“I’ll be leaving Babe in a lurch.” Her pitch rose with the last of her objections, and he knew he’d gotten her.
He closed his fists. “She seems to have real affection for you. Do you think she’ll be angry?”
“No,” Selina said, her O long and drawn out.
“Do you want to ask her?”
The more Marc pushed for her to say yes to the idea, the more he wanted it. Not just because he liked to succeed—though he acknowledged that was part of it—but because Selina’s company on this trip was one of those ideas that got better the more he thought about it.
Her objections made sense. She might be crazy. He might be crazy. They might end the trip hating each other. But her presence would stop him from thinking about encryption and random session keys and message fragmentation. And he couldn’t start a new life if he was mulling over the old one.
At least he didn’t think he could. No one seemed to know what to tell a twenty-five-year-old who had succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams but was too young to retire. Go volunteer with Doctors Without Borders was all anyone ever suggested, as if they’d never met him at all. He’d been looking for an equivalent Tech Geeks Without Borders, but nothing he’d found had caught his attention.
“I want to talk with her,” she finally said. “I should talk with someone before I say yes, absolutely. I’d rather talk to her in person, though. This is too complicated to talk about over the phone.”
“That’s understandable. If you think she’s home, we can head over now.”
Marc had never had a “real job,” and Selina and Babe’s bond impressed him. Maybe he was even a little jealous. Working in his underwear in the middle of the night, a pile of orange peels next to him on the desk wasn’t a real job in any way his parents understood it.
Once he’d dropped out of college, he’d attached himself to projects he’d found on various technology postings—some aboveboard, some not. The people he’d worked with had been acquaintances, and he had a good network, but he’d never been close with any of them. Except Curtis. He and Curtis had come up with the idea for the encrypted texts, and Marc had thought they were friends, not just geek buddies.
“I’m going to assume Babe will think this is as great of an idea as I do.” If he reached out, success—and Selina coming with him—was close enough he might be able to grab ahold of it and kiss it. “Should we find your mom to tell her, too?”
Hesitation pulled at the corners of her eyes. Crap. Saying that had been a bad tack when he was trying to convince her to come.
“Yes,” she said and then gnawed on her lip. “But I don’t want to tell her in person. She’s guaranteed to think this is a bad idea.”
“Afraid she’ll talk you out of it?” Marc was convinced this idea was great and was certain Babe would see reason, but he didn’t believe Selina’s mom could even find reason in an empty, well-lit room. Otherwise, she’d have done something to protect her daughter from that awful man she’d married.
“I’m afraid she’ll try—or Gary will—and we’ll fight.”
Right. One of the breadwinners was thinking of driving away in the bread truck, and her stepfather seemed like the type who would respond with abuse toward the nearest woman handy rather than getting his own job. “Should she talk you out of it?”
He wanted Selina to come with him. The trip would be better with her in the car. But he didn’t want to be a dick and force her into anything.
Selina gave a vigorous shake of her head. “No. Maybe going with you is a bad idea, but staying here is a bad idea, too. I’ll talk to Babe about it, but . . .” She paused, then nodded, apparently at the thoughts in her own head. “But I think I’m coming.”
Being the best of two bad ideas pricked his ego, but quibbling or objecting wouldn’t help him win Selina’s company.
She waved a hand between them, seeming to dismiss any more objections she wasn’t sharing. “I’ll call my mom from the road. Babe has a detached garage that I can leave my car in. And if I decide to stay in Salt Lake City at the end of the week, I trust her to sell it for me and send me the money.”
“Do you need to go home to pack?” Decision made, Marc’s mind moved to the practicalities of this trip.
“No.” She looked sheepish for a moment. “When I left last night, I took a backpack I’d already had packed in case I never wanted to go back. And I’ve had a suitcase in my car for weeks. Gary has been getting more, uh, persistent, and I wanted to be prepared.”
That he was persistent might be the biggest understatement Marc had ever heard to describe what he didn’t want to imagine had been happening in Selina’s home.
“Well then,” he said, clapping his hands together, “of all the diners in all the towns in all the world, I’m glad I walked in to yours.”