Page 5 of Betting on the Brainiac

“Rent,” she says. “You’ll need to pay a couple hundred bucks to cover utilities or whatever. Are you okay with that?”

“If the space is right, sure,” I say. “Cheaper than leasing another office.”

Ruby gets a small smile. “I was thinking the same thing. You want to check it out?”

“Yeah.”

She pulls her phone out and texts me. “That’s the information. Address and time tomorrow. But I’m pretty sure I’m right about this.”

“Cool,” I say. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She pops up from the sofa. “Bye, boys. Niles and I are going out.”

I shoot a look at Charlie, but his expression hasn’t changed. “Doing anything fun?”

“Going to a craft brewery,” Ruby says.

Charlie’s lips thin but barely. I only notice because I’m watching him.

“I thought you didn’t like beer,” I say.

“I don’t,” she says. “I’m counting on them having a hard cider to get me through. And I hear they have killer tacos.” She heads for the door. “See you at work, Charlie.”

“See you,” he says.

The door closes behind her, leaving us in silence. Charlie won’t meet my eyes, but it’s not going to stop me from doing my job here. “You need to tell her, Charlie.”

He shakes his head. “Nothing to tell.”

Right. Only that he’s madly in love with her. “Niles is not the guy.”

“According to her, he is.”

I want to press it. As perceptive as Ruby often is—scarily so, sometimes—she’s got a Niles-shaped blind spot between her and Charlie. Charlie, the guy who actually deserves her. But I’ve been telling him this for six months, and I know there’s no point to pushing it when his jaw has that stubborn set to it.

Fine. On to other things. “Thanks for putting the word out on a space.” There are a ton of office vacancies in Austin, but the rents are way too high. It feels completely self-indulgent to even look for somewhere else to work when I technically have my own office at Azora. But I get interrupted too much.

“You sure you’re fine with checking out Gatsby’s?” Charlie asks. “You know how Ruby is. She loves solving a problem, but if you hate the idea, I can call her off.”

“If it’s empty and quiet all day, it’ll work. I could probably work thirty percent faster if I didn’t have to talk to people in the office, and Ineedto work faster.” The weight of our next investor meeting is all on my shoulders. Ihaveto present them with a minimum viable product. “But tell me the truth: she’s not trying to hook me up with this other roommate, is she?”

Charlie snorted. “You wish.”

“That hot?”

“That hot.”

“And she’s funny?”

“Hilarious,” Charlie confirms. “But Madison’s not your type. Trust me. Social butterfly. Smart but no ambition. Happy being a bottle girl and partying. New guy every week until she bounces him for the next one.”

“So, kind of shallow. Got it.”

“I didn’t say that.” Charlie’s face screws up like it does when he’s thinking hard, something he does a lot, and not always on the right things. As in I once watched this expression on his face for almost a half hour after he tried to work through the plot holes inMen in Black 3. “She’s always trendy, high-maintenance beauty routine, dates pretty boys, as best I can tell. But when she’s hanging out with the girls, she’s none of that.”

“It doesn’t matter. No time.”

“No time,” Charlie says. “How’s the software coming?”

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