Page 6 of Debugging Love

“I went to I.U.”

Chance balances his weight on both feet again, his eyes trained on me. “Indiana University.”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“It was in your profile.”

Laughter bursts into the air behind us like dozens of wings taking off in flight. I look over my shoulder. A crowd of jovial passengers has formed by the bar. They’re probably already alittle buzzed. “I keep forgetting I made so many personal details available on that stupid app.”

Chance furrows his brow at me.

“That’s right. I said stupid.”

He bounces a shoulder, and then shifts his gaze back to the skyline. “I still don’t know why you ended up in Charleston. You didn’t put that in your profile.”

“The cold winters. When I moved to Indianapolis for my first job out of college, I had to commute through them. As a contractor, I was all over the place. On the northwest side for a stint. Out by the airport for six months. Downtown. If it snows during the evening commute, good luck heading north, or south, or west. Anywhere really. It took me three hours to go seven miles once. I finally had enough and wanted to move somewhere warmer.”

“What kind of contractor?”

I freeze. If I tell him I’m in IT, the next obvious question is, “Where do you work?” I don’t want him to know where I spend my days. “Uh...construction. I was a...painter.”

Chance’s puzzled look twists his broad forehead into a map of lines. “You went to college to paint houses?”

Hold up. I didn’t think that through. “Er.” Someone throw me a life preserver. Wait. Let me jump into the water first, then throw it to me. “Yeah. It was an apprenticeship. I learned all the trades. Sort of.” Morgan’s train wreck comment flits through my brain like a pantry moth. “So, yeah. Snow. Boo. We don’t like snow.” I contort my face into my best frown and give two thumbs down.

“You’re a general contractor in Charleston now?”

“Yeah. That’s right.” Time to put the train back on the tracks. If we’re headed for a wreck, I don’t want it to be my fault. “How did you end up in Charleston?”

“My contracting company sent me here.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. IT contracting. Not construction.”

“You’re an IT contractor,” I say flatly. I don’t know why this bothers me. Oh yes, I do. It’s because my ex, Zane, and I kept running into each other at various contracting gigs in Indianapolis. It was the real reason I left. The cold and snow were a very close second. But I mainly needed to get away from Zane’s face.

“I’m glad they moved me,” Chance says, “It was time to conquer a new city.”

One of those drinks sounds nice. But I know better than to drink on an empty stomach. I can only handle a small glass of wine after a hearty meal.

“How does a guy conquer a city in the modern age?” I picture Chance wielding Thor’s hammer while lightning bolts shoot from his heels.

“I get to know all the nice bars, top hangouts. Wherever the cool people gather, that’s where I need to be.”

“Because you’re one of the cool kids.”

He shoves himself off the railing, turns to me, and stuffs his Michelangelo-sculpted hands into his pockets. “What do you think?”

I turn back toward the skyline to hide my sneer. “You should go conquer Hollywood with that ego.”

“I thought about Bollywood or modeling, but they weren’t for me. I wanted to cross the ocean to spread the language of love.”

I straighten. “Wow, I’m hungry. Maybe we should go find a table.”

Chance doesn’t budge.

I squint up at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

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