You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(66)

She actually harrumphed. “What about money? I just said that I don’t have any.”

“I’m twenty-five and just sold an app for millions of dollars. I’m not asking you for money. I’ll already be paying for gas and hotels. You’ll be an extra mouth to feed. If you want to pay for your own dinners, you can. But I’m happy to pay for those, too.” Her company would be worth the minor additional cost.

“Because you’re lonely?” With her brow furrowed, she was the cutest mystified person he’d ever seen.

But lonely sounded scarier when she said it. “Well, yes. I’m lonely and need the company. You’re trapped and need the escape. We’re both getting something from the other.”

She narrowed her eyes at him again. “What’s the catch?”

“Does there have to be a catch?”

“You just sold your app for millions of dollars and are now wandering around the mountains alone. Sounds to me like there’s a catch to everything, even winning the lottery.”

Her words felt like someone swatting his nose with a small switch. Sure, it hurt, but more than the pain, what she’d said made his eyes water and he had to refocus on the world around him. “I guess that’s true. So then the catch is that you don’t know me and I don’t know you. If you say yes and we make horrible traveling companions, then we’ve both learned a lesson. If that happens, I’ll probably be willing to pay to get you away from me. And you’ll have to go. That seems like catch enough.”

“What about the last of my classes?” She was still protesting, but he could hear how halfhearted they were.

The great idea rushed out of him like a balloon releasing air. “Right. Tests.” He’d forgotten about those terrible things, blocked them out of his mind, really, because he’d never been good at taking tests.

“No tests this semester. Just a final paper.”

“You can e-mail that, then. I’m sure the professor will take it.”

Her mouth twitched. “You seem mighty sure for never having met this professor.”

“Do you have good grades already? I mean, if he’s pissed that you didn’t go to the last couple classes and e-mailed in the final paper, how bad off will you be?”

“Not too bad, I guess. I’m getting an A in the class right now. I probably couldn’t get the job, though,” she said, more to herself than to Marc.

“What job?” he asked, genuinely curious. It was a good sign for him if she already had a job in mind in Salt Lake.

All the stagnation she felt in her life seemed to come out with her sigh. “My professor has a friend who owns an art gallery. It’s silly, but it seems like the coolest job in the world. Not practical and I’d probably starve and be homeless on the salary, but I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to work among pretty things.”

“You don’t know if you don’t ask.”

“Well, yes, but . . .” In the space between her words, he could hear her deciding to say yes to his plan.

“I’ll up the ante.” He pushed his hands across the table, palms up, maybe offering her the trip of a lifetime, maybe trying to get her to place her hands in his. He wasn’t sure. “If the guy punishes your grade for skipping out at the very end, I’ll pay for one of your classes. In Salt Lake City. Here. Wherever you want. That will give you some safety net, at least.”

“I’ll be leaving Babe in a lurch.” Her pitch rose with the last of her objections, and he knew he’d gotten her.

He closed his fists. “She seems to have real affection for you. Do you think she’ll be angry?”

“No,” Selina said, her O long and drawn out.

“Do you want to ask her?”

The more Marc pushed for her to say yes to the idea, the more he wanted it. Not just because he liked to succeed—though he acknowledged that was part of it—but because Selina’s company on this trip was one of those ideas that got better the more he thought about it.

Her objections made sense. She might be crazy. He might be crazy. They might end the trip hating each other. But her presence would stop him from thinking about encryption and random session keys and message fragmentation. And he couldn’t start a new life if he was mulling over the old one.

At least he didn’t think he could. No one seemed to know what to tell a twenty-five-year-old who had succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams but was too young to retire. Go volunteer with Doctors Without Borders was all anyone ever suggested, as if they’d never met him at all. He’d been looking for an equivalent Tech Geeks Without Borders, but nothing he’d found had caught his attention.

“I want to talk with her,” she finally said. “I should talk with someone before I say yes, absolutely. I’d rather talk to her in person, though. This is too complicated to talk about over the phone.”

“That’s understandable. If you think she’s home, we can head over now.”

Marc had never had a “real job,” and Selina and Babe’s bond impressed him. Maybe he was even a little jealous. Working in his underwear in the middle of the night, a pile of orange peels next to him on the desk wasn’t a real job in any way his parents understood it.

Once he’d dropped out of college, he’d attached himself to projects he’d found on various technology postings—some aboveboard, some not. The people he’d worked with had been acquaintances, and he had a good network, but he’d never been close with any of them. Except Curtis. He and Curtis had come up with the idea for the encrypted texts, and Marc had thought they were friends, not just geek buddies.