Page 28 of The List
I hate how wistful my voice sounds, but Simon doesn’t bat an eye. “So you’re hoping to make it true now.”
“Something like that.” I take another sip of tea. “It’s not that I want to have their lives. I don’t want to host garden parties and wear Lilly Pulitzer.”
“You just want your own version of their lives,” he says slowly. “The Cassie-fied version.”
I blink at him, not sure whether to feel understood or creeped out. We agreed up front this was a no-strings-attached thing. How deeply should I allow him to tunnel into my brain?
I settle for throwing him a casual laugh. “Maybe. So how about you?”
Hey, if he’s opening the door to this game of get-to-know-the-person-I’m-fucking, I’m happy to step through it.
He’s seemed reluctant to share a lot of personal details up to this point, but maybe that’s shifting.
“What about me?” he asks.
He’s probably braced for me to ask him a sex question— how many of the things on my list he’s done with other women already or something along those lines.
But that’s not what comes out of my mouth. “Tell me about your job.”
He seems to hesitate. “What do you want to know?”
I take a sip of lemonade and consider why I asked the question. “What got you interested in computers? In repairing them or selling them or anything else you do?”
It’s a standard get-to-know-you question, but I realize after I ask it that I really want to know. I’m interested in hearing what makes Simon tick.
“I like figuring out how things work,” he says carefully. “How to diagnose problems and fix them for people. I love troubleshooting and educating people about how to make their machines run better. I also like the mystery element.”
“Mystery?”
“Yeah. I like when people come to me with a problem. I like picking up on clues and asking questions to determine what’s wrong and how to fix it. There’s a surprising amount of people skills required to do the job.”
I’m taken aback by his answer. I expected him to say something about being a lifetime computer geek or loving video games. But this level of thought is commendable for someone with a job I’m guessing doesn’t pay all that well. Then again, what do I know?
“I’m impressed,” I tell him. “It seems like you really enjoy your work.”
“I do. And I like the people I work with.”
“How many people work at Hot Swap?”
“We have more than six hundred employees at twenty-six locations around the Pacific Northwest.”
“Wow. I had no idea. Do you work at more than one Hot Swap location?”
He looks down at the pork rib in his hand, taking a slow bite and chewing it before he answers. “I float around a bit.”
I get the sense he’s uncomfortable with this line of questioning, though I’m not sure why. Maybe he’s self-conscious about his job? About his assumption that my career probably pays more than his does?
While soil scientists don’t exactly kill it financially, I do okay. I worked hard for my PhD, and my employer pays accordingly.
I decide to let the whole subject drop. There’s no point in discussing money or career choices with a guy I’m just seeing temporarily. Not even seeing, exactly. Not in the dating sense.
We’re just sleeping together, I remind myself, in case I’d started to forget.
I start to reach for another rib before realizing it’s the last one on the table. “Are you going to eat this?”
He grins at me. “You have quite the voracious appetite, Miss Michaels.”
His voice makes me shiver, or maybe it’s the suggestion in those words. I pick up the rib and bite into it, hoping I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew with Simon.
