“He did a very adequate job, but I have questions about the business plan.”
Dillon laughed. “This is good, Mace. So good. Who is that guy? He’s great. Even sounds like the man. Okay, you got me good. You should—”
“Dillon.” Mace snapped.
“Get laid more often—”
“Dillon!”
“Brings out your creative side.”
“Fuck, Dillon. This is real. Can you pull it together and answer Jay’s questions.” There was a long silence and Mace was incapable of meeting anyone’s eyes. “Dillon?”
“Yeah. Fuck. This is real?”
Jay stood. He motioned for Mace to give him the phone. He spoke to Dillon while Mace tried not to throw up over Jacinta’s rug. His face was hot. He’d screwed them a dozen different fucked up ways, but Jay was still holding the phone and Dillon was in full-on hyper-drive mode. Mace could hear him cracking off answers, quick, to the point, unambiguous. He sat back down and took a more even breath and Jay took the pad and phone to the breakfast counter and wrote notes while Dillon talked.
“You told him about us.” Jacinta used her deceptively soft and gentle voice.
He looked across at her. “I told him I’d gone home with a woman from work and we got stuck in the lockdown zone. He doesn’t know who you are.”
“Just that I live next door to Jay.”
“Yeah.” He looked at his feet.
“If that’s really all you said, I don’t mind. I’m okay about it.”
He looked across at her. She was smiling. Given what just went down that was something to be grateful for.
“I couldn’t help you. You had to do that for yourself. If I’d helped you, Jay wouldn’t have taken it seriously. He’d have thought I was lust drugged, or guilty.”
That made sense. He might’ve thought of that, but he was so burned up about Jay having his hands all over her.
“He’s taking it very seriously, Mace.”
Dillon was taking about competitive positioning and pre-emptive strategies. Jay occasionally scribbled a note. Mace knew Jay would’ve shut Dillon down five minutes into his spiel, two minutes if he hadn’t liked what he was hearing.
“That was a mess. It’s only because of you, we got this far.”
“It was a mess. But it was funny.”
“No one was chuckling.”
“Only on the inside.”
Behind them Jay let out a roar of laughter and the hands clamped around Mace’s throat loosened their hold.
Jacinta stood and came to his side. “You are a genius.” She perched on the arm of the chair, one leg hooked underneath her, the other resting on the floor. She was barefoot too, wearing another light, simple cotton dress.
“I code.”
“I like that about you.”
“I’m your basic socially inept geek.”
“I like that too.”
“You think I’m hot. Good in bed.”