Page 15 of Pressure

5

Marissa followed Lance until he pulled into the parking lot of a hole-in-the wall burger place. He was loaded with more money than she could ever hope to have, so the choice surprised her. Of course, the small town probably didn’t have much in the way of fancy restaurants.

At the counter, he insisted on paying for their burgers and beers, claiming it was part of her compensation. They were paying her more than double her annual salary, there was no way they needed to buy her food too, but Lance wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Marissa looked around for an empty table and found one in the corner. She stopped at the drink station and filled her glass with lemonade while Lance opted for water. They would both wait until their burgers arrived to open their beers.

At the table, they sat and stared at each other both unsure what to say.

“So…” she said hesitantly. “You sure you don’t mind me being here?”

“You sure you don’t mind being here?” he countered.

She leaned back and sipped her lemonade. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that. It’s definitely awkward. I spent a lot of time processing what happened with us and I thought I was over it. But seeing you has definitely stirred up some negative feelings.”

Lance lifted one eyebrow. “You were never one to talk about your feelings. What’s up with that?”

Marissa gave a curt laugh. “Five years of therapy?”

He cocked his head to one side. “Really? I thought you hated therapists.”

“I had to do something. I was in a bleak place. You accused me of stealing code and using it for nefarious purposes, Lance. You kicked me out without hearing my side of the story. You think that isn’t going to fuck me up? Because it did. It really did. Especially given the connection we had.”

“What was I supposed to do, Marissa? The code in that attack had your signature all over it. I thought I knew your coding style forward and backwards. I’m not proud of how I reacted, but how would you have reacted had the roles been reversed?”

She picked at the paper napkin in front of her. “I’d like to think I would have at least asked some fucking questions first. I couldn’t get work for almost a year. I finally landed at the law firm because it’s all I could get.”

“Even after I caught the real hacker? I did my best to restore your standing in the community. And why did you disappear from the Chicago BDSM scene? Was that my fault too?”

“By the time you caught the hacker I was blacklisted from virtually every major tech firm and the little guys wouldn’t touch me either. I did some odds and ends for people. By the time I started getting calls to come work in the industry again I was already at the law firm. I was drowning in debt, so it seemed wiser to stay where I was because it was a steady income. I finally got my loans paid off, so I’ve been moonlighting and saving money for my own startup. I’m ready to get back to software development again. Russell Adler hired me to do some work for him. God, I’m such an idiot.”

Lance leaned across the table. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the phones he gives his crew. The encryption on them. That’s yours. How did I not recognize it until now?”

“I’m impressed you still recognize my work at all.”

She smiled. “Some of the best.”

“I notice you didn’t answer my question about the scene.”

She looked away. “I couldn’t face that group of people without you, without your collar. To them we were a pair. I belonged to you. It didn’t seem like I would fit if that weren’t the case anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Marissa. I really am. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I just wanted you to hear the words face to face.”

She gave him a half grin. “It’s good to finally hear it.”

The buzzer they’d been given buzzed and flashed and vibrated the table.

“Saved by the bell,” Lance murmured as he jumped up to get their food. When he returned, Marissa did her best to put on a cheery face and dug into her food. She felt a bit lighter having received an apology from Lance, but she wasn’t quite ready to let the past go.

They ate and talked about advances in technology in the last five years. The conversation soon moved to computer code, the thing they often did together.

“Are you still a neat freak?” she asked as she bit into a burger.

He shook his head. “Really? You want to go there, little miss I annotate nothing when I code.”

Her mouth fell open. “That is such a load of bullshit. I annotate everything. Just not to your exacting standards. It’s like you have OCD or something.”

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