He took a long pull at his beer and I couldn’t help but look at his throat as heswallowed.
The overloud sound of his bottle settling back on the glass-topped table sent me into a little startledjump.
“I write code,” heanswered.
I waited for more. “What kind ofcode?”
“The kind that tracks and then projects trends in financialmarkets.”
“You’re atrader?”
“Notentirely.”
“They were so in awe ofyou.”
“I invented a fewthings.”
“Things?”
“Systems. I mean, I came up with some systems that made people a lot of money. I also invented this.” He held out his wrist to show me what I’d initially taken for one of those Apple watches. “It’s for blind people. Does everything. Measures topography, tells us if there’s an obstruction in our path. It’ll read text, which isn’t that big of a deal for books, now that audiobooks and text-to-speech programs are so prevalent, but it’ll read signs and stuff, out in the world—like at the grocery store, you know? It’s prettypractical.”
“Wow. They acted like you were some kind of legend.” I was impressed, but as I took another sip of beer and side-eyed the man sitting next to me, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I was missing a big piece of the story. “So, should I call youHorde?”
“No.” The man who’d been easygoing and safe just moments before tensed up. “Don’t… I don’t want you to use thatname.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay.”
“You know what? I shouldn’t have done what I did. I knew it could out me.” There were unspoken words there. I wished I knew what they were. “You probably shouldn’t behere.”
Um. Wow. I blinked and tried to ignore the tightness in mygut.
What thehell?
Zach
The problemwith keeping all my secrets buried in my house was that I wound upalone.
She needed to go. But I wanted her to stay. I wanted her, period. Just sitting beside her’d gotten me worked up, but her curiosity…that couldn’t be good for me. Too damneddangerous.
“Did I do somethingwrong?”
“No.” I sighed, wishing I didn’t have to be so cautious. “Youdidn’t.”
“I don’t want to go.” As if to prove this, she settled deeper into herchair.
I couldn’t relax until I knew the truth—was she onto me? “Youdon’t?”
“Unless you really want me gone, but I likeyou.”
A terrible thought occurred to me. “Is it because of my appearance?” I cleared my throat. “Because that’s not something I can relate to, youknow?”
“What do youmean?”
“I do the lawn back here because nobody bugs me. Out front,” I lifted my chin to indicate the house and, beyond it, the overgrown yard. “I getvisitors.”
“Visitors? Uphere?”
“Crazy, right?” Especially when I did everything I could to keep to myself. “A neighbor. She bakes me cookies and stuff, drops ’em offand…”
