Chapter 12 #3
Quinn’s mouth hooked to the side and he paused before responding, his eyes moving over me, his expression somewhere between bemused and amused. “No, actually, when I was younger, I was something of a reverse hacker.”
“What do you mean?”
“I helped people secure their computers, systems, networks—that sort of thing.”
“Why wouldn’t your dad like that?”
“Because most of the people who hired me to do this were criminals.”
“So you created firewalls for mob bosses? As an aside, if I started a band, Mob Boss Firewall would be an excellent name.” Cringing, I mentally kicked myself for the tactless aside.
“It was nothing so poetic as that.” He glanced down at his almost empty whiskey and studied the amber liquid; his shoulders seemed to slump under the weight of something I couldn’t see.
After a long minute, he said, “Actually, what I really did was keep their data from being used against them should their computers or hardware be confiscated.”
This was not something I expected to hear. Before I could catch myself, I asked, “Where did you learn to do that?”
He shrugged, not looking at me. “Mostly self-taught; I went to college in Boston for two years. My major was computer science, but I dropped out when business started to pick up.”
“Why did you stop? Why did you stop reverse-hacking for criminals?”
He lifted his eyes to mine, his expression blank. “How do you know I stopped?”
“I guess I don’t. Did you stop?”
“I did.”
“Why? If it was so profitable, then why…”
“Because…” he interjected, his eyes looking searchingly into mine and his brow pulled low as though he were trying very hard to decipher a mystery.
His attention moved to my hair cascading over my shoulder.
With an absentminded expression, he picked up a curl and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.
His voice sounded distant and distracted when he responded.
“Because I was the reason my brother died.”
I didn’t know what to say so I just watched him.
Quinn’s eyes moved back to mine; he seemed to be attempting to gauge my reaction.
He smiled, but it was tinged with bitterness.
“How the first program worked was that when any attempt was made to access data in the absence of an RFID transmitter, a background script would run, which wiped the hard drive clean, rendering it inoperable. Later, as my customer base grew along with the demand for larger data systems, I built a degausser. I had to add on a battery backup just in case the system was powered down. As you can imagine, the battery backup had a nasty habit of catching on fire.”
I cleared my throat and swallowed, wanting to add that the risk of fire could have been tempered by insulating and cooling the degausser. Instead, I asked, “Why do you think you were the reason your brother died?”
His mouth curved into a frown and he sighed. “Because one of the guys—one of your ‘bad guys’ who I worked for—shot my brother.”
I blinked. “I don’t…I don’t understand.”
“Months before Des, my brother, was killed, the police had a search warrant and took all of this guy’s computers, backups, everything.
The program I had built for the man worked perfectly, and the police came up empty.
If I hadn’t put the program on his computer, and if I hadn’t helped him keep his information safe from the police, then he would have been in jail instead of… ”
I closed my hand around his not wanting him to finish the sentence. It was a horrible story. I wanted to say that it wasn’t his fault, but I felt like that statement would come across as pandering and patronizing.
Instead, I said, “I understand why you blame yourself.”
He blinked at me then narrowed his gaze a fraction as though trying to see me better. This time both his eyes and his smile were sad. “Do you blame me?”
“I blame the bad guy who actually pulled the trigger and killed him. In this situation, you sound like a person who has recognized the error of his ways and made an attempt to change. If you recall, that is the difference between a good guy and a bad guy.”
He released a breath I didn’t know he was holding. His eyes were still sad, but his troubled expression seemed to clear. He gazed at me with something that felt like wonder, and with his voice lowered to a quiet rumble, he said, “I don’t think I’ll keep score with you.”
We talked. We talked, and we laughed, and we had an amazing time.
Conversation flowed like a beautiful waterfall, and my senses were saturated.
Food came and went. Wine was poured and appeared out of nowhere.
Time passed and I had no recollection or consciousness of anyone but Quinn being in that restaurant.
And at some point, the butterflies in my stomach truly ceased for Handsome McHotpants and were utterly and completely for Quinn Sullivan.
He told me stories about his family. He was the youngest and spent his youth raising hell.
His sister, Shelly, was three years older and something of a reclusive free spirit who preferred to fix up classic cars and create welded metal sculptures than interact with society.
His brother Desmond, Des for short, was the oldest and very responsible.
My favorite story detailed how, at the ages of thirteen and sixteen, Quinn and Shelly welded the doors shut on twenty year-old Des’s car, all but the passenger side back seat.
Des was forced to enter and exit the car via the back seat for two weeks, and none of them ever told their parents.
At some point, Quinn’s father asked to use the car, and Des tried to convince their dad that the doors had rusted shut rather than rat out his siblings.
He spoke with such affection for his brother, sister, and his parents that it made me like Quinn even more. His eyes would glaze over with memory, and he would begin to laugh before he reached the punch line of his story, which made me laugh, which made him laugh.
However, every so often, he would pause and a cloud of sadness or regret, I couldn’t decipher which, would darken his features. I found myself wanting to know the specific causes for each of those episodes. I also found myself wanting to be a source of support and comfort to him.
These were not thoughts to which I was accustomed, and they would have been disconcerting if I’d spent any time allowing myself to debate them. Instead, I let the thoughts wash over me; I owned the sentiments and held them close.
And then there was the touching.
Oh. God. The. Touching.
He appeared to find any and every reason to touch me.
It was maddeningly marvelous. From time to time, he would lean close and whisper something in my ear; his cheek would brush against the smooth skin of my face and neck; my toes would curl in my shoes.
During most of the meal, his leg rested against mine.
He touched my arm or my knee when I said something he thought was funny or interesting or just because I hadn’t tried the wine yet.
All of these simple touches seemed harmless, if not meaningless, on their own; nevertheless, the reaction they elicited from my stomach was akin to descending the steepest plunging drop of a rollercoaster.
Then, when we ate dessert, he absentmindedly licked whip cream off my finger; for several seconds afterward I forgot my name and place of birth.
My level of interest in Quinn, my wanting to be with Quinn, my wanting to touch and be touched by Quinn, my wanting to prolong our conversation and, therefore, our time together, took me by surprise.
I thought about having to say goodnight at some point, and it left me feeling sad, anxious, and mournful.
I did dwell on these feelings and they were unsettling.
The strength of my preference, of wanting to be with Quinn rather than maintaining solitude, was a sensation I’d never experienced.
In the past, I’d generally preferred solitude to company, but I’d always recognized the importance of relationships and human contact.
When we finished dinner, I felt uninhibited.
Between the cocktail before dinner and the wine during dinner, I was blanked in a buzzing warmth of cozy comfortableness.
I knew it was caused by that elusive, just-right amount of alcohol, where you’ve had just a little too much in terms of pushing the limits of your inhibitions, but not enough to make you feel ill or groggy.
We fought over the bill when it came. By fought, I mean that I insisted loudly on paying half, and he responded with beleaguered silence.
Instead of discussing it or attempting to engage in my one-sided conversation, he wordlessly put his credit card in the holder.
He kept it carefully out of my reach as I continued to list all the reasons we should split the check, not the least of which was that we’d agreed earlier that this was not a date; then he handed it stealthily to the waiter as he passed.
I was still oblivious, still making my case, when Quinn signed the receipt.
“Wait—what are you doing?” I looked from him to the paper slip.
Silence. Scribble. Silence.
“Did you just sign that? Was that the check?” My voiced hitched up an octave, and my eyes were wide with faux outrage.
He glanced up at me with something like mock innocence lighting his features, and said, “I’m sorry. Did you want to split that?”
I scowled at him, but couldn’t hold on to my feeling of annoyance when he smiled. I had memories attached to his smile now, and all of them served to increase my warm fuzzies. I was drunk on good wine, delicious food, and fantastic conversation.
He shifted his attention to his wallet; a small, secretive smile was still dancing over his lips as he put his credit card away. My glower dissolved and I indulged myself by staring at him, unabashedly. I really looked at him.