“What can I get you?” the waitress asked Selina, all kindness and consideration. She didn’t have the same tone of voice for Marc, and he hoped his fries didn’t come back burned.
“That was rude,” Selina said after the waitress had walked off.
“I’m sorry.” Hell, even he could hear that he didn’t sound all that sorry. “Really, I am. I just think I can finally get someone to listen to me and let me work on the project again.”
“Why is it so important to you?” She pulled her glass of water toward her and wrapped her lips around the straw. Her sexy lips, the ones that felt amazing when they’d kissed his, the ones he wanted to kiss again.
He shook the image out of his head. “Terry is my project. Oh, it’s Curtis’s, too, but it was my idea. And now I have an idea that would make it even better. Make it cleaner. When the app is fully launched, I want it to be the best it can be. Even with the company’s name on the app, enough people in the industry will know it’s my work, and I can’t let it get out into the wild without it being anything less than perfect.”
It wasn’t only his reputation at stake, though. He wanted the work.
The straw slid out of her mouth, leaving a ring of red lipstick behind. “But you’ve talked to Curtis about it, right? Maybe he’s already working on it.”
“If he is, he hasn’t told me.” And it was Marc’s idea. He wanted to work on it.
Even in his head, he could hear that he sounded like a child denied a favorite toy. Maybe he was being possessive and should let go of Terry, but would it kill Curtis to respond?
She shrugged. “But you sold it to the biggest technology company in the world. They have an entire campus of people dedicated to stuff like this. I read online that their meter maids are robots. They’ll figure your idea out, especially if you’ve shared the basics. And your friend took a job there, right? So he knows the project as well as you do. It sounds like they have all the reasons in the world to implement your idea, and you can go on enjoying your vacation.”
Yeah, but that didn’t mean his friend should give him the cold shoulder. He should at least give him the courtesy of a real e-mail. None of this brush-off shit.
What Selina was saying made sense, but it didn’t change the basic facts of the situation. This was his project and he wanted to fix it.
“You don’t understand,” he said.
The waitress set plates of food in front of them. Suspiciously, Marc picked up the bun on his burger and looked at his dinner. Everything seemed fine, and the fries looked perfectly cooked. He picked a couple up and shoved them in his mouth, the hot, salty oil dripping down his throat, coating and softening some of his irritation.
Man, he was hungry. He should make sure to buy more snacks for the drive tomorrow.
“You’re right,” Selina said, her sharp tone catching his attention and popping his head up. She hadn’t touched her food yet, and her arms were crossed over her chest. “I don’t understand. But what I don’t understand is why you haven’t tossed your phones out of the window so you can enjoy your vacation. Do you know how many people would love to be in your shoes right now? Money in the bank. Bills paid off. No boss to report to. An empty road and a good time ahead of you.”
“Well, I’m not totally the man of leisure with no commitments. I’ve got you to worry about. God, and maybe I’m worried too much about my job that was, but you’ve got no plan. Nothing. That’s why you’re here.”
This time it was Selina who sucked in a breath. He shouldn’t have implied she was a burden and a commitment, especially since he wanted her on this trip.
No. He needed her on this trip.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, but the words didn’t magically work their way back into his mouth and down his throat. Taking back words as cutting as that wasn’t as easy as deleting bad code, and its effects could be just as malicious.
“I’m sorry,” he said, desperate to stem the damage he’d done. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Didn’t you?”
God, the way her voice sank inside her, almost turning her inside out, nearly broke his heart. It had seemed like the farther away from her hometown they’d gotten, the bigger Selina had gotten, like suddenly she was willing to throw a couple of elbows if she needed to get people out of her way. And in a split second, he’d managed to shrink her back inside herself.
He felt like a heel. A heel with dog shit on it. And cat shit, for good measure.