"She's got a date tonight. Don't mess it up."
What?
"India has a date?"
I'm not the only one shocked by that announcement. The rest of my team members glance at me quickly, like they expect me to be mad. I frown when they lean forward, eager to hear the details. Marina fills us in on this guy she's matched India with.
As if India needs help finding men. Every man she meets would fuck her, but she's not that kind of girl.
Besides, she doesn't want a man right now. She's focused on her career. I know, because she told me that when we met at Stanford, back when I thought there might be something between us. She wants to make a hundred million dollars before she ever gets serious about a man.
She's pure ambition – like me. Like the rest of us at Pacifica.
"She's lonely," Marina says plainly.
That hits me like a truck and I'm lost for words for a moment.
"How can she be lonely?" I say when I recover. I tip my beer up and take a long pull on it. "She's too busy to be lonely. She said so herself. She's focused on her career. India says men are superfluous. Those were her words, Marina, not mine. Superfluous."
"You think she's going to admit to you that she's lonely?" Marina gives me this derisive snort and takes a sip of her own beer. "She comes home to an empty house and is so lonely that she sleeps on the couch with the television on because she hates being alone in her king-sized bed. True confession." Then she points at me, her eyes narrow. "Don't tell her I told you that. She'll kill me."
I frown and imagine India sleeping on her couch instead of her bed. I remember when she bought that bed – I helped her pick it out. I even imagined the two of us fucking our brains out on it, but that's just an idle male thought. I'm as red-blooded as the next guy. But that was it. I imagined it one time, maybe twice. Less than a dozen times, for sure.
It's not like I think of sleeping with India often. I'm way too busy running one of the most successful tech start-ups in the past five years.
But speaking of her bed, it's hugely ostentatious with four thick posts of dark wood. Silk gray coverlet and throw pillows. In her huge master suite with the marble tile and expensive fixtures and the sliding doors that lead to her own personal deck overlooking the ocean.
She doesn't like sleeping in that bed?
I love that bed.
"She sleeps on the fucking couch?" I say, still dumbfounded at the prospect that India's lonely and wants a date.
Marina nods. "Sad, right? So I've found this guy for her. I mean, he's right up her alley brains-wise. He teaches at Stanford, like her parents. He has a PhD from Harvard in Humanities. Philosophy."
"Philosophy?" I snort and make a face of disgust. "What the fuck is that?"
"You know – ‘what is the good life?’ That kind of shit." She shrugs. "His name came up among my subscribers as a match. I figured he was smart enough for her. Plus, her family is big in the whole humanities thing. He's coming tonight." She glances at her watch. "Any time now, in fact. I'm sure India's nervous. She's probably in the bathroom throwing up." She wags her eyebrows in this most annoying way.
"Throwing up? What the fuck are you talking about? Why would India throw up because she's meeting a pencil-necked professor of philosophy?"
"He's not a pencil-neck. He's really handsome, in a professorial sort of way. She's shy, Jon," Marina says, and that's the second time tonight I'm struck dumb by something she says. "You should know that. God, what have you been doing all this time? Ignoring India? See, that's what I mean by ‘you work her too hard.’ You don’t even know her."
"I know her better than almost anyone else."
I lean back, my blood pressure rising, my anger at Marina's meddling choking me for a moment. I sit steaming, unable to respond.
My India – shy? Nervous enough to meet some man that she'd throw up? I don’t really even know her?
"This wasn't supposed to be a public event, Marina. This was meant to be a celebration for the team."
"India needs a man," she replies, shrugging like it's nothing. "I found her one."
"She doesn't need a man. She needs to focus on our business. On Pacifica. We have a big meeting coming up, at the fucking Pentagon. I don't want her to be distracted by some flake from the Philosophy Department."
"No, no," she says and punches my arm. "She needs some, Jon. She's been out of circulation for way too long. You're always going on about how important sex is for human well-being. Isn't that right?"
I sit and glower at Marina for throwing my words back at me, but she doesn't seem to notice the hate I'm sending her way.