Nerd Girl(92)

I giggled at his smugness. “You sound pretty confident.”

Ryan ordered a couple of pounds of clams, a cooked Dungeness crab, and a baguette of the rustic bread. He also grabbed a head of garlic and some parsley before we headed back to the boat. It looked like a lot of food for just the two of us.

The kitchen showcased all stainless steel appliances and granite countertops and looked nicer than my own kitchen at home. It was fully stocked with dishes, cutlery, utensils, spices, condiments, and wine. As a prerequisite to cooking our dinner, Ryan opened a bottle of chilled chardonnay.

He poured a glass and held it out to me. “Here’s to you and me,” he said simply and we clinked our glasses together.

I was in charge of preparing the salad. As I chopped cucumbers and washed cherry tomatoes, he started on the clams. I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, watching his biceps flex, admiring the confidence he seemed to have in the kitchen. He mixed some of the chardonnay, butter, and garlic together to make the stock for the clams. It smelled delicious.

“You’re very comfortable in the kitchen, aren’t you?” I observed with a smile.

He looked up and grinned mischievously, raising his eyebrows up and down. “Yes, I am.”

I laughed at his mocked confidence. To enhance our good mood, I walked over to the iPod perched on the portable speakers. I sifted through his artist list and selected the soulful sounds of Adele. We were relaxed and flirtatious as we moved through the small kitchen. I intentionally brushed my ass in front of him as I walked by; he gave me a light kiss on the back of my neck and made a playful growling sound.

As we waited for the clams to steam, I started slicing the bread. We were cooking and listening to the music in comfortable silence, so I was surprised when he asked me a pointed question. “How’s the job search going?”

“It’s going,” I said with a wry smile and then rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to let on how sensitive of a subject this was to me.

“That great, huh?” He eyed me with curiosity and some concern.

I twisted my lip up to one side. “I’m stressing over what to tell a potential manager why I’m changing jobs a month after I started a new one. They’re bound to ask.” I gave him a knowing look. “Wouldn’t you?”

Ryan’s eyebrows furrowed. “This is all my fault,” he said, shaking his head. His lips were pressed into a thin line, as if he was reprimanding himself.

“No,” I said firmly. “It’s not. It’s just the situation. Neither of us could ever have predicted this. You know that. I thank my stars that I got this job because then I wouldn’t have ever met you. It’s just, well, now I have to deal with the consequences.” I thought of Catherine and his family. “And you have your own consequences to deal with.”

“I want to help you as much as I can, wherever I can,” he said with determination.

“You already did. I’m not fired, right?”

Ryan looked even more upset now. I was attempting to be jokingly sarcastic, but apparently it didn’t come out that way.

“I’ll figure it out,” I said with soft reassurance. “I always do.”

“Is marketing what you’ve always wanted to do?” Ryan suddenly sounded more business-like and serious. I could tell he was moving into his focused, professional executive mode. It must be his managerial skills naturally taking over.

“Not necessarily. The more exposure I got to it, the more I found myself enjoying the dynamic nature of it.” I shrugged. “It looked more fun to me than IT projects.”

“Do you see yourself at MS long term?”

I could see the wheels turning in his mind. “Is this an interview?” I asked dryly.

“No, it’s not,” he said somewhat curtly; he wasn’t going to humor me. “I just feel responsible and I want to make it better for you.”

My heart contracted. He really did feel guilty about all of this and wanted to fix things. I was learning quickly, that wanting to fix things was one of Ryan’s best and ironically, also one of his worst qualities. The spirit of what he was trying to do was touching, but sometimes things just weren’t so easy to fix.

I sighed and then confessed something I hadn’t yet shared with him, with anyone, for that matter. “Actually, that’s something I’ve been thinking more and more about lately. I know this guy who was a mediocre PM and left voluntarily a few years back. This was a couple of years before the big recession hit. He immediately came back as an independent contractor because he would be able to make more money this way. Or at least back then, that was the case. He eventually found a few other friends that wanted to do the same thing and they subcontracted through him. Now he has a full-fledged consulting company with a hundred plus people. I’ve observed the growth of his business over the last few years and I wondered to myself, why couldn’t I do that? I’m good with people, I know I’m smarter than he is, I have a great network of contacts at MS, and I’m definitely a stronger performer by MS standards than he was.”