Hate You Not

Drive right on back up to Atlanta and get on your plane, I tell him.

I’ll see you tomorrow, June Bug.

I’ll be sure to take them fishing. All day.BURKEIt’s true that I’m in Albany, but not to stay the night, as I’m sure she assumes. Heat Springs has the shittiest 4G anywhere I’ve been inside the continental U.S.

I’ve got a mountain of work to do, and I can’t do it via ESP. So here I am—in Mama G’s Coffee & Biscuits, a freakishly quiet little place on Albany’s Main Street. There’s an apron-clad high school guy behind the counter and a bunch of little orange booths with no one in them. Except me.

The internet here isn’t great either. Gabe is having a coding issue, and he and I are working on it in tandem, so I need a healthy internet connection. I’ve just gotten into a flow with the work when a bell dings. I lift my head and look around.

The high school guy with the floppy black hair nods my way. “Sir, we’re closing.”

“What?”

He points to something I can’t see from where I’m seated—presumably the hours posted on the door. “We close at nine.”

“Dammit,” I mutter. Seriously?

I scoop my laptop up and rise from the booth. “Where else in this town has reliable internet?”

“There’s a bookstore that has coffee, too, out on the main drag. It’s called Pages. They’re open until 9:30 or 10. I think it’s 10.”

I get in my car, order a satellite modem like the one I took to India, and pay over the phone and through the nose to have it delivered to Pages. The courier will have to drive down from a southern suburb of Atlanta.

When the modem arrives an hour and a half later, I get in the car and drive back to the one-room cabin I rented on some wooded acreage just outside of Heat Springs.

As soon as Gabe and I think we’ve got the mess untangled and I hop into the shower, he calls to tell me the voice recognition company that’s working on the voluntary monitoring part of the app has run into a problem that’s ultimately on our end. By the time Gabe and I have got it figured out, the sun is coming up.

I make some coffee with a hunter green Keurig on the counter and step outside onto the back porch—made from the same dark-stained wood as the cabin’s exterior walls. A stiff breeze ruffles the needles on the tall pines. I watch a black bird fly from tree to tree. A raven? I don’t know what birds are what. I sort of wish I did, but that’s a little pointless. When would I ever need to know?

I step back inside and check on Gabe’s screen. Everything still looks good. I can see him scrolling through the work we did. Work I hope will translate into lives saved one day. I don’t care how hard I have to push to get this app on people’s phones or how much money it takes. To me, it’s worth it.

I take a few deep breaths and then remember my suitcase is in the car’s trunk. I haul it inside, set it on the twin bed opposite my own, and pull some clothes out. I packed like I was headed to the east coast, not the South. It seems the clothes I have are quite a bit too warm for Georgia, even in the winter season.

I slough off the dress pants I pulled on commando after showering earlier and pull on clean boxer-briefs and a different pair of black jeans. I’ve never worn them, didn’t even buy them—I pay Molly to do my shopping—but they’re my normal brand; they fit fine, maybe a little loose, although they’re my size.

I pull a thin gray sweater over my head and pluck it off my abs. Fuck, this thing is tight. I move the shirt around and check the tag. It’s a medium. I check my bag. Did she order all these new shirts in size medium?

Yep.

Nice.

I’m six-foot-one and fairly lean, but I’ve got big bones. I smirk in the mirror and shake my head. I look like a fucking yuppie in this tight-ass, thin wool sweater.

Well, you are a fucking yuppie.

I’m sure June will think so. Not that she looked the part of a “farm girl” either. She looked like any girl. Correction: any hot girl. She’s not really a girl, I guess, though, is she? I think of what I know about her, from the dead mom to her lack of high school diploma.

“You don’t know anything about my life. My family’s farm. You don’t know anything about us!”

Doesn’t fucking matter. I don’t need to.

I text Gabe and check in with Molly and call Richard, who functions a little like a chief operating officer when I’m away.