13. The Glow Up #2
My touch takes him by surprise. He jolts a little, but doesn’t make a move to jerk his head away.
“Simmer down or you’ll give yourself an early stroke.
” My voice is soothing and gentle, hopefully hypnotic.
“And I need you alive because I’m too much of a moron to survive in data analytics without you. ”
Rhys’ eyes flickers over my face. He’s calm now and seems deeply entranced or conflicted over the gentle back-and-forth glide of my finger against his temple. “You’re not a moron,” he says, sounding apologetic. “I didn’t mean that.”
“And I don’t mean what I’m about to ask,” I say, meeting his prolonged gaze.
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Does the ASSET have anything to do with space?” I repeat.
Catching on to my test, Rhys sighs. “No.”
“I know...” I bring back the bimbo. “Does it help land the space shuttle on the moon?”
Rhys is silent for what seems like an eternity, his eyes flickering back and forth, caught between a rock and a hard place. I could see a word cloud of insults beaming from his mind to mine. At last, he takes the deepest of breaths. “We both know the space shuttle didn’t land on the moon.”
“Sure it did.”
“No.” Now he jerks his head away. “No. No. You probably mistook it for the lunar lander, you...”
I arch my brow, daring him to finish that sentence. “I...What?”
“You...” It’s really killing him to hold his tongue. He raps his fingers on the table, his left foot tapping a staccato beat of barely suppressed one-upmanship. He wants to humble me so badly, it’s eating him alive inside.
“What about me?” My tone is a syrupy-sweet challenge. Come on. What am I? A moron, idiot, or dumb chick?
“You are ... incorrigible,” Rhys says at last.
“I guess it’s an honest mistake,” I push it even further. “Space shuttle. Lunar lander. Who can tell the difference?”
Rhys sucks in air between his teeth. “Anyone with a brain—” He stops himself from finishing that sentence. “I suppose…”
“You suppose?”
“I suppose the two may look similar in the dark.” And he gives me a look that says what he couldn’t say, ‘if you were dumb and blind.’
“Oh gosh,” I chew on my bottom lip, “then I suppose the ASSET doesn’t have anything to do with space at all. Does it have something to do with commercial real estate data for several big private equity entities, emphasis on private?”
Rhys leans back in his seat as if he just got the wind knocked out of him. “Yes, that’s one tiny part of it,” he admits, surprised. “How did you finally figure that out?”
“I gave a presentation on it, remember? Someone provided me with impressively detailed slides.” And because I can’t help resisting, I reach over and flick a frond of his hair over that unsightly vein on his temple. “We’ve accomplished many things today.”
“We haven’t even cracked the basics of the ASSET for you.”
“I meant for you. I’ve taught you a very important lesson.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Rhys leans back in his chair. His expression is petulant, his eyebrow arched at a quizzical angle. “Enlighten me.”
“The space shuttle didn’t land on the moon. You wanted to correct me, but you held your tongue even though it’s probably killing you inside. That’s progress.”
He snorts. “Progress is allowing you to continue being wrong?”
“Rhys,” I shake my head, “that’s corporate culture in a nutshell. Never correct your superiors, especially at the C-suite level.”
“Even if they’re wrong?” Rhys does not like what he’s hearing, and he isn’t going to stand for it.
“Especially if they’re wrong.”
“Fantastically wrong?”
“Suck it up and don’t say anything unless it’s ‘I couldn’t agree more,’” I advise.
“So learn to kiss ass?”
“Pucker up.”
He sniffs, absorbing this. The world is hard for someone who can only view it in black and white, good or bad. “Ethically wrong?”
“Become more flexible with your ethics.”
“How flexible?”
“See how far your moral compass is willing to bend,” I say. “Then bend it some more.”
“What if it snaps?” Rhys asks.
Why do I always get the feeling he’s trying to challenge me to an arm-wrestling contest? I ponder his question, feeling like I’m back in Philosophy 101. “Moral compasses are elastic,” I say at last. “If you snap it, another one will grow in its place.”
“Even if you end up in prison?”
“That’s the perfect place to resurrect a moral compass. You’ve got plenty of time for self-improvement.”
Rhys snorts, clearly bewildered by my responses. “You’ve got a twisted answer for everything, haven’t you?”
“And you’ve got a backlog of loaded questions that you clearly don’t want an answer to.”
He doesn’t respond, probably because I just wiped the floor with him in this arm-wrestling contest he insists on having. Rhys is, however, still obstinate.
I’m getting tired of arguing. I never liked Philosophy 101. We can sit here debating until the cows come home, or we can do something productive like go the fuck home. If I wanted to waste another weekend with someone I didn’t like, I’d get back together with my ex.
“Or you can prove me wrong,” I say, “but you won’t endear yourself to me. Good luck pulling that shit in an interview, which is probably what you did when you interviewed at Rylan, right?”
He grumbles, barely meeting my eye.
“That’s what I thought. If I don’t like you, I won’t hire you. Now, apply that to your social life. If I think you’re an asshole, I won’t go on a second date with you. If I can’t stand you, I won’t sleep with you. Get it?”
Rhys chews on this revelation for a spell. He drags his hand through his hair and sits up straight. “I get it...”
“You get it?” I ask again, surprised that he hasn’t flipped the table in a fit of rage yet. I was admittedly harsh, dispensing insults with machine gun-like rapidity.
As if emerging from a great slumber, Rhys lifts his head. “I get it.”
“Do you really get it?” I’m weary, battle-scarred from trying to break through a stone wall. Excuse me if I don’t hold out hope.
“I got it.” Jumping to his feet, he rakes his fingers through his hair. “I must be out of my mind, but you actually… Carina, you make sense!”
A great wave of relief sweeps over me. “You get it…” And then the magnitude of what I’d just accomplished dawns on me. “You get it!” Leaping to my feet, I crush Rhys into a hug and begin jumping up and down like one of us had just found out we’d won the lottery.
“Congratulations,” a woman says, squeezing past us to get to the trash can. “Whatever it is, it must be good news.”
“It’s monumental!” I say. It takes a moment for our surroundings to come back into focus.
I pull away, still clutching Rhys by the shoulders, and then I look up.
He’s beaming down at me, the skin around his eyes crinkling with the elation that can only happen after a huge accomplishment.
And that’s when I realize he has his arms around my waist. I can feel the intimate pressure of his palm on my lower back, triggering a ripple of goosebumps all over my body.
Noticing the change in my demeanor, Rhys pulls his head back, studying me with a perplexed frown.
This would be a bad time for him to unleash his ‘fae fuck face’ from his arsenal.
Fortunately, I don’t get that face, or I would run out of Starbucks screaming.
I don’t think I’m strong enough to handle that much heat.
The expression he gives me is cryptic, though strangely stirring.
“What?” I ask, suddenly self-conscious.
He shakes his head a little. Unlike me, he’s comfortable with silence and continues to frown down at me. “I just… I finally understand how you think.”
“And?”
“I’m a little dizzy,” he says, “from all the twists and turns. Like hopping on a roller coaster. I want to throw up, but I’m…”
“You’re what?”
“Having a good time.” He clears his throat. “Thank you.”
“Oh,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. Realizing that we’re still in a partial embrace, I clear my throat and release his shoulders.
Rhys releases my waist, leaving the heated imprint of his fingers on my skin.
His cheeks are as red as mine, and he seems winded.
It’s possible the act of hugging another human being was too much for him.
I know I’m flushed from jumping. I’ve been lax in my daily exercise, and that is the only obvious reason for the rush of blood to my head.
“So,” he begins, sitting back down. “Now that you’ve taught me something, we still have to teach you how to do your job. Now that we’ve established that you understand the bare minimum of the ASSET, it’s important you know how to control the ASSET.”
Now I’m confused. “Why would I want to control the ASSET?”
“Because it’s a powerful tool that can be dangerous in the wrong hands, especially now that those shortsighted, profit-hungry fools at Rylan have it.”
“Fools?” I frown. “You mean Sam Rylan and the board?”
He nods. “Precisely.”
“They’re not fools,” I say. “They’re quite clever, or else they wouldn’t be so successful.”
“Trust me, Carina,” he says. “They’re all greedy idiots, and idiots are dangerous, especially if given full access to the ASSET.”
I wrinkle my nose. Frankly, I don’t share Rhys’ view on things.
The ASSET just deals with commercial property data.
I can’t see how a few stats on office spaces can be ‘dangerous.’ And I take personal offense on behalf of my company.
I’ve been out drinking with Sam and the board.
Sam is a little on the leery side, but he’s as nice as can be.
And okay, I may have thought some not-so-nice thoughts about him, but he hasn’t grabbed my ass yet.
It just always feels like he’s on the verge of grabbing ass.
Given all the tales of his skirt-chasing, it’s a wonder if Sam even has time to work.
I can guarantee Sam is not sitting behind his desk somewhere, fingers steepled, plotting how to use the ASSET to take over the world.