You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(58)

He sat back in his seat and read the message. Curtis thanked him for the offer of work, then told him that they would be sure to contact him if they had lingering issues with Terry that Curtis couldn’t solve. But right now, we’re good, he’d written.

He hit the “reply” button. We’re a team, he typed, then deleted it. They had been a team. Curtis would be sure to point out again that they had both been asked to stay with Terry in her new home and Marc had turned the offer down.

Better to stay with the simple, We should talk again. Curtis had always thought they were good. Throughout the entire building process, it had been Marc who had pushed for tighter code, better security, more encryption, fewer holes. Curtis’s strength was writing code; Marc’s was fixing it.

Good editors were never given the credit they were due. Or that had been how Marc had felt when they were in negotiations and all the attention had been given to Curtis.

“Here ya go.”

The waitress’s voice startled him out of the lies he was about to start telling himself. He had been offered a job, just as Curtis had, and he’d rejected it because he hadn’t felt like his ego was being stroked enough. That impulsive rejection was his fault. It’s why he was on the outside, an elegant solution running circles in his mind, and Curtis was on the inside, ignoring him.

“Hey, this smells good.” The bacon was thick and crispy, not too much fat. The purple syrup smelled sweet and tart, like it would make him pucker and his dentist cringe in the best possible way. The pancakes themselves smelled like butter.

“Babe knows what she’s doing,” his waitress answered as she took a step back, putting distance between them, their shared laughter nothing but a memory.

“Can I ask you a question?”

She raised a pale eyebrow at him, and he held his hands up. “I’m not trying to hit on you, I promise.”

Doubt shadowed her face. Maybe it was due to how tired she was, but reactions flittered across her face like a movie he would never get bored watching.

“Okay,” he said, waving a hand. “Men who aren’t hitting on women always swear they aren’t. It’s the oldest trick in the book. But look, I’m at loose ends until Saturday and am driving around exploring stuff. Got any local recommendations?”

“What kind of stuff?” Her face relaxed a little. Though she still looked tired, he could tell that curiosity had caught hold of her.

“Anything, really. I’m between jobs for a while and packed my winter with sightseeing and skiing. I came to Idaho to see some cool things, so maybe you know of some cool things.” God, he sounded like an idiot. Several million dollars in the bank and technology articles about his work hadn’t done anything for his ability to talk to women. Confidence in one didn’t mean confidence in the other.

“You came here to see cool things? In the winter?” Her head jutted forward, and her brow furrowed. He’d had a full-sized poodle as a kid and she’d had the same look whenever he’d asked her to do something ridiculous. He hid his smile at the thought. His waitress probably wouldn’t appreciate the comparison, even though he’d loved that dog.

“Technically, it’s still fall,” he corrected. “For another week or so.”

The sanctimony he could hear in his own voice opened her mouth completely, either in confusion or disbelief, he couldn’t tell. But the only sound that came out was a huff. He’d knocked the words right out of her.

Smooth, as always. Correcting strangers was his most charming move. Worked . . . never. It had never worked.

“Sorry,” he said, trying for as much sincerity as he’d had smug correctness. “I can be a pompous ass. I’d say ignore me, but I wouldn’t be able to ignore me, especially when I’m at my worst.” He paused and then changed the subject. “But yeah . . . It’s cold, but I couldn’t help the timing, and I’ve never been to Idaho. There’s got to be something around here I can check out. The biggest ball of yarn. A Jolly Green Giant statue. Something.”

Finally, she shook her head. “Well, if you are hitting on me, you’re doing a terrible job of it.” She sounded amazed, so there was that. He’d leave an impression, and sometimes that was all he could hope for.

He laughed at himself and his own failures. “What’s even more sad is that this would be one of my better efforts. If I were hitting on you right now, that is. Which I’m not.”

She laughed with him, their connection from earlier reestablished. Then she turned her long neck to yell over her shoulder. “Hey, Babe, is the submarine museum open?”

“Now? No,” came an incredulous voice from the kitchen. Babe, he gathered, was the diner’s namesake and the woman responsible for the amazing smells.

“Submarine museum? That sounds cool.” He hadn’t expected anything so interesting when he’d made his plans.

When she shook her head, he caught sight of little red bows at the top of her bell earrings. “It’s a museum in an old Navy jail. They did training up here back in World War II. And they test submarines there, if you can believe it. But the museum is closed in the winter.”

“What about the Wolf People?” Babe called out from the kitchen.

“Wolf People?” He liked technology, but he’d been staring at computers for too many years. Animals would be a nice break. “Now that sounds interesting.”