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He shrugged and gave me a cocky half-smile. “You’re not a developer. You’re a statistician. You need to team up if you’re going to sell this, Holland.”
A shock of unbidden pleasure ran through me as he said my name. How did he know I was a statistician? I ran back through our conversations. Had I told him that? “Are we really having this conversation?” I asked, myself as much as him.
“I told you, I can help you.”
I closed the screen and sighed, turning to face him, finally giving him my full attention. “Okay, Hale. What’s your angle?” I’d purposely avoided teaming with anyone in development because most of those guys were linked directly to the guys in my department. I needed to find out if I could really trust this guy.
Hale dropped the cocky smile, and for a split second before he began speaking, he looked sad. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
“I can see why you don’t work in sales.” I wanted to turn back to my screen, keep beating my head against this problem until it was solved, but I couldn’t. I was held by the sadness on Hale’s face, as much as by the sheer magnetism radiating from his broad body as he sat just inches from me.
He chuckled, his eyes holding mine. “I guess I just don’t like to see people struggle.”
I put my elbows on the table in front of me and dropped my head into my hands. Showing this stranger the details of what I was working on could be risky. I still didn’t know exactly how he was connected to the company, but if he was a former developer, he probably could help. Lord knew I needed it. “Okay,” I whispered, the rational voice inside me screaming arguments at the exhausted part that thought maybe it’d be nice to let someone else in for a change.
“Holland,” he said, pulling my gaze back to his. His dark eyes shimmered beneath the lights of the coffeehouse, and I caught flecks of green and gold in the deep rich brown. They were eyes a girl could get lost in. I squeezed my own eyes shut. I didn’t have time to get lost. I just needed help. “Holland,” he said again, and I opened one eye. A smile—a genuine one—spread across the full lips, exposing straight white teeth. I noticed that the front right tooth was chipped in the corner, lending just the right amount of character to an otherwise perfect smile. “You can trust me.”
Under normal circumstances, having a stranger in a coffee shop—one who smelled like he’d touched his pulse points with whiskey—tell me I could trust him wouldn’t carry much weight with me. But I was tired, drained, and feeling a little weepy after Carl and Delia had highlighted how far I was from ever getting to plan item two or three. And part of me wanted to trust this man. It was the pain in his eyes that compelled me.
“Prove it.”
He smiled, that sadness gleaming in the dark eyes again. “Ask Sam.” He nodded toward the barista.
“Okay,” I said, scooting away and carrying my laptop to the counter where Sam was staring intently down at his phone. “Hey,” I whispered, nodding toward the far end of the counter where Hale wouldn’t be able to overhear us.
Sam smiled at me, a question in his eyes as he followed along, waiting for me to explain.
“That guy over there,” I started. “Clearly you know him.”
“Hale?” Sam nodded. “Yeah, I know him.” The words were clear enough. Why did I feel like there were other things he wasn’t saying?
I forged on. “And would you say he’s trustworthy?”
Sam actually laughed, exhaling a single noisy breath before nodding. “Yeah, I’d say so. You don’t need to worry about Hale. He’s definitely been through some shit lately, but he’s a good guy. Heart-of-gold type.” As he said this he nodded at me, as if I’d somehow understand what he was getting at, which I didn’t exactly, but I found myself nodding along.
There was something there Sam wasn’t telling me, but I was too tired to play detective. He sounded absolutely sure. And Sam had been here as long as I had. I trusted him. And if he trusted Hale? I guessed I did, too.
“Fine,” I said, sitting back down. I met Hale’s dark eyes. “You can help.”
He cocked his head to the side with a grin. “I would have expected something more like a thanks.”
“If this were a perfect world, you’d certainly get one,” I said, parroting his arrogant words from the first time we’d met.
A wry smile crossed his full lips.
“I’ll save the gratitude for afterward,” I added. I turned the screen to face us both and watched his eyes as he scanned the amateur schematic I’d been working on.
“The design needs modification,” he said, glancing at me. “This isn’t terrible, though. What can I look at to see the application? What stats are you planning to pull?”
I pulled up the sales presentation I’d been working on, demonstrating how measuring the movement of the throwing arm, rather than the ball, could have training applications as well as provide game statistics that could be useful for assessing player performance and for bookmakers looking to set up bets. Hale scanned through my slides, a slow smile taking his lips again. After a minute, he sat back, crossed his arms and looked at me. “Why are you in sales?”
“The only job I could get here,” I told him honestly. I was too tired to evade his questions anymore. Besides, it felt good to have someone to talk to about work. I didn’t have any allies in my own department, that was for sure. “Cody Tech isn’t exactly known for its gender-equal hiring practices.”
Hale’s eyes narrowed at me, and he cocked his head slightly to one side. “What do you mean?”
“When I came out of grad school, I was second in my class. This was the only place I wanted to work. I wanted to do stuff like this.” I pointed to my screen, held up the sheaf of notes where I’d worked out the complex algorithms converting data into numbers that could be compared, analyzed, applied. “This is what I’m good at. But the three statistician positions, as it turned out, had already been promised. To men. One of whom came out of my program at the very bottom.”
Hale’s hands had clenched on the tabletop and his spine had straightened. He looked furious. Was he really that angry on my behalf? “How?” he asked, biting out the word.
