of having someone with me, someone I could compare notes with once the experience was over.
“I like Fiona.”
I glanced at him, finding his readiness to be honest refreshing.
“I do, too.”
“She used to babysit me. She’s like my sister.”
I smiled, thinking of my friend. “She’s pretty great.”
He paused, and then added, “I don’t understand why she married Greg.”
That had my steps faltering for a split second. Readiness to be honest was one thing, but I hadn’t quite grown accustomed to Matt’s candor. He actually reminded me of Janie that way.
“They’re so different. Greg is hilarious, but he can be—”
“Harsh?”
“Yes. Exactly.” He nodded his agreement. “He’s sarcastic. And she’s not.”
“She can be.” I thought back on the last few years of knitting nights, remembering a few doozies of wit she’d foisted on the group.
“Hmm.” His lips twisted to the side. “Anyway. It seems to work for them.”
“He loves her,” I noted. “They care about each other. A lot.”
Matt made a face, like love was a dirty word. “I don’t think caring about a person is a foolproof means to longevity in relationships. I care about my ex-wife. We cared about each other when we divorced. It wasn’t enough to keep us married.”
Again, I almost tripped over nothing. This time it was due to the offhanded mention of his ex-wife. “You were married?”
“Yes.”
“When? For how long? How did you meet?” I was unable to stop the barrage of questions.
“I was nineteen. We met at MIT. I followed her to Cal-Tech. Things were fine at first, and then they weren’t. And then they fell apart rapidly when I entered industry,” he said with absolutely no malice or resentment in his tone, like he was telling me about an article he’d read.
Matt walked with his hands in his pockets. With his sunglasses and Converse, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, hair askew, he looked even younger than he had when we first met.
“How old are you?” I questioned abruptly, not sure why. “You have a Ph.D., so you’ve got to be late twenties?”
“I’m thirty. We’ve been divorced for three years. She’s four years older than me.”
“Huh.” I inspected him anew. “So, what happened? With your wife?”
He didn’t respond right away, instead scratching his chin before saying flippantly, “We never saw each other,” as though that explained everything.
“Yeah, but a lot of married couples have long-distance relationships, and they make it work.”
“Ours wasn’t long distance. We lived together in the same house. But we never saw each other. Three months passed and I realized I hadn’t spoken to her in three months. Other than sleeping next to her, I hadn’t seen her.”
I made a face of shock, but then quickly suppressed it. “How is that possible?”
Matt’s eyebrows moved sporadically on his forehead, like he was trying to figure out what to say. “Work. I guess. She’s brilliant. And passionate about her work. So am I, about mine. We attempted to make time for each other, but it just made her miserable.”
“Loving you made her miserable?” I asked incredulously, irritated on his behalf.
“No. She felt like she’d worked really hard for her achievements and, being a woman in tech, felt like she needed to work twice as hard to maintain her level of success. She was right. She did.” He met my irritated incredulity with excessive rationality.
“What do you mean?” I watched his profile, my heart thumping with dread for some reason.
“Instead of attending a conference, she stayed home with me for a weekend. I also took off work, which was rare. Then on Monday, she found out she’d been passed over for a project.” He sounded regretful.
“That’s not your fault.”