Page 69 of Free Agent

“Both, baby. I hate to say it, but too many of my brethren are full of shit professionally and romantically, so having your eyes wide open is necessary.”

“That is unfortunately not exclusive to men. I’ve dealt with some weird ass women too.”

“You be scissoring?”

“Tatum!” I shrieked. “You know damn well that’s not what I’m saying!”

“Now how would I know that?”

“I… Well…”

Shit.

I guess he wouldn’t?

Despite our intimate knowledge of the others’ anatomy, we were still getting to know each other after all.

“You’re right; women full of shit too,” he laughed as I struggled to find my words.

“Anywayyyy,” I said. “The point is, I was referring to professional dealings with women I thought were allies, or partners, only to discover we were actually, apparently, in competition and I was the only one who didn’t know. Actually, that shit happens with friends too, which is even worse. Maybe.”

“Y’all might have us beat in that area. I don’t know if men get too into all that with other men.”

“All that?” I asked.

“Competitions and shit. Being petty. Sneak dissing.”

“Says the man who was singing, I’ll take your bitch music with his siblings on an internet stream as a clear response to my ex?” I challenged, brow furrowed in confusion.

“I’m proud,” Tatum said. “You’re catching on.”

“You are such a damn mess,” I laughed. “But… yes, I guess I’m catching on.”

“Good girl.”

Immediately my eyebrow hiked, surprised about my internal response to what was clearly just a passing statement to him. He had already moved on.

“What are you up to right now?” he asked. “Sounds like you’re moving?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I’m in a ride service headed home from dinner with Hollis and Shannon.”

“Okay I know Shannon… who is Hollis?”

An instant smile hit my face. “Hollis is my friend and favorite developer at BabyBee.”

“I thought Shannon was your favorite developer?”

“Shannon is my lead developer,” I corrected. “And they’re actually not doing the same job. Shannon is backend, which is the same thing I do. We work with databases, programming, infrastructure, stuff like that. Hollis is a front-end developer. He makes all mine and Shannon’s nerd shit look beautiful, handles user experience, design, responsiveness, all that. And when you bring the two together…”

“Form and function.”

“Exactly.” I nodded. “Both of which are incredibly important with an app like ours. That market is so competitive. If it’s not aesthetically pleasing and fresh and easy to navigate, etcetera, your user never opens it again. If it’s slow, lacks functionality, doesn’t store information properly, is glitchy… your user never opens it again. And of course, there’s other factors—data security, accuracy, all kinds of legalities… it’s a lot. But I really love it.”

“I can tell. The way you speak about it… clearly it’s lucrative, but you don’t even talk about that part. Like it’s incidental.”

“It is and isn’t. Making money allows us to do more, to reach more people, so it’s certainly important. But I would want to do this even if it didn’t make money. I would figure it out, because supporting parents is important work.”

“Hmm. Your perspective seems quite… personal. But you don’t have children?”

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