Page 21 of Wants and Needs
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I murmur, once again wanting to find out everything about Liam Trent. “So wait, you’re saying I could connect your app to whatever service I use for music and it would use the songs I like?”
“That’s the idea.” He lets out another long—somewhat suffering—sigh. “But it’s tricky. We’ve gotten a good amount of interest from what Tristan has said, but they all want exclusivityand even a percentage of ESoothe, and I already have to share with Harvard since they paid for the research that all of this is based on. I don’t really want to share it with anyone else, but if I don’t give them ownership or exclusivity, they want to charge an absurd amount of money.”
“That’s bollocks,” is my unfiltered reaction, but I don’t regret it. “They should be payingyoufor giving them access to your algorithm,” I cry out, seriously offended on his behalf.
“That’s what I say,” he shouts too. We look at each other, both smiling for a long moment, and then I chuckle again.
“I really like your laugh. It’s calming,” he says, surprising me.
“Oh, I don’t think anyone has ever complimented my laugh before,” I point out uselessly, and feel like an idiot.
“I’m just stating a fact,” he says, in a dry tone that I’m pretty sure isn’t meant to be sarcastic, and he makes me feel even more like an idiot, but I also feel a burst of tenderness inside my chest. “I normally can’t stand it when someone laughs loudly.”
It takes me a moment to gather my wits and keep the conversation going—which has been fucking riveting up until now.
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “Most of the laughs I hear every day are my brothers’ and it reminds me of when they wouldn’t stop crying when they were babies.”
“You live with them too?” I wonder, and do my best to not sound like a wistful baby.
“No, I live a few floors down. I moved there when I left Boston a couple of years ago.”
“Right.” It only clicks then. “Right, you went to Harvard andgot all those fancy degrees there.” I can’t help but smile. I’ve never met a person who went to Harvard and didn’t boast about it endlessly—even Adam’s cousins—and he skipped right over that fact. I bet he wouldn’t have even said it if the details about the ownership hadn’t come up.
Another surprise comes when he looks away bashfully, and I can even make out a blush in the dim, distant light of the party central. With everything I know about him, how straightforward and factual he is, I didn’t think anything could embarrass him or make him feel even remotely bashful.
“Tell me more about your app,” I blurt out, without even thinking. “You said it’s called ESoothe?”
“Yes.” His voice is quiet now, almost a whisper.
“Why did you decide to study all that stuff? How did you come up with the idea?”
I might be acting pushy—at least by my standards—but I’m seriously fascinated, and I want to hear him talk about it again. It’s like his whole demeanor changes.
“Well,” he starts out slowly. “I knew I had to learn a lot more, and my research told me Harvard had all the courses I needed in the same place and with very good professors.”
“I bet,” I murmur, hoping it doesn’t bring him back to his subdued mood.
“And as far as the idea...” He trails off, but the frown that’s back on his face has me thinking it might be better if I wait him out. I think if he doesn’t want to tell me he’ll just say that, right?
His shoulders drop as he looks up. This time he holds eye contact with me for a full two seconds—yes, I count—and I see resolve in his eyes.
“I’m Autistic.”
I nod to show I understand and because I have no clue what to say.
“I have a very mild case, considering, but I’m very bad at... peopling, is what my mom calls it sometimes.” The tips of his lips are raised just a bit, so I think it’s a good thing. “It means I can’t read facial expressions and connect them to emotions innately the way you probably can. I have to analyze people and get to know them really, really well to understand them without having to wonder. It’s a constant guessing game and that’s tiring. I don’t process life the way you do, and for me it’s most obvious with sounds.”
“That’s why you were wearing your earbuds,” I say as the realization comes to me.
“Exactly.” He nods. “I also have social anxiety, which has gotten a lot better over the years. That comes from my upbringing. Traveling around with my parents for most of my childhood meant I never really got the hang of being around other kids my age, and to be honest I never really wanted to.” He says that last part in a whisper, like a confession, and again he has me smiling.
He’s funny, but I suspect he doesn’t mean to be, so I tame down my smile and keep listening.
“The first time I ever really did was at Juilliard, and even with my parents so close all the time, it was too much for me most days, so I spent a lot of the time there with earbuds on and curating playlists for myself.”
“That’s impressive,” I murmur.
