Crystal Cove (Friday Harbor #4)(14)

“Bon appétit,” she said cheerfully, and sat beside him.

As they ate and talked, Jason found himself enjoying Justine’s company. She was engaging, quick to laugh, the kind of woman who would call you on your bullshit. Her face was as cleanly structured as a haiku, the eyes velvety brown, the mouth as plush and pink as a cherry blossom. But there was something intriguingly unsensual about her, a delicate frost of remoteness. It made him want to burn through that vestal coolness.

“Why did you decide to run a bed-and-breakfast?” he asked, centering a slice of radish on a buttered cracker. “It doesn’t seem like something a single woman your age would want to do.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a quiet life,” he said. “Isolated. You live on an island with no more than eight thousand year-round residents. You must get bored.”

“Never. My entire childhood was spent moving from place to place. I had a single mom who couldn’t stay put. I love the comfort of familiar things … the friends I see every day, the pillow that feels just right under my head, my herb garden, my mountain bike. I’ve run on the same trails and walked on the same beaches until I can tell whenever there’s the slightest change. I love being connected to a place like this.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. The Japanese believe that you don’t choose the place, the place chooses you.”

“What place has chosen you?”

“Hasn’t happened yet.” By now it wasn’t likely. He owned a condo on San Francisco Bay, an apartment in New York, and a lodge on Lake Tahoe. Each of them was beautiful, but none had ever given him a feeling of belonging when he walked through the front door.

Justine stared at him speculatively. “Why did you go to the Zen monastery?”

“I needed the answer to a question.”

“And did you get it?”

That brought a faint smile to his lips. “I found the answer. But also several more questions.”

“Where did you go after that?”

Jason lifted his brows into mocking arches. “It’s not on my Wikipedia page?”

“No. Your life is a big blank for a couple of years. So what were you doing?”

Jason hesitated. The habit of protecting his privacy wasn’t easy to set aside even when he was willing.

“I signed a massive confidentiality agreement,” Justine told him. “You can spill your guts and I won’t say a word.”

“What happens if you break the agreement?” he asked. “Jail time? Monetary damages?”

“You don’t know? It’s your contract.”

“We have three versions with different fine print. I want to know which one Priscilla gave you.”

Justine shrugged and grinned. “I never read the fine print. It’s always bad news.”

Her unguarded smile went through him like slow-motion lightning.

He hadn’t expected her effect on him. He’d never felt anything like it before. Something about her had set his nerves on tripwires, unknown feelings ready to be sprung. Carefully he closed his fingers around his second shot of vodka and drank it in a practiced gulp.

Justine tilted her head, studying him. “Why did you go into the video-game business?”

“I started as a game tester when I was an undergrad and wrote a couple of simple 2-D games. Later a friend of a friend was setting up a studio and needed someone to help with designing and programming. Eventually I was hired to launch the gaming division at Inari.”

“That explains how you got into the business,” Justine said, “but I’m curious about why. What is it about video games?”

“I’m competitive,” he admitted. “I like the aesthetics of a well-designed game. I like world-building, setting up challenges, pitfalls…” He paused. “Do you like gaming?”

She shook her head. “Not my thing. The couple of games I’ve tried are complicated and violent, and I really don’t like the sexism.”

“Not in the games I produce. I don’t allow story lines that include prostitution, rape, or demeaning language toward women.”

Justine seemed unimpressed. “I’ve seen some of the ads for Skyrebels—that’s one of yours, right?—and most of the female characters are dressed like space hookers. Why do they need to wear leather minis and boots with five-inch heels to fight off an attack of armored soldiers?”

She had a point. “The teenage male demographic likes it,” Jason admitted.

“Thought so,” she said.

“But no matter how they’re dressed, the female characters are just as tough as the males.”

“Sexism is about presentation and tone as well as actions.”

“Are you a feminist?”

“If you define a feminist as someone who wants to be treated with equality and respect, yes. But some people tend to think of feminists as being angry, which I’m not.”

“I’d be angry if someone sent me to war in five-inch boots and a leather mini.”

Justine burst out laughing and poured more vodka. She took a sip and nibbled at a big green olive. As Jason watched the movements of her mouth, her lips pursing around the plump swaddle of the fruit, he felt a deep, disconcerting tug of response.