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“Tanis is really happy about the posters,” Shireese said
quietly.

“Thanks.”

Several long seconds passed, the two friends watching each
other warily.

“You okay?” Shireese asked. “You were gone a while.”

“Went for a walk.”

Shireese nodded.

Indigo glanced at the empty dish rack, and then at the
table, and finally to Shireese, waiting. She didn’t know
why
her friend
put up with her, but she did. And then it struck her that maybe Shireese liked
fucked up people too.

“I’ve um, I’ve got class in the morning,” Indigo muttered,
heading across the room, not holding Shireese’ eye. “I should get some sleep.”

“Night then,” Shireese replied.

Indigo didn’t answer.

Jude stared at the thick wad of bills tucked into the
envelope, eyes widening.

“This is AWESOME!”

The chair rocked back as Marq put his hands over his head,
stretching.

“Don’t say I never got you nothing,” he quipped.

Heart pounding, Jude counted though the cash. The payout was
twice what he’d been expecting; Marq’s car abruptly made sense. The money in
his hand was nearly two month’s pay in the tech dungeon, all at once, all his
to spend as he pleased. No taxes or benefits payments to deal with at all.

“I started putting together the rough plan for programming
the Trojan,” Marq said. “Shouldn’t be too hard to create. Skyped with
Cyber!Stalk and DemonDark about the possible—”

“Thought this was a two-man deal,” Jude interrupted.

“It is, it is. I just gotta do a little footwork, to make
sure it gets done, and done right. These guys who hired me,” His smile wavered.
“They um, they don’t do screw ups, Jude.”

“It’ll be fine,” Jude said, tucking the money into his
pocket. “Give you n’ me a couple days and we’ll have it working.”

“That’d be good,” Marq said, “’cause if we can get the
Trojan done fast, Luca says he’s got another job. Payout’s twice as big… could
lead to other stuff too.”

 “You serious?” Jude gasped. With that kind of cash he
could quit this place. Start up his own company. Make his own way. “A Trojan’s
nothing, Marq!” he said excitedly. “We could have it done by Friday if we both
called in sick.”

“Yeah, and Lissa would
never
suspect,” Marq coughed.

Jude shrugged.

“I’ll use a vacation day then. I’ve got a bunch.”

Marq watched him, eyes narrowed, as if measuring against
some scale Jude hadn’t considered.

“If you’re serious about this… If you want to do the other
job, I can give ‘em a call today.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know if you’d want
to, man. Thought maybe this’d be it for you.”

“Screw you!” Jude laughed, punching Marq in the arm. “You
knew
I’d want in! Just wanted to keep it to yourself.”

Marq gave a weak smile. “I’ll tell Luca you want in. If we
take off Thursday and get the Trojan done, we can start a new project this
weekend. Someone will give you a call about it. Not sure when.”

“Call me?” Jude repeated.

“Yeah, you know, to get you in the loop.”

“Why not just talk about it at the tech office, like we do
now?”

“With the bigger stuff, they’ll want to meet you face to
face,” Marq replied. He was no longer holding Jude’s eyes.

“But
why?”

“Luca’s boss just likes to talk to people in person,” he
said carefully. “It’s how he does things.”

Marq was suddenly engrossed in everything else around him,
pushing the memos around the desk, brushing off the keys of his laptop,
flicking lint off his pants. Jude opened his mouth to ask him what was wrong,
but then closed it again. A job like this would change things for him. And he
was smart. He’d been burned once already.

Marq turned, as if hearing his thoughts.

“Seriously, man, are you good with this? ‘Cause you don’t
have to get involved. I never even told ‘em who helped me.”

“Yeah, I want in,” Jude said with a grin. “It’s a great
deal. Besides, we’re a good team, right?”

Marq nodded.

“Yeah, we are.”

: : :
: : : : : : :

Jude sat across from Indigo, staring at her mouth as she
sipped her wine. When he’d made the reservations here, he’d been hoping to
impress her, but he’d been completely unprepared for the woman he’d picked up
at her apartment today. She
fit
this place. Compared to her, Jude, in
his khakis, white shirt and sloppy tie, was the one who seemed out of place.

He’d never seen or imagined her looking like this. Indigo
was transformed into some night-time creature, unreal and unattainable. Her
eyelids were sooty black shadows, lips lacquered like a china doll. She wore a
narrow black sheath that sparkled in the light, her purse a tiny clutch that
matched blood-red fingernails. Even her hair had taken on an otherworldly
beauty. Always straight, it was now smoothed to a sheen, candlelight dancing
along the strands like glass.

She looked, he decided, like someone out of a movie.

Dinner had been filled with small talk, as Jude tried to get
used to this new facet of Indigo Sykes. She was quieter here, more aloof as she
spoke to the waiter, leaving Jude feeling like he was playing a part and she
was the real thing. When she ordered, she chatted to the waiter about the
selection of wines, finally choosing one based on the notes he’d described.

“I didn’t know you knew so much about wine,” Jude laughed.

Her face became a mask, the cool smile hiding whatever was
behind it.

“Used to go to a lot of parties,” she said archly. “Had to
learn to talk the talk.”

“What kind of parties?”

“Just parties,” she replied, then excused herself to go to
the ladies’ room, ending the conversation.

While they ate, they talked about the university and New Media,
and what she hoped to do once she graduated. When Indigo asked about Jude’s
plans beyond working in tech support, he laughed it off with a comment about
“being an entrepreneur”. With the Trojan project nearing completion, that was
about as close as Jude wanted to get to the truth.

Once the dessert plates were whisked away and the bill
received, the two of them were left with drinks and nothing else. Jude stuck to
coffee, but Indigo had another glass of wine. She grew quiet, her eyes on the
white tablecloth, expression tight.

“What’re you thinking about?” Jude asked.

Her gaze flicked up, and she hid her expression under a
false smile. The veneer was unnerving. It reminded him of an old movie he’d
once seen, where the character’s actions were a little
too
exaggerated,
swinging in extremes from scene to scene.

“Oh, just the film project,” she said. “That one that was
giving me trouble exporting.”

“You still having troubles with the cache files?”

“No,” she said. “Exporting the videos is coming along fine.”

She didn’t explain.

“So what’s the problem then?”

Indigo turned to stare angrily out at the restaurant.
Suddenly she wasn’t the actress anymore – beautiful and inaccessible – but the
turbulent woman he’d met in the club last spring. The woman he couldn’t stop
thinking about, no matter what.

“Indigo?”

She shook her head and Jude slid his chair closer, until he
was at her side, rather than sitting across from her.

“What did I say wrong?”

He reached out, touching her arm but she jerked like she’d
been burned. She was breathing fast, her eyes glittering.

“What’s going on?” Jude asked.

“It’s an autobiography,” she answered sharply. “A film about
ourselves. But I don’t
have
any pictures from when I was a kid!”

Jude waited for her to continue. She didn’t.

“No pictures at all?”

“Nope. No pictures, no videos.
Nothing!”
She spat the
last word out like something distasteful.

The obvious question of
why
was on his tongue, but he
didn’t put it into words. Indigo glowered, her face lean and irritable. She looked
ready to bolt.

“So why don’t you get something else?” he suggested. “Do it
like a documentary but from the point of view of the present.”

Her lips pursed, untrusting.

“What do you mean?”

Jude leaned nearer, his fingers dropping down on top of hers,
half expecting her to pull away, but this time, for a reason he couldn’t guess,
she stayed still.

“Make it like any old documentary you’d see about past
events,” he explained. “Use a voiceover and stuff. You’ll need to find some old
photos of the area where you grew up. I could come along with you and help you
get some updated footage if you’d like. We could film your house and stuff. I
know a bit about computers,” he added with a chuckle. “I could help you search
for pictures from the archives.”

Indigo leaned in, her hand flipping underneath his fingers
so that they were now palm to palm. She was still pale, but her voice had
changed. Grown softer.

“Why would you do that for me?”

The pad of Jude’s thumb stroked over the side of her hand,
his breath catching.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Indigo stared down at their hands on the table. She began to
worry her bottom lip with her teeth, marring the gloss. Jude tightened his
fingers around hers, leaning in so his mouth was against her ear.

“You don’t let people get close to you,” he whispered. “Do
you?”

She turned, sudden anger brightening her eyes like bits of
glass on a dark street.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

Jude expected her to pull away at that point, but instead
her free hand dropped to his knee, sliding up his thigh to his lap. Behind the
screen of the tablecloth, her fingers moved higher. He made a choking noise as
she reached his lap. Jude reached down, catching hold of her fingers.

“We should get going,” he gasped.

“Not enjoying this enough?” Indigo drawled.

She wriggled from his grasp, a single finger sliding along
the inner seam of his trousers, and Jude bit his tongue to keep from moaning.
He caught hold of her wrist again, fingers tightening.

“I’m liking it just fine,” he ground out, “but I’d rather
have some privacy, if that’s okay with you.”

Indigo laughed loudly, tipping her head back and swirling
her hair around her shoulders.

“Suit yourself,” she said with a coy smile, pulling her hand
away and picking up her clutch. She lifted the pashmina from where she’d folded
it over the chair, looping it around her shoulders. Jude waited for a few
seconds, breathing slowly to calm down, before standing to join her. He tucked
two hundred dollar bills into the folder with the receipt, leaving it on the
table.

Crossing the room, Indigo fell back into the role of the
distractingly beautiful woman again. She moved her body with a rolling grace
that spoke of shadowed bedrooms and expensive lingerie, things that others
dreamed of but she knew. Eyes lifted as they passed, and Jude felt his chest
swell in satisfaction. He stepped closer, resting his hand on her lower back.
He liked being seen with her. And he knew tonight wasn’t over.

They’d almost made it to the door when Jude’s phone rang. He
pulled it from his pocket, face falling.

Unknown name, unknown number.

This was the call Marq had told him to wait for.

“Indigo, just a sec’,” Jude said, stopping just inside in
the quiet entrance. “I’ve got to take this call.”

She peeked down at the phone just as it buzzed again.

“Want me to wait?”

“Just grab a cab, if you don’t mind,” Jude said. “I’ll be
out in a minute to join you.”

: : :
: : : : : : :

Indigo was humming as she strode to the edge of the
sidewalk, her eyes on the steady stream of traffic. The air was cold, the first
hint of snow coming down in individual flakes that melted into damp spots on
the sidewalk, marring the windshield of parked cars with dots. Shivering,
Indigo turned one direction, searching the street for cabs. She turned back the
other way, and her breath caught in her throat.

There was a man in a trench coat and suit walking toward
her, a burgundy scarf around his neck. His face rippled in shock as he saw her.

“Indigo?”

She took a shaking breath, waiting as Callum Woodrow strode forward.
He had a briefcase in one hand, keys in the other. He was smiling, brown eyes
twinkling, but his hair surprised her. Sometime in the last months he’d cut it
short. The shape of it made him seem younger than he’d been last year. As if
time had run backward instead of forward since they’d parted.

He paused a few feet away, grinning.

“God, it
is
you, Indigo,” he breathed. “I wasn’t
sure. It’s got to be, what? Five months? Six?”

“Yeah,” she replied, forcing a smile. “Something like that.”

It was seven, but she didn’t say. She was intent on keeping
the façade of control tightly in place. She was playing two roles now: the
pretty club girl
and
the pulled-together ex. If Jude walked out, she
didn’t know how she was going to keep herself going. She already had too many
balls in the air.

“It’s great to see you again,” Cal said warmly. His eyes
moved down her body and back up to her face.

“Yeah, you too.”

“You look great,” he added. “Looks like life’s treating you
well.”

“Life’s alright,” she said, then forced herself to hold his
eyes. Bravery, she’d learned, wasn’t an innate strength, just the willingness
to face the fire and not care that it burned you alive. She smiled coyly, her
voice lifting. “How’s your wife?”

He dropped his chin bashfully.

“Um, yeah,” he said, lifting his gaze back up, smile
growing. “Have to admit I don’t know.” He paused for a single heartbeat, and
Indigo felt the world grow colder. “Fiona and I broke up this summer.”