Page 48 of Cocky Tech God
“I…” My stomach flipped. God, I never realized how hard it was to talk about this. “I was with Anais.”
“Anais?” Lucia’s eyebrows lifted.
“She’s my wife…” I paused. “Was my wife.”
Lucia’s eyebrows dropped, and her mouth closed. I could see the struggle in her eyes. “Right…”
“It’s okay.”
“What happened?” Lucia’s fingers moved over the table and lightly touched mine. I wouldn’t have felt it had I not seen her do it.
“It was a diving accident. She was on an oil exploration dive and she came up too fast. The rapid pressure change caused the bends. She didn’t make it.”
Lucia’s stroked my finger. “I’m so sorry. How old was she?”
“She was twenty-three.”
“And you?”
“I was twenty-five.”
She shook her head. “So young. Kind of like my dad. My mother passed away in childbirth with me.”
My heart pulsed remembering that it was only after she’d died that I found out that Anais had been carrying our baby at the time. We had no idea.
“I’m sorry.” I moved my hand just to get away for a moment. It was getting too heavy, and I was just getting used to acknowledging my emotions again. “You said you didn’t grow up with your dad?”
“No, I didn’t.” She sighed. “After my mom died, he took me for about a year, but couldn’t do it—the dad thing. So, my grandmother—my mom’s mother—took me in, and I lived with her until she passed away when I was eighteen.”
“Fuck.” My family life was conventional. A somewhat well-off married couple who didn’t really love each other, and a younger sister who lived as a nomad in Europe. Holidays were boring and polite. I never knew any real struggle, or lack of affection.
“Well,” Lucia said, her voice upbeat and cheerful. “This is the most real conversation we’ve ever had.”
“Yeah,” I said, but it came out in a near whisper. The thing was, I wanted to tell her more things about me that I’d sworn I’d keep in the past.
“Thank you.” Her voice quivered, not cheery at all.
I looked up to meet her gaze. “For what?”
“Telling me about Anais.”
“It’s easy to tell you things, Mendez.” I shrugged. “I think I’d tell you just about anything if you asked me.”
We were silent for a while, listening to the sounds of people chattering and reggae music from down the beach.
Out of the blissful silence, she said, “Is your offer still on the table? To help me?”
“Uh…yeah. Yes! Of course, it is.” A lightness took over me and I almost laughed. I didn’t know why.
Lucia blew out a breath and set her iPad on the table.
“Is this really happening? Are you actually going to show me your codebase?” I shifted to the edge of the seat to see the information on her screen.
“I never thought I’d see the day.”
She turned the screen so I could see her code. I stared at it with the determination to find the problem. It was the very least I could do. But I wanted to do more.
“This code is pretty clean,” I said, moving my finger over the lines on the iPad. “I’m not seeing anything. We dealing with a Loch Ness?”