Deciding the time had come for my peace offering, I went to reach into my bag. "Here, I brought-"
"You look great," Matt said. But it was like an accusation, effectively stunning me.
I looked to him, finding his eyebrows pinched in a frown, his jaw ticking, his glare moving down and then up my body. "Where are you going? Why are you dressed like this? Do you have a date?"
"No," I responded irritably. "I'm dressed like this because it's almost summer and it's gorgeous outside."
A non-committal sound rumbled from his chest and his eyes narrowed. "Have you been dating?"
An incredulous and involuntary laugh escaped my throat. I decided to ignore his question. He was probably just trying to get a rise out of me. I didn't have time for his antics.
Disentangling my arm from his grip, I reached into my bag and pulled out the macaroons, holding them between us. "Here. These are for you."
He glanced at the white bakery box, his frown even more severe than before. He didn't take the box. "What's in there?"
The look of suspicion made me smile in spite of myself. "Cookies."
"Where'd you get them?"
"I made them."
His expression cleared and he snatched the box from my hands. "You did? What kind?"
"Macaroons."
"Coconut!" He'd ripped open the box with impressive speed, his eyes widening with what looked like elation. "Come to me," he said reverently to the cookies.
"I hate coconut," Derek said conversationally, coming to stand next to me.
"She didn't bring them for you, did she?" Matt said, his head doing an unexpected, sassy bobbing movement.
I rolled my lips between my teeth, breathing through my nose while my eyes bounced between the two men.
"Maybe she will, next time." Derek grinned at me. "I like chocolate."
Matt's eyes cut to mine. "Are you making a mental note? You look like you're making a mental note. Don't. Don't make a mental note. Don't bring him cookies."
"Gentlemen." I pasted on my best professional smile. "I will be happy to bring cookies, to you both, but first I need to see what you've been working on."
"Fine." Matt slid an exasperated glance at his colleague, and then turned, marching into his office. "Let me show you. Come. Sit."
I followed, placing my bag on the floor by the door, glancing around his office as I did so. It wasn't large, but it wasn't small either. A window overlooking a green area spanned the length of one wall. His desk was covered in printed data tables, papers with handwritten notes, and random machine parts. Upon closer inspection, the notes looked like code.
Along the back wall, he had a large corkboard with a poster of what looked like-at first glance-a human brain. I stepped closer to study it and realized it wasn't human at all.
"Uh," he stepped around me, removing the schematic from the board. "That's not-that's off limits."
"What is it?" I peered between him and the poster he was rolling.
"It's something I'm working on for my old employer."
"Gamble?" I guessed, remembering Fiona mentioning his work there.
He nodded absentmindedly.
Gamble was an interesting hybrid company, with its hands in both pharmaceutical and tech. Medical devices that interacted directly with the human brain were their specialty and I remembered reading an article on early clinical trials for robotic implants for ears and eyes.
Based in Palo Alto, CA, Gamble had been leveraging their proximity to the tech giants in order to form partnerships in areas of shared interests-like bioprosthetics-therefore leveraging computing power.
"Okay, let's get started." Matt guided me to a chair in front of a wall of monitors.
And by a wall of monitors, I really and truly meant a wall of monitors. He had nine flat-screen computer monitors mounted to the wall, seven of which displayed what I assumed was code being compiled on some background process.
He sat next to me, his jean-clad thigh brushing my bare skin. He leaned close to point to a graph of some sort on one of the two closest monitors-basically a bunch of dots-on the screen.
"When do I get to see your prototypes?"
"You mean the AI?"
"That's right."
He frowned. "Not this time. What I have to show you won't make sense, not for your purposes."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I can show you code, I can show you our design for the neural networks, but you can't interact with it in any meaningful way."
"Oh." I cast him a suspicious glance. "You're not trying to get out of our deal, are you?"
He gave me a small smile and shook his head. "Nope. I want your questionnaire data, and this is the only way I can get it."