Upside Down(20)

“I’d like that.”

The barista delivered our drinks, and Jordan thanked her with a grin, his unrestrained grin. I kinda got the feeling that Jordan had two settings for nervous. One being where he was nervous, yes, but felt comfortable enough to ramble wildly. The second kind was him being nervous but not comfortable enough to ramble. He had his guard up today, and that saddened me a little. I wanted the relaxed, comfortable, rambling Jordan. Not someone who felt they couldn’t be themselves.

I was going to ask if he wanted to leave, but he narrowed his eyes at me, a puzzled, thoughtful look to his face. “Can I ask what you do for a living? I mean if you can tell me.”

“If I can tell you?”

“Well, yes. I might have searched online for you,” he said, cringing. “For my safety, of course. I mean, I don’t just meet anyone for coffee without at least trying to find out something. I don’t even know your last name let alone what you do for a living. But I searched the name Hennessy because seriously, just how common a first name is it? So I googled, and I have to admit, I have admirable internet skills.”

I smiled at him because here was the nervous rambling. “Admirable internet skills?”

“To rival most,” he added. “So I refined the search to your name and the support group meetings, because that’s all I know about you. And I got nothing. Not even a hit on Facebook, and that place is stalker central. So, my official findings are that you’re either in the witness protection program or you’re a spy. In which case you will admit to neither—well, not out loud anyway—so maybe you can wink or something to let me know I’m on the right path. Or if it’s the cliché line of ‘I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you,’ well, I’d rather you didn’t tell me at all and I can just pretend this conversation never happened. I’ll admit I’d be disappointed. The seat-saving thing on the bus was kinda sweet, but I’d survive. And Merry suggested I come here with no expectations of anything more than friendship because for all we know, you’re married or a spy. Or in the witness protection program. And so much for no rambling. I promised myself there would be no senseless rambling, but clearly that’s not going so well.”

I laughed and he stopped talking. “I’m not sure what to answer first. My last name is Lang. I’m not familiar with the statistics, but no, Hennessy isn’t a common first name. I’m not in a witness protection program, and I’m not a spy, but there’s a reason you won’t find me on social media, and that’s because I’m a network computer security expert, and believe me, I know the ramifications of having personal details on the internet. And for what it’s worth, I like the rambling. I thought for a second you might not have wanted to be here, but when you do your rambling thing, I get an insight to the real you.”

“You like my incessant rambling?” he asked. “Okay, sure. Five minutes a day of it might be considered cute, but all day every day is a lot to take. Believe me. Ask Merry. She’ll tell you. And Mrs Mullhearn. She’s our supervisor at work, and she’s like two hundred years old, and I swear she turns her hearing aids off when I get there. Though she can hear me drop a motherfucker at fifty yards, or maybe she reads lips. I don’t know.” He frowned. “Wait. What the hell is a network computer security expert, and why does that explain not having a Facebook account?”

“It’s a fancy name for professional hacker. I’m paid by large corporations to legally hack into their companies and tell them where their target areas are.”

“You are not,” he said, his face incredulous. “There is no such thing and you totally just made that up.”

I snorted. “It’s true.”

He sipped his coffee. “Well, please kindly disregard my earlier comment about having mad internet skills, because that’d be terribly embarrassing if I’d said that. Which I absolutely didn’t.”

I smiled into my coffee. “Of course not. But knowing what personal information people put online, and what corporations do with that information, is the reason I’m not on any social media.”

He nodded thoughtfully, then eyed me for a minute. “It’s kind of fitting, I guess.” I gave him a questioning look, so he added, “I’d wondered what you did for a job. You never wore a suit, but you clearly get paid well because you have more style than I could dream of.”

“A suit? Me? Never. And I don’t know about more style than you because I’ve seen your outfits with matching shoes.”

He blushed. “Well, I have to do something with a drab work uniform.”

“I like it,” I replied. “I wondered what colour you’d wear today. I have to say, I wasn’t expecting brown.”

He looked down at his brown jacket and stuck his booted foot out. “Do you not like it?”

“I do,” I said quickly.

“I just thought I should tone it down a little.”

“You don’t need to censor yourself for me. I mean, that’s the point, isn’t it? Finding friends—” I stopped and tried again. “People to be around who we don’t have to censor ourselves?”

He smiled and made a thoughtful face. “Can I be honest with you?”

Oh God. “Yes, of course.”

“You look worried.”