Chapter 2

Chapter 2

C

harlie

“C

harlie.” Tatum’s hiss doesn’t sound forgiving. When I glance up from the steamed pork bun grasped between my chopsticks, her expression looks downright accusatory.

I put the bun down. “Tatum, what can I do for you?” The words come out on autopilot. They’re how I greet employees at work when they stop me abruptly without giving me a heads-up first about their needs.

I really appreciate the heads-ups. I like to be prepared, so I don’t go off on tangents. Or, at least, too many tangents.

I’m fully aware of my tendency to let my wandering mind wander right out my mouth, peppering unsuspecting listeners with gems about the difference between dust mites and dust motes, which are often confused. The former is a microscopic arthropod, while the other is just a tiny speck of dust that catches the light when it’s floating around.

See what I mean?

Tatum’s glare tells me I’ve done something to disappoint her, and I briefly look to Donovan to see if he agrees. He bites off the corner of a wonton and shrugs, which makes me feel slightly better about my ignorance.

“You’re not even trying,” she says on a harsh whisper, as though she’s afraid Cherry will hear her from the restroom at the back of the dim sum place. But I don’t point that out. I’ve seen the same look in her eyes at work, and I know I can easily inflame her even more with minimal effort.

She normally reserves that stony gaze for people who’ve underestimated her abilities, and I consider her quite capable, so it’s never directed at me. But I need to make sure I don’t underestimate her seriousness now.

“Trying what?” I look at my plate, where I’ve shown great enthusiasm for several dishes I’ve never eaten before—marinated cabbage and tofu in a strange brown sauce. “I had the duck, per your suggestion. It’s not bad, though I’m generally not a fan of poultry other than chicken.”

She huffs an exasperated breath. “Not what I mean. What is this?” She gestures with both hands at me dismissively. Again, I look at Donno for a hint of explanation. He looks just as helpless, but also amused.

“Maybe you can tell me more about Coach’s strategy for getting the team out of its slump,” I offer.

Donovan’s grin widens and he leans back in his chair. “Oh, no. We’ll get to our hideous and embarrassing losses in a minute. First you.”

“Traitor. I feel tempted to rescind my jersey sponsorship for the team.”

“You wouldn’t.” His smug face tempts me, but vengeance won’t serve the team.

I glance around the restaurant, as though the answer lies somewhere among the white tablecloths and platters of dim sum being wheeled from table to table via a parade of silver carts. The place is crowded and loud, not unusual for a Thursday night in Palo Alto. Amid the clink of metal chopsticks on ceramic plates, the conversations settle into a boisterous hum of unintelligible noise.

With no context other than the food in front of me, I’m on my own. It doesn’t bother me. I do some of my best problem solving and thinking by myself. In this case, however, I need a little groupthink.

Unless… Just to be sure, I look down to ensure I don’t have food stains on my T-shirt. I don’t have anything underneath, so it’ll be a problem if I have to disrobe further. But it’s clean.

“Tatum, I’m not following.” It pains me to admit as much, but subtext is a weak area for me. I like numbers and data—they rarely betray me with nuance or opinions. “Please be direct.”

“You couldn’t put on a nice shirt? And your contact lenses? I know you have them—you wear them half the time at work. Isn’t my sister worthy of a little effort?” I catch the impatient irritation in her voice, the same tone she uses when members of her team aren’t following along quickly enough. She does not suffer fools.

“Tatum, this is me. You see me every day. You know how I look.”

“True, but I’ve never seen you on a date. I can’t believe this is how you dress when you date actresses and models.”

“Oh. That.” Her exasperation makes sense now, and I feel much better. I slice off a bite of the pork bun and chew on it while I determine how to best explain. “Your sister is a delight, and I didn’t want to give her the wrong impression. Kind of an end run around the defensive tackle.”

“You think you can appease me by using a football analogy.” Tatum wags a finger, but there’s a softening in her voice. “But your playbook makes no sense.”

Donovan squints at me while he chomps on a dumpling. “Nah, pretty sure I’m following.”

“Great, football nonsense that’s meaningful to a soccer player. Is it guy speak? Is that the language I need to brush up on?” Tatum sits up straighter, her annoyance giving way to the challenge of learning something new. The finger is wagging at me again. “This isn’t some self-esteem thing, is it? Like if you brought your A-game and it didn’t go well, you’d feel like a failure because it’s all you’ve got? But this way, if the date’s a disaster, you can tell yourself it’s because you showed up looking like a tech druid. You can save face in your own mind by telling yourself you didn’t really work hard, so that’s why you failed.”

“Wow.” Donovan looks stunned. “You psychoanalyzed all of that out of a sports metaphor?”

She shrugs. “It’s a theory.”

“An incorrect one.” I point at her, and she frowns like a star student who delivered the wrong answer in front of the whole class.

But Donovan slams a hand on the table, and the dumplings rattle in their dish. “You snake!”

“Pardon?”

“It’s the billionaire thing. Women throw themselves at you, of course they do.” He doesn’t need to tell me he understands this from experience. But I’m relieved that he’s handed me an alternate theory, so I don’t have to admit how close Tatum is to the truth.

Of course, I’m wary of failing at my chance to win over her sister. After three years of thinking about her, who wouldn’t be? But Donovan isn’t wrong about the billionaire effect on most women, so we’ll just go with that.

Meanwhile, Tatum is gaping at me like she can’t imagine a world in which women throw themselves at me. It’s fine. I understand how she sees me, which isn’t to say I believe she finds me distasteful. But Tatum isn’t impressed by status, so she probably doesn’t see me as having any. It’s partly why I like her.

“So, wait. You wore yesterday’s laundry and your glasses because you thought my sister was some kind of tech groupie who would try to jump your bones?” Tatum folds her arms across her chest.

I can’t help but mimic the gesture, all the while starting to worry that Cherry has been in the restroom an awfully long time. “I wouldn’t put it that way. I’m being myself. If she likes me, she won’t care what I’m wearing. I just didn’t go out of my way to try to woo her with a three-piece suit, red roses, and a Ferrari.”

What would be the point? Even if that’s what she wants, it’s not the person I want to be. At least, not all the time.

I’m already at the mercy of investors for every decision I make. The past three years have brought success and wealth at a cost of not knowing myself or my vision for ViviTech anymore. But I know one thing I do want—the gorgeous redhead whose laugh sounds like I’ve won a Vegas jackpot.

When Tatum suggested the date, I said yes. It was a knee-jerk, no hesitation response. Not a chance I’d say no, not when I still have the piece of paper with her sketch in the top drawer of my desk. Not when I’ve been thinking about her all this time.

I am serious about wanting her to like me for myself, not the guy with the big bank account or the guy who was

Time

magazine’s Man of the Year three years ago when ViviTech went public. Problem is, I worry I’ve lost sight of who I am amid all the distractions of running a giant company for the benefit of making rich people richer. I’m part of a money machine, and if I stop moving, the whole thing grinds to a halt.

That doesn’t just affect me—I wish it did. It affects the livelihoods of my employees and everyone who’s bought shares in my company as a vote of confidence in our future. Hundreds of thousands of people.

So here I am, hidden behind my glasses and comfy clothes, uncomfortable as hell. I’m further from my comfort zone than on the day I struck the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange when ViviTech went public. Hell, my heart rate barely ticked up a notch that day, and that was when the company I’d nurtured from a baby chick turned into a pterodactyl.

I’m nervous because it’s

her

.

And I’m pretty sure I’ll never see her again.

It’s not a matter of my clothes. We have nothing in common. Our rhythms are off, we can’t make conversation, we look like a mismatched pair, and the uncomfortable silences between us are painful.

Tatum drops her metal chopsticks, and they clatter on the plate. “Men and their cars. Do you really have a Ferrari?” The accusing way she stares at me is unnerving.

“I plead the fifth.”

I have two.

They were both gifts from ViviTech’s investment bank, and I haven’t driven them. Much.

Donovan looks pleased and somehow validated by the whole conversation, which makes me want to spend time discussing the team’s slump. A good deal of time.

“In any case, I suppose I could have put on a button-down shirt,” I concede. “I’m sorry, Tatum. Please extend my apologies to Cherry.”

“You can extend them to her yourself when she comes back.”

“Oh, I took this discussion to mean she pulled a runaway bride and escaped through the bathroom window.”

Tatum’s face softens with what seems to be sympathy and I feel even worse. “Not at all, Charlie. She’s just in the restroom. Cherry would never do that.” Then she squares her shoulders and looks at me from under her lashes like a quarterback ready to make an end run. “Try harder to get to know her,” she growls.

I feel my shoulders drop in relief. “Okay, sure. Great. Do you want some more rice?” I scoop some rice onto my plate and offer the bowl to Tatum and Donovan. He takes it and spoons a bit onto Tatum’s plate without asking if she wants it.

“Thank you, footballer,” she sighs and waits for him to put down the bowl before interlacing her fingers with his.

I do miss that easy familiarity with another person. It’s been four years since I dated anyone seriously, and the few dates I’ve gone on haven’t led anywhere, despite hand-picking personality characteristics that seemed like a good match with mine. But the truth is, my heart hasn’t been in dating.

Cherry returns and I inhale the subtle scent of citrus that reminds me of honeybees and orange blossoms. She slips into her chair and places a hand on mine. I startle at the sudden feeling of warmth enveloping my skin at the gesture. Then I notice she’s placed her other hand on top of Tatum’s.

“What’d I miss?” Her pale blue eyes flash with accusing mischief as though a circus train paraded through the restaurant while she was gone and we’re all withholding the details.

“We were talking about laundry. And football,” I tell her.

“Ugh, okay, now I’m glad there was a line outside the ladies’ room. Was Tatum telling you some random statistics about a wide receiver she follows? And before you get all impressed that I know what a wide receiver is, let me tell you I know nothing about football, and I intend to keep it that way. And I kind of feel the same way about laundry, but I don’t want you to think I’m an elitist who doesn’t wash my own clothes. Though, someday, I’d like to offload that chore.”

She leans away from Tatum as though her boring choice of topics is contagious, and I don’t mind taking another whiff of the citrus flowers that seem to envelop her. I also let the torrent of words wash over me before responding.

“You more of a hockey fan?” I can’t help but ask.

Shrugging, she tilts her head from side to side. “Not particularly.” Interesting. I wonder why she knows a Gretzky quote. I still hope to find out, so I try to curry favor.

“I wasn’t under the impression you were an elitist. I’m of an opinion that certain chores ought to be outsourced if a person can better spend the time elsewhere.” I wince as the words come out of my mouth because I realize how stiff I sound.

This is you getting to know her?

Cherry peers at me through her long lashes and the scrutiny of her green eyes does nothing to put me at ease. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but you remind me of an English professor I had once. He was literally English, like from England. Plus, he taught English. And he always sounded kind of formal.” I swallow hard, and Cherry recoils slightly and stammers. “In a good way. I meant proper and formal in a good way.”

“Cherry, you can’t start a comment with, ‘I don’t mean to sound rude,’ and then say something rude and think that makes it okay,” Tatum says. I feel heat creep over the back of my neck at being the subject of her reprimand.

I wave a hand and hold up the bowl of rice to Cherry. “It’s fine. I didn’t find it rude. Would you like more rice?”

Cherry takes the bowl and puts it down between our two plates, but she doesn’t serve herself. I’m tempted to follow Donovan’s lead and place a scoop on her plate, but I don’t know her well enough for that kind of familiarity and she might find

that

rude.

And now I’m overthinking.

“I didn’t think I was being rude. The only reason I prefaced it that way was in case it sounded that way to someone else,” Cherry insists, looking at Donovan and me for support.

“But that’s exactly what makes it rude, how it sounds to someone else,” Tatum insists. “And you had to at least suspect it was rude or you wouldn’t have said it.”

Normally, I like the way Tatum glues herself to an issue and refuses to yield. Normally, it serves me well because she’s working on something I want her to accomplish at my company.

Right now, I silently urge Donovan to silence her with a gratuitous open-mouthed kiss.

But like a wise man, he holds himself out of harm’s way when he’s not involved in the conversation.

Sneaking a look at Cherry, I notice the clear green of her eyes has darkened with a fierce intensity. Under the table, I see her fingers dig into the red cotton fabric of her skirt and I’m aching to reach over and grab her hand to calm her. The urge surprises me and I tamp it down.

“You’re fine. Case closed.” My voice comes out like a croak, and I grab my water. My clothes feel suffocating, and my ears are hot.

Tatum bites into an eggroll and chews it slowly, holding up a finger. The seconds feel like agonizing minutes. I want to talk about something else—anything else—but I don’t want to appear to be cutting Tatum off, so I wait, smiling dimly, while she savors the last crumb of eggroll on her finger.

“Cherry, you know I love you despite your rudeness.”

“I didn’t think I was being rude,” Cherry grinds out. She turns pointedly to me. “I like the way you speak. I find it nice to listen to.”

Danger bells ring in my ears.

You’re not winning her over.

Nice is not synonymous with sexy, fucktard.

“Thanks. All good. You’re fine,” I say. She promptly turns to Tatum and glares at her.

“Siblings.” Donovan chuckles. “My sister and I are the same way when we’re in the same city.” I recall that his sister lives in England. Right now, I wish Tatum would go there.

“Ah. I can only imagine.” I steal a look at Cherry and see that she’s leaning back in her chair, as far away from the table as she can get. Wincing at her discomfort, I have an urge to fix the problem, but I’m at a loss. I don’t have much of an appetite, and it’s not because I had a big lunch.

“Charlie, you have siblings?” Donovan asks. He’s sitting with his back to the restaurant, and so far, no one has noticed him. Or if anyone has, they haven’t approached for a selfie and whatnot. He seems more relaxed now than when we walked into the place, hanging his arm over the back of Tatum’s chair. I’m reminded again how long it’s been since I’ve had that easy chemistry with another person who wasn’t a programmer sharing technology knowledge.

“Charlie?” Tatum prods, and I realize I haven’t responded to Donovan’s question.

“Nah. Only child. Well, sort of. My parents split up when I was two, so I guess they were busy negotiating the end of their marriage instead of producing a sibling.” Jesus, I could program Alexa to sound more natural than I do.

Because I don’t like talking about my childhood or my family. At all.

I don’t expect Tatum and Donovan to know this. It’s not like we’ve ever spent time together socially, so it’s never come up. Another reason why I shrouded myself in fabric and hid behind my glasses.

Yes, I’m aware I’m hiding. I like having thick glass between my eyes and someone else who wants to peer at me and glean something from my expression. I like having baggy clothing to disguise my body language. For this exact reason.

If there’s one topic I want to discuss less than shareholder meetings, it’s my parents. Might as well get into it and call the night a complete disaster.

Cherry signals to the waiter to bring a couple more bottles of beer to our table, then turns to me. “Did you grow up with both parents?”

Part of the problem with hiding my outward appearance is that people can’t tell when my shoulders tense up and my jaw gets so stiff that my words sound like I’m gnawing through wood.

Exhaling, I spew out a book report version of my childhood and teen years.

“At first, yes. My parents split when I was two but didn’t divorce until I was six, so that was uncomfortable. A couple years later, my mom remarried and moved to Seattle. She has twin daughters who are thirteen years younger than me. So, adults now, but we had nothing in common growing up and they didn’t visit much. My dad lives about an hour away, never dated anyone else. He’s an accountant.”

That book report deserves an F-.

I hate how stiff and formal I sound, and now that it’s been pointed out, I feel like every word I say reverberates in a hideously loud echo chamber throughout the restaurant, for everyone to hear and wonder at.

I’ve practiced infusing my speech with a more casual style, but when I get the least bit nervous, I freeze up and revert to speaking like a stilted robot. And this woman makes me nervous.

The waiter drops the two bottles of beer on the table, and I reach to refill everyone’s glasses. Then I take a long slug of mine, willing myself to loosen up. Cherry takes a gulp of hers and looks down at her plate.

“So, Cherry, you seem as though you enjoy beer.” I cringe inwardly the moment the words leave my mouth. Cherry’s eyes tip up at me under her lashes, waiting to see if I have more to say. I grimace and try to think of a follow-up question.

“Um, it goes with the food, so…you know.”

“Yes. It does. I like microbrews sometimes.”

Just…stop. You’re awful.

I retreat to silence as Cherry continues to smile and offer comments here and there, mostly about the food. “Ooh, I like the chicken eggrolls better than the shrimp. I know they’re known for the shrimp. I’m an outlier.”

She sips her green tea and carefully uses her chopsticks so not a grain of rice gets dropped.

When I offer her the plate of potstickers, she takes one and thanks me. “I tried to make these myself once, but I couldn’t get the wrappers to seal,” she says, continuing to make benign conversation. “I mean, I thought they were good, but when I put them in the pan, everything oozed out and stuck on the pot. So I guess I made actual potstickers, right?”

“Impressive that you tried,” I exhale, relieved she’s talking to me. “What did you fill them with?”

“Vegetables.”

“Ah, well, I imagine that probably contributed to the seal problem. Vegetables can be pretty wet, especially when they cook.”

“Sure. Maybe.” She offers me an unconvincing smile and looks at her plate.

Maybe we don’t need to try so hard. With two other people at the table, we ought to include them in the conversation, so I ask Tatum about her team’s progress on a program she’s designing to recognize emotional cues. It’s the one thing the company is doing right now that interests me.

“Oh, it’s good, but not where I want. We did the beta yesterday, and it had an eighty-eight percent success rate. It doesn’t seem to sense boredom.” She laughs.

“Maybe the subjects involved weren’t actually bored,” I offer, fending off the ironic sense that the computers clearly weren’t participating in a dinner like this one.

But the second Tatum starts filling me in on the statistics she’s gathered, I’m not bored at all. I could talk about technology and the machine learning that outpaces human learning all night long.

Similarly, I finally get Donovan to give me a play-by-play of what’s happened with the Strikers over the past few weeks. “We’re playing stiff. Our streak’s running backwards,” he says. I know it frustrates him. As the team’s key scorer, he can’t get anything done if everyone’s playing scared. It’s like introducing a small deviation from the mean, and the longer things go on, the bigger the gap becomes.

“It’s a morale problem that’s going to get worse unless you shake things up. Reintroduce the fun, remove the fear. Get everyone thinking as a unit, rather than as individuals.”

“Exactly. You get it.”

“It’s the same as running a company. There needs to be a shorthand, a rhythm. But if it’s off, everyone feels it and it’s almost like you’re fulfilling a prophecy before you even know you set yourself up to fail.”

Donovan leans back in his chair, nodding. “If you have any thoughts on what to do about it, I’m all ears.”

“I have a lot of thoughts, but it’s not really my place. Sponsorship dollars don’t give me the right to render opinions.”

“Not sure I agree. I know you’ve analyzed all the players using metrics and algorithms. We need your

Moneyball

genius to shape up our roster and our strategy.”

“Maybe someday,” I deflect, not wanting Donovan to know how much I’d love to do exactly that. A pipe dream.

His expression perks up. “Seriously? Even hearing ‘someday’ gives me hope. Hell, why not just buy the team, make it official?” he jokes.

“Sure. Why not?” I hope my tone conveys the same levity as his. Owning the team is a longshot and I stick to ideas with better odds.

We talk about the upcoming schedule, and Tatum and Cherry have their own conversation next to us.

By all appearances, it’s a normal dinner between four people who like each other. But something’s off.

Who am I kidding?

I may not be a social genius but even I’m smart enough to know this date is a disaster. Cherry and I are oil and water.

Cherry hasn’t laughed once. I almost believe my memory is messing with me and I never heard the lilting sound I’ve been thinking about for three years. I sure can’t do anything to bring it out of her.

I’ve been hanging onto a ghost of hope for three years, but maybe that’s all it was.

The last thing I want is to have Tatum knock on my office door tomorrow, thank me for volunteering my services tonight, and confirm that I’ve failed. I hate failure. Can’t even recall the last time I truly failed at something, other than my marriage.

I’m also confused by the struggle. I’ve been in hundreds of meetings with outwardly intimidating people who held the future of my company—the product of wrenching hard work and dreams—in their hands. And I didn’t flinch.

I’ve convinced global investment banks to gamble hundreds of millions of dollars on an idea that had no hope of bearing fruit for a dozen years. I’ve come up with solutions to big picture problems that have earned my company hundreds of billions of dollars. Those challenges weren’t easy, but I never felt out of my depth. Not once.

I’ve also been on plenty of dates with bright, beautiful women, and none of them had me soaked in beer and tongue-tied like I’ve been tonight.

“Must be something in the green tea,” I grumble to myself.

“Tea?” Cherry offers, lifting the pot in front of her. She seems desperate for any way to make our interaction seem less painful and more normal.

“Sure. Thanks.” As I take the pot from her, our fingers brush in passing and I feel a shock of awareness as gentle heat warms my skin. This woman does something to me. It hits me deep. But she doesn’t react as though she’s felt a thing. It’s a one-sided infatuation, and I need to give up the fight. I can tell she thinks I’m odd, and for the past ten minutes, except for the proffered tea, she’s barely said anything to me at all.

Maybe her laughter that day was a fluke. Maybe only Tatum can bring it out of her. For all I know, I’ve based three years of yearning on an image no more permanent than the meringue puffs melting on our tongues, meringue that has no business being on a dim sum menu.

Glancing over at Cherry to gauge her mood, I catch her in the middle of an unspoken conversation with Tatum. From the eyebrow wagging and the grimacing, I can only imagine that she’s silently communicating the magnitude of our disastrous coupling.

I want to lean toward her and make light of the situation. Bad dates happen. It’s fine. Maybe we can laugh about it.

But from the way she’s shifted in her chair, it doesn’t signal a growing kinship. More like a signal to the captain of the

Titanic

. I need to give up the ghost on a three-year-old doodle and some laughter. So I flag down the waiter, ask for the check, and use it as a life raft.