CHAPTER FIFTY
Moves
I left Redwood’s compound feeling better than I had in a while. It was like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. You couldn’t ask for a better ally than Simon Redwood. He knew this company and Robert Greaves better than anyone. And he could go right to the board. And if not, he could call a press conference. Reporters would fall all over themselves in the rush to get a moment with Simon Redwood.
My own glow after basking in the crazy old coot’s presence finally gave me the confidence to ask Summer out. She and I had done the geocaching thing a few times, but most of those outings ended up with some kind of natural disaster. So I went out on a limb, and asked her to come over for dinner. Granted, it took me half an hour of writing and rewriting the text until I was happy with it. I held my breath and hit Send.
Waiting for your phone to ring is like self-inflicted torture. You want to go on with your day and forget about it, but you can’t. Then you have that odd moment of panic: maybe your message didn’t go through. Maybe your phone switched off or the volume was down, and you’re missing that all-important return call right now.
I wanted to call Connor and tell him about meeting Simon Redwood. He’d gotten out of the hospital, but the doctors warned that the sort of medical collapse he’d experienced might rear its ugly head again. He was still convalescing at home under Mom’s somewhat-too-attentive care. She wouldn’t want me to get him all riled up about anything, so that would have to wait.
Waiting. It was the absolute worst. I tried reminding myself that Summer had a regular job and probably wouldn’t answer me before she clocked out. That didn’t help, especially when that little voice kept telling me she might not write back at all.
I was on my way home, driving with the windows down and Steve Perry playing on the radio, when Summer texted back. The Tesla’s computer took the liberty of reading it off to me.
Sounds like fun! Can I bring Riker?
I told her fine—Octavius would be disappointed, otherwise—and gave her directions to my condo. Which I nearly killed myself preparing for her arrival. The whole time, I kept sweating with nervous anticipation. But when I opened the door for Summer, it was totally worth it.
“Hey guys,” I said.
“Hi.” She wore a little summer dress in peach and white. Desert colors, but softer somehow. A waft of vanilla and roses swept across my face. She looked even better than I remembered. It was funny how everything between us had changed. This was a date, and we both knew it.
Riker was there too, on a leash, already snuffling the threshold of the door as if he smelled truffles.
I grinned, and hoped it looked welcoming rather than awestruck. “Come on in.”
She stepped across the threshold so I could close the door and crouched beside Riker to unclip his leash. “Is it all right if I . . . ?”
“Go for it,” I said. “He probably wants to find Octavius anyway.”
“Where is he?”
“Hiding.”
“Aww, he’s shy all of a sudden?”
“Oh, not at all. This is his favorite game.”
“All right.” She took the pig’s snout in her hands. “Riker, find the dragon!”
Riker yipped and ran into the kitchen, his nose already working the floor. My eyes met Summer’s. They were this perfect shade of green, and she’d put on some dark eyeliner that really brought them out.
Oh, the date was so on.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she said. She hugged me, and excitement warred with the disappointment that she hadn’t kissed me instead. Or that I hadn’t been brave enough to kiss her. Maybe that kiss hadn’t meant anything. Maybe it was just her way of being nice, to someone who just found out his employer had been lying to him about almost everything.
I wasn’t giving up yet, though. “Want something to drink?”
“What do you have?”
“Everything,” I said, because it was true. I had at least one of every juice, soda, beer, and wine that she could possibly want. The mini fridge was full to bursting. “But I was thinking margaritas.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “Oooh . . .” she said, in the way that meant I shouldn’t, but I’m going to.
“Heh. That’s a yes.” I headed back to the kitchen, where Riker snuffled around the pantry door. “Not there,” I told him.
He moved over to the base of the refrigerator.
“Now you’re getting warm,” I said.
He reared up on his hind legs but couldn’t see over the top of it. He even tried to hop up higher, which for a pig was pretty funny. I busted out laughing, and Summer did, too.
“I think he’s got you, Octavius,” I said.
Octavius uncoiled from the little fruit basket on top of the fridge. He stretched languidly, as if just waking up. His eyes flicked open, and he acted all surprised to see us. He even gave me his good-morning chirp, like he was up and ready for breakfast.
“You little ham,” I said.
“So, what are we eating?” Summer asked.
“Tacos. Is that okay?”
She gave me a dubious look. “You can cook?”
“Uh, I’m a scientist.”
“I never saw you cook anything,” she said.
“We were in college. I lived on pizza and cheap beer.”
She laughed softly. “Didn’t we all?”
Talking about the old days still had the edge of discomfort to it. Even if we didn’t say her name, Jane was our common denominator. I didn’t want to relive the bad moments, which seemed to drown out the good as time went on. So I steered clear and changed the subject.
“Do you want fish, or chicken?” I asked. “I have both.”
“What, no tofu?”
Oh, God, was she a vegetarian? I’d never considered that. “Seriously?”
She was biting her lip not to laugh. Her eyes sparkled.
“You’re screwing with me,” I said.
“Totally. I wouldn’t last a day without meat.”
I shook my head and turned on the stove. “You were almost dead to me.”
“What kind of fish do you have?”
“Mahi-mahi,” I said. Wild-caught, too, not the crap that they farm-raised in China. I’d spared no expense on this dinner. There was too much at stake. The deep thrill of just having her here started to well up in my stomach. I forced it back down.
“I love mahi,” she said. “How about fish and chicken?”
“Attagirl.”
“Need any help?”
It was tempting, but my kitchen barely had enough room for me. And I was a little worried I’d screw something up. “Actually, would you mind letting Octavius out onto the balcony? He likes to watch the sunset.”
“I suppose I owe him one.” She took her margarita to the balcony. Riker and Octavius wandered out after her.
I hardly touched my own drink. Tacos were my favorite thing to make, and I didn’t half-ass it. Ten minutes later, she came in for a refill. That gave me another butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling, because I knew she meant to stick around a while. I took the meat off the stove, just as Riker trotted in to do his begging routine. Perfect timing. Summer just laughed and shooed him away. Octavius winged in to the top of the mini-fridge and trilled at me. He wanted in on it, too.
“All right, it’s coming.” I flipped him a few pieces of meat I’d set aside.
“Can’t he go out and . . . hunt birds or something?” Summer asked.
My mind went to the Condor, and the way it had handled itself so beautifully during the field trial. The memory sobered me. “He’s got limited range.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Mm. Sounds like his genetic engineer screwed up.”
I snorted. “I did it on purpose.”
“You love to play God, don’t you?”
“Maybe just a little.”
We ate out on the balcony while the sun painted the desert in crimson hues. Riker and Octavius tore into their little bowls of cubed meat and were done in about thirty seconds. They settled down on the stone while Summer and I ate. I suppose I could have gone with the tablecloth-and-candles type of meal, but it just didn’t feel right. Come on — this was tacos, and we were sharing the meal with a pig and a dragon.
Summer sat perfectly straight in her chair, with her plate balanced on her lap, and took these adorable teeny-tiny bites.
“You’re so proper,” I said.
“My parents were pretty strict about table manners.”
“Oh yeah?”
“In case we had dinner with the Queen someday.”
I nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “How’s that coming along?”
“No invitations yet, but I’m hopeful.”
“You know, the royals came and toured Build-A-Dragon last year.”
Her eyes went wide. “Shut up!”
“They brought in their daughter to see her dragon hatch.”
“Did you get to meet them?”
“Me? Oh, hell no. Greaves wanted all of us automatons in the background. Want to hear something cool, though?” I leaned closer to her and lowered my voice. “I designed her dragon. The daughter’s, I mean.”
Summer put her plate aside, turned to face me, and said, “Tell me everything.”
We talked for hours, while the sky grew dark and the margaritas melted. The desert air brought its usual nighttime chill, but the balcony’s heat-retaining concrete kept us comfortable. Riker and Octavius had curled up in the two outer corners where it was warmest. Their bodies rose and fell in the slow rhythm of sleep.
I got up, quietly as I could, to clear away the dishes. Summer brought the margarita glasses. I started loading the compact autoclave. All my dishes were high-heat stoneware; with all the water shortages, autoclaves had replaced dishwashers almost entirely. The Pyrex margarita glasses went in, too.
It only took about ten minutes, everything being small and close-together as it was in my kitchen. We tiptoed back to the balcony door to check on Riker and Octavius. They were still out. Summer slipped her arm in mine and pulled me back. I turned and she was there, I mean right there, kind of giving me a little smile.
Instinct took over. The next thing I knew we were kissing.
We moved to the couch, fumbling for it because we wouldn’t separate. I thought that if we did, it might stop. So I ended up crammed against the back of the cushion, with her soft slender body right up against me. My neck was at an almost painful angle, but I powered through.
We kept at it, until I let my hand stray down to her waist.
She pulled away just a little. “I should get home,” she said.
“You can stay,” I whispered. I tried pulling her back to me, but she put a hand on my chest, and kept a little distance between us.
“It’s really late.”
I may have pouted a little, but I let her go. She stood up and sort of straightened her clothes. Riker poked his head in and gave a little high-pitched whine.
“Ready to go home?” she asked him.
I walked them to the door. “I’m glad you came,” I said.
“Me too. Thanks for dinner.”
I kissed her again on the threshold. And I loved the fact that I could do that. It wasn’t a peck, either. It was a warm, lingering kind of kiss that had me hoping she might come right back in. Which I wanted so, so bad right then. After a minute, she eased back, out of reach.
“See you,” she whispered.
It physically hurt to watch her leave, but after I closed the door, I reminded myself that it had gone well. Really well. If I kept this up, Summer and I might even become a thing. A warm twinge of excitement washed over me at the thought of it. Between that, and the help from Simon Redwood, things were looking up. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I could actually draw a full breath.