Page 33 of The Refusal

“Media … Marketing?”

“She’d like you to think that, but she’s a techy, too.”

“Be still, my heart.”

I laugh at the thrill in his voice, and how closely it echoes my thoughts from when I first met Jo. Women are as rare as hen’s teeth in the tech industry.

“She’s gorgeous, Fab.”

I press the cold bottle to my chest and let the icy fingers slip into my blood. Fabian will know from this one comment that I’m smitten; I’m incapable of being cool with him about girls that interest me. He has a way of getting to the truth, and I’m like an over-enthusiastic dog; I was always a crap poker player. But all this is from college days. I’ve never talked to him about any of the women I’ve dated more recently, and I’ve certainly never taken any of them to meet him.

“It must be serious,” he says.

“Oh God,” I groan. I’m behaving like a lovesick schoolboy. “If only. She won’t give me the time of day. She’s got a boyfriend.”

“Are you kidding? Do we need to persuade her you’re a much better option? You’re a good-looking guy and a rich one, too. What’s not to like? Oh yeah,”—his voice drops—“I forgot about the small penis.”

“Fuck off.”

“Seriously though—”

Pulling myself out of my seat, I lean over the railing that sits behind the greenery edging the deck, taking a slug of beer. I peer at the antlike life below, the myriad of people here, lives that lurch from one crisis to another, deals and loves won and lost.

“God, I’d love to persuade her that I’m a better option. She’s determined to friend-zone me—believe me, I’m trying.” I’m not talking to Fabian about how I took another woman to an event for some stupid-ass reason.

“Whisk her away, man. Hire a private jet and take her to a tropical island. For fuck’s sake you’ve got the money.” Dishes clink and a tap turns on in the background.

“What are you doing?”

“Been coding all day, need something to eat,” he mutters, and my stomach tightens with envy for the life he leads: every day like the day I spent with him, hunched over a computer examining code. “Can’t you do some big gesture?”

I sigh. “No, not really. I need approval from the board for everything. The value is tied up in the company, not hard cash.”

“Well, just tell the directors you want to get laid, and they need to sign off fifty grand for you to hire a plane …” His laughing fades away and the click and crunch of the microwave door echoes down the line before his voice comes back stronger. “I can’t believe she’s resisted the Janus Phillips seduction techniques. Usually they’re all over you.”

“They’re all over me because of my money.”

“They’re really not. Come on, man, even at college you got all the girls.”

“That is so not true.” Fabian pulled all the interesting, edgy women: the ones like Jo in fact. Perhaps I shouldn’t introduce the two of them.

“Nadine—”

“God, remember Nadine—”

We both simultaneously come out with the same thing and I laugh.

“She was a head case,” Fabian mumbles like he wishes he could forget.

I move on. Neither of us want to talk about the car crash of a relationship that ate him up at college.

“I’m depressed about the whole thing. I saw Jo with her guy in the coffee shop last week, and she hadn’t told me. Not that she needed to tell me, but—”

“How did you meet her? What’s she do?”

“She’s been consulting for Janus Industries. She does network security.”

“Seriously?” I can hear the thrill in his voice. “I love her already. How decent a hacker is she?”

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