All through Cullie’s life, Binji had been her shelter from every storm. Be it her first upper-lip wax to shut down the bullies at school, or the spontaneous meltdowns in her head that she’d never been able to share with her parents, or the time Steve had gone back to his wife and Binji had flown out to see her. Cullie hadn’t been able to talk about it, but she’d put her head in Binji’s lap while she stroked her hair and told her stories from old Bollywood films the way she’d done when Cullie was little.
Which wasn’t to say Binji was not the one to blame for putting all sorts of ideas in Cullie’s head that kept complicating her life. The idea for Shloka had come from Binji chanting with her to help her sleep when she was a child, a practice Cullie had then started to use to deal with her racing thoughts. And now, thanks to Binji, she’d told CJ she’d been working on a compatibility app.
A dating app? CJ had looked bored. There are fifteen hundred of those on the market, at last count.
What we find attractive about love interests says more about us than about them. Cullie had repeated Binji’s words, desperate to keep Shloka free for the millions of people who needed it. Cullie would be the first to admit that she didn’t know much; most things people got passionate about bored her into blanking out of conversations. But the fact that Shloka had to stay subscription-free, that she knew with the kind of certainty she could not explain. What we call dating is really a journey of self-discovery. Or at least it only turns into something meaningful if it is also that.
The words had sounded like hooey even as Cullie said them, but CJ’s dark eyes had sharpened with focus beneath her lash extensions. And Cullie had known that her grandmother had saved her ass yet again. I have a plan for an app that identifies matches based on self-discovery. Not only did she not have a plan—she had no idea what that even meant—but CJ’s favorite buzzword had veritably exploded around her head like fireworks. It works with the Neuroband. So our Neuroband sales should skyrocket too. Cullie had shot the last arrow right into the heart of her argument.
I’ll talk to the board. We’ll need to see a mock-up soon. That’s all Cullie wanted. A chance to change the board’s mind.
For the past twenty-four hours, she’d furiously played with dummy code. The walls of her room were plastered with paper covered in flowcharts and notes. There was not a chance in hell this was going to work with the approaches she was taking. With Shloka, she’d known exactly what to do. The design and code had been alive inside her, and getting it out had been like one of those firetruck hoses. Unstoppable.
With dating. Nothing.
Cullie groaned. Her grandmother was hot enough to cause people to die from orgasms, and here she was at the peak of her biological attractiveness, and men went back to their wives after test-driving her for a year. Test-driving, by the way, was what Granny Karen called dating. Actually, she called it “letting men test-drive you.” Which was one of the many reasons why eight thousand miles away was just the way Cullie liked her.
You’ll figure it out, the voice inside her said. Binji’s voice.
Pulling the paper from her walls, she stuffed it into her backpack, then threw in her laptop, test hardware for the Neuroband, code notebooks, and her medication. Then she slung the overnight bag over her shoulder and took the elevator to the lobby.
Her car would be here in ten minutes. Just enough time to let the front desk know to forward her mail, because she planned on staying for as long as Binji needed her.
“Are you going somewhere?” The last voice she expected to hear pulled her out of her thoughts as she got out of the elevator.
Steve?
He pointed at the bag hanging from her shoulder.
She kept walking. “Nope.” It served as both an answer and her general reaction to his being here. He hadn’t been here since they’d broken up. “What makes you think it’s okay for you to just show up here?”
“Why are you treating me like this?” How had she ever found his voice attractive? Now she wanted to reach down his gullet and yank out his voice box with her bare hands.
Wow, Cullie. Calm down.
The Neuroband on her wrist vibrated, and she took a deep breath.
“You mean why am I treating you like someone who tried to steal the most precious thing in my life?”
“Is that what this is about, or are you hurt about something else?” He had the gall to look knowing and sympathetic. The bracelet heated again, and she took another breath. In for four, out for six.
She blinked up at him, feeling a little bit like Mona, her Cabbage Patch doll from childhood, wide eyed and hapless. She’d stopped playing with Mona for a reason. Grounding herself in that visual kept her from shoving him across the tiny lobby of her building.
“Yes, Steve, the fact that you screwed me for a year and then went sniveling back to a wife who’d cheated on you and bankrupted you makes you the kind of prince I care about more than an app that can keep people from taking their own lives.” Thanks to the bracelet on her wrist, her voice came out calm. It helped that suddenly she felt nothing for this man who’d once made her feel so much, it had been like an illness. “Oh, to have the confidence of a mediocre man.”
He looked like he couldn’t decide if he should be angry or hurt. “You’re many things, Cal, but I could never imagine you being this bitter.”
How could she not laugh at that? Because, wow. He didn’t know her at all. Cynicism and bitterness were literally her most defining qualities, something she’d been accused of displaying in the cradle.
Her phone buzzed, and she looked at it. The car was two minutes away. There was no way in hell she was telling the front desk to forward her mail in front of Steve. He would know exactly zero about her life from now on.
“The other day, we started on the wrong foot. I’m sorry, I can’t seem to think straight when you’re near me.” His eyes intensified. His breath turned shallow and labored. This sincere facade was what had stripped her bare.
Do not feel. Don’t feel things for him, Cullie. What is wrong with you? A lot, but that didn’t mean she’d let herself be an airsickness bag for his emotional vomits ever again.
“Don’t blame me for your inability to think.” She pointed at his face. “And your puppy dog eyes lost their power when you tried to destroy my app.”
He opened his mouth to deny it, but before he could, she walked away. Getting people to pay for Shloka was sacrilege, no matter what capitalism said about it.
He followed her. “What did you say to CJ? She took me off the Shloka team. I was the only one there protecting your interests, Cal.”
“You were right before. You have lost your ability to think. So let me simplify it for you,” she said with all the meanness she’d ever been accused of. “Your version of protection involves stripping me down first and then giving me your coat. Leave me alone, and find someone else’s work to steal, because you’re never getting near Shloka again. Or me. And for the last time, it’s Cul.”
“Okay, I know paranoia is part of”—he rotated a hand around his head—“all the shit you have going on, but this is not about Shloka, is it? Someone told you, didn’t they? Did Roxy call you? She called you, didn’t she, and told you about the divorce?”