Insecure (39 page)

She wasn't—she couldn't stop her own life in sacrifice for his. She couldn't spend it waiting for him, or have him lose his dream and wait for her. They didn't get together because they couldn't survive alone. They couldn't stay together because it was no longer better than being alone.

“We're not meant to be, Mace. Our timing is off. We were a night that accidentally became a weekend that became—”

“A life.” He shouted it, reaching for her. “Cinta, you are my life.”

She tried to ease away, but he was too big, too present, too much what she wanted. She accepted his arms around her. She'd been his willing hostage and he hers, but it was time to be free.

“Your life is only just beginning to fire, Mace. You don't know where it will take you.”

He pushed hair behind her ear, rubbed his thumb over the curved edge of the helix. “It takes me where you are.”

That gesture, made from their first weekend together, almost broke her, his way of learning about her when she'd tried so hard to hold him at arm's-length. Now the length of space and time between them would be fatal. “No.”

“If you won't come with me, that's it. It's over. I'll go. I'll do what needs to be done to set Dillon up. I'll quit and come home to you. I'll still make a fuck-load of money and I'll invent something else bigger, better.”

She closed her eyes because she'd seen his truth. He would give it up for her. He would walk away if she asked him to. But he was so close, so close, and she couldn't be the one thing that stopped him making this whole dream come true. There was no something else as alive, as vital for him. And second shots like this just didn't come along.

“No.” She made the word sound like a stone, sharp and heavy enough to sink them.

He let go of her abruptly. “What the fuck do you want me to do?” Anger flared but he reined it in as quickly as it saturated his face in hard lines. “You're coming with me or I'm coming back as soon as I can.”

Go. She had to let him go. She placed her hand over his heart; it was pumping fast, like the meter on the taxi, like the end of their time together. “I want you to build your dream and I'll build mine.”

The eyebrow lifted, stayed arched above his incredulous eye. “Perfect.”

“I've been offered a new job.”

“What?” He leaned into her. “When?” He stepped back, his hands going to his head as her words connected. “Fuck, when were you going to tell me?”

She watched him put this together. One, two, three racing breaths. He might hate her for this. She might come to hate herself for it.

“You fucking weren't going to tell me. You were going to let me walk out that door and make whatever the fuck decision you want, then drop it on me when I'm halfway around the world. Shit. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Nothing, it's not about you.”

He looked at his watch, shook his head. He pulled his bag off the bed with a savage yank and too much force. It thumped to the floor and bounced. “So you'll start the new job and I'll come back and—”

“We're over.” The last gift she could give him was his freedom. She needed to make sure he blamed her. That he'd cut clear and not look back.

He shoved the case out of the way, advancing on her. “You're fucking ending us.” He snapped his fingers in her face and she started. “Like that.”

They were both breathing heavily. His shoulders were up, the tendons in his neck taut, but there was no violence in him, she had nothing to fear except existing without him. She'd hijacked him when he was a distraction she craved. He'd had a choice then. She was doing it again when he had too many constraints to fight his way through.

“It's time.”

“You're doing this now when I'm about to... Fuck.” His hands went to his head again. ”Give me a week. I'll come back we'll work this out.”

“No.” She swallowed around her panic, assumed authority lending her voice stability. They were different people now. He was about to realise his ambition. She was about to reclaim the part of her life she'd lost. “You'd destroy your dream for something that doesn't exist anymore.”

He processed that between one heartbeat and the next. It played over his features like damage. “You're saying you don't love me.”

Oh God.
She was about to lose the one part of her life she needed to be whole.

“Cinta, say it.” He wanted to shake her. She could see it in him, the need to hurt her like she was hurting him, but he walked away, put half a room between them. “I need your words.”

Oh God.
She couldn't send that lie into the world, but she couldn't leave him doubting. “I won't be here when you get back.”

His eyes shuttered. His fist clenched. His beautiful face turned to hardened steel. She could take it back. She could stop this. She could tell him she loved him, she'd wait for him, or forget the new job and go with him, they'd work it out somehow.

Except she loved him, so she had to let him go.

He pulled up the handle of his bag and wheeled it out of the room. She followed. His taxi would be waiting. In the kitchen, he shouldered his hand luggage. He took his passport off the table and slipped it in his coat pocket. He might still fight her. He was tenacious. He never gave up.

She willed him to fight so she could give in.

“Do whatever you want with the furniture, the car. Give the lot to charity. I don't care.”

She gasped. She'd succeeded. He was going because she'd sent him away, and he wasn't coming back because she'd scorched the earth behind him. He opened the door. He didn't look at her. He stepped outside and it swung closed behind him.

And she wanted to take it all back, every word, every avoided glance, every confused gesture. Run screaming into the stairwell and tell him she'd lied, that she loved him, would risk her career, her heart and her sanity for him.

She staggered to the table and sat, too numb to know how to feel, her head dropping onto her folded arms, but she heard the door, his key in the lock, she sat upright. The door opened and he stepped inside, striding towards her.

She stood, he'd come back for her. She said it without thinking he'd give any other answer, hope putting light in her voice. “What did you forget?”

His eyes flicked to her then away. “Nothing.” He tossed the keys he wouldn't need again on the table's warm, worn surface and he went out again.

Everything lost colour, lost shape, lost meaning.

It was three days before she got out of bed, showered, ate, dressed. Another two before Jay came to see her, and she felt strong enough to leave the loft, go outside in the sunshine and start her life over.

Mace leaned across the table and knocked Dillon's shoulder roughly with his fist, after trying to get his attention by less subtle means. The music was loud and the punky blonde with the pierced tongue sitting in Dillon's lap was pretty much all Dillon could see.

Dillon looked around her. “What?”

“I'm out.”

“Ah, you can't go yet, it's early.”

It was 1am. Mace was knackered, unsure how he'd managed to stay awake this long, and this was the first weekend he'd had off for—who knew how many days, weeks straight they'd worked, it was pages and pages of a project Gantt chart. There'd been a season change, so it was a long time. But they were done with the set-up phase. Monday they were officially fully operational. He had a weekend to sleep and that's what he planned to do with it. Hit the sack, make like a coma.

“One more drink, dude.”

He'd had one drink to Dillon's three. Dillon was wasted. He was a cheap drunk on adrenaline and long-term sleep deprivation. And Punky would work out any minute he was going to be a dead lay as well. Except they were in some trendy private San Jose club called Flip, where you had to be a 3.0 billionaire or beautiful like Punky to get in, so she might overlook the fact Dillon was a slurring drunk if she thought he was loaded in another way.

“We're going to get our own membership here,” Dillon told Punky. They'd coasted in on Jay's nod to celebrate another milestone, but he'd gone hours ago. Mace watched Punky's face to see if Dillon had just shot his own dick off.

“Babe, you can come in on mine any time you like,” she said.

Jesus
. Mace signalled a waitress, because that deserved another drink.

“What do you do?” Dillon asked.

She made pistols of her hands and pointed them at him. ”I write game software.”

Dillon patted her spiky hair. “I'm keeping you.”

“Until you get your payday you might have to, ‘cause baby, no one gets in here if they're not, you know.” She shrugged.

They weren't, but they would be soon. Mace had to get used to that. Odd how the knowledge still ambushed him.

“I knew who you guys were the minute you walked in.”

No way she could. They were banned from talking to the media or analysts until Monday. They'd kept a low profile. No time for any other kind.

Dillon didn't buy that either. “Oh yeah.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not because you're that cool. You're the guys behind Ipseity. You're hot. Everyone in this place knows who you are.”

He looked at Dillon and they both did impersonations of carp, mouths dropped open. There were famous faces in this room and they were imposters. Jay had warned them it was going to get extreme in a different way when the money started to flow, but the true money didn't happen till the next capital raising closed and that was another month off, and the truly big time—a stock exchange listing—that was years off, if ever.

Mace had a how did I get here moment while the waitress put their drinks down. They'd been so busy since they arrived it'd been all about the work. He'd not seen anything other than the glass walls of the new office, the shuttered windows of his apartment, the screens at the gym and the blurry scenery out the window of the car he drove everyday from home to the office.

San Francisco was thirty minutes away. He looked down the neck of his beer. Apart from the airport he'd never been there, but now he was sitting in a private club where the price of entry was tech stardom, drinking on the company tab. They were a long way from Buster's kitchen table, a table he should've kept for sentimental reasons; it was where Ipseity was born.

“Disneyland,” said Dillon.

God, no.
Did he mean go there? At least he hadn't said Vegas. He looked up. Punky had slipped away. Dillon was watching him.

“Dude, it's like being in Disneyland.”

Maybe Dillon wasn't as drunk as he'd thought. Yeah, that's what it was like, this club, these people, this town, the whole notion the two of them came up with an idea then built it and now they were on the cusp of becoming seriously fuck off rich.

“Gotta be enough,” Dillon said. More than either of their tiny minds truly could've imagined. “To wildest dreams.” He held out his bottle.

Mace clinked it with his and they both drank. They were going to make it, so why did he feel ground down, dissatisfied? He needed a kick to the head to adjust his attitude.

“Fuck this, we're supposed to be happy.”

Mace put his hands up surrender style. “I'm happy. Not a thing to bitch about.”

Dillon laughed. “Fuck off.”

He shrugged. “We're beyond exhausted. No wonder we're weirded out.”

Dillon's eyes were on Punky, halfway across the room, on her bright hair and tight arse. “I liked her.” He looked back at Mace. “You should never have let her go, dude.”

“I didn't let her go. She ended it.” They'd had this discussion a dozen times. Never willingly on Mace's part. “She moved on. Got her life back. I didn't fit. Why are we talking about this?”

Dillon gestured at Punky, a stupid little boy lost look on his face.

Mace laughed. “You can't fall in love with every chick you buy a drink for.”

“No, just the good ones. She was a good one.”

Did he mean Punky, who he'd known for long enough to exchanged spit, but not names, or was he still talking about Cinta?

“We have to fall in love with someone.”

“Why?” He made a similar gesture to Dillon's to encompass the room. “Big freaking pond, a lot of willing fish. Not a lot of time.”

“Not a lot of time,” Dillon repeated, looking into the bottom of his empty bottle. “But too much to be alone.”

All right. This maudlin crap was over. He was done. “We're going home.” He shoved Dillon till he stood, then walked him to the entrance. “Sleep for two days and we start the crazy again Monday.”

The cab driver had the radio on. Despite the cackle, Dillon closed his eyes and was asleep before they left the club's drive. Mace listened to the newsbreak. Yesterday there'd been a shooting in a shopping centre in Cincinnati, eleven people killed. This morning a large fire burned in Texas, threatening homes and businesses. A manufacturer had been charged for poisoning the ground water of a small town in Nevada where birth defects were common, and there was a tornado warning for Oklahoma.

One bad news story after another. That's what news was anyway, but he didn't want to hear it now. He sat forward and spoke to the driver. “You mind turning that off?”

“Sure, honey.”

“Thanks.”

“The world can be a scary place, right?” she said. “But we never think anything bad is going to happen to us. And when it happens to you, well, then you wonder how you never noticed it all before.”

They rode the next ten minutes in silence, except for Dillon's snores. They dropped him off, and too done in to walk the couple of blocks between their apartments, Mace kept the cab.

Outside his building he paid the driver and she smiled. “You look tired. Get some sleep, honey, and tomorrow you hug the ones you love, because you never know what might happen.”