“I dwell in the land of reality, yes.”
The two of us swayed against one another, her head descending to my chest. I rose my hand up her back, allowing my fingertips to graze over her soft black tresses. Fuck, everything about this woman was soft. Soft and innocent, and playful in a way women around me weren’t. She came from a completely different lifestyle and saw the world in a completely different way. She was nothing like the women I sank my teeth into, and I was quickly building an appetite for her.
We danced through a few songs before plates of food started being brought out. I pulled out her chair and sat her back down, and the smile she gave me was truly grateful. Most of the women I dated expected those kinds of actions from me. But she didn’t. All she wanted was for me to pose as her date. What I did with my time while I was there was inconsequential to her so long as I kept up the charade for her parents.
No woman had ever set so low of a standard for me, and no woman had ever been so grateful for me simply pulling out her chair.
“So,” I said. “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a part-time secretary at a law firm and I fill my spare time with tutoring,” Libby said.
“Did you go to college?”
“I did.”
“What did you major in?” I asked.
“Psychology. But no one told me I had to get a Master’s to really do anything with it. I’m trying to pay off my student loans I have right now so I can go back to school for my Master’s.”
“What would you do with it?” I asked.
“Social work.”
“That’s in high demand in many parts of Chicago. I’m sure you’d find a very good job in the field.”
“I don’t care about the job. Just the children in those kinds of situations.”
I felt my gut tense. There was something unnerving about what she’d said. Something raw and vulnerable in her voice. Knowing there were women as kind as her out there that wanted to work with children in terrible parental situations made my heart melt a bit.
“What made you want to pursue something like that?” I asked.
“I had a friend of mine in high school who was in a really bad situation. But the offices were so inundated with other children that it took them forever to come around to her. By the time they did, the damage had already been done and there was nothing they could do for her. I just… thought that was so wrong.”
I could see tears welling in her eyes again and I smoothed my hand over her knee. I started caressing her skin through the fabric of her dress while she collected herself. I’d never encountered anyone like her before. So quick to get emotional and so unapologetic for it. She dabbed at her eyes with her napkin before she threw me a kind smile, then sniffled and continued on with the conversation.
Like nothing had happened.
“What made you want to start your own company?” she asked.
“Nothing. I was sort of thrown into what I’m doing now by accident,” I said.
“How is starting your own company an accident?” she asked.
“Drink?”
A waiter bent a tray down between us and I casted him a stern glance. If I had my say in things I would’ve chastised him for not waiting until a more appropriate point in our conversation. I plucked a couple glasses of wine for us from the tray, then stared the man down as he scurried away.
“Drink?” I asked.
“Thanks,” Libby said.
“Anyway, the accident. It all started with a challenge from Google. They do this thing every once in a while where they’ll pay someone a certain amount of money to find a hole in their software.”
“A hole?” she asked.
“A bug. A way around things. Anything that makes their system vulnerable. I reached out while I was in college and tried it, found a couple different holes, collected my money, and that was that. But soon after that, they contacted me”
“Google contacted you,” she said.