He took a sip of his beer. “Mmm-hmm. Much to my family’s horror. My mom’s a medical researcher, Dad’s a dentist, and my twin brother has a PhD in robotics. The artistic ADHD kid was so not in their wheelhouse. They had no idea what to do with me. And I had no idea how to deal with them.”
She frowned. “That must’ve been tough.”
The easy smile that had been on his face sagged a little and his gaze drifted to some spot behind her. “Yeah, well, what are the teen years without a little drama, right?”
“True enough,” she said, though she sensed she’d somehow hit a nerve.
“So”—he turned back to her and grabbed another taco—“tell me about your first big hack. I know you couldn’t have started as a white hat. You had to play first. Test things out.”
The question caught her off guard and she set down her food. Her first big hack? Her stomach turned. “Discussing illegal activity with my new client would not be very smart. And I’m very smart.”
He grinned. “Come on. I won’t tell. We’re after hours. And believe me, when I was younger, I did my fair share of things that I could be arrested for. You tell me one of yours. I’ll tell you one of mine.”
The waiter stopped by and asked if they needed anything else. Cora told him they’d take the check. Maybe she could distract Ren from this line of questioning. “Wow, it’s getting late.”
Ren’s mouth tilted up, lips that were made for mischief. “Oh, no you don’t. Now I really need to hear this story. Come on, did you break into the government or something?”
She sighed and set down her beer. “I wish it were something as cool as that. But no, it was just petty revenge. There was a guy in college who I hooked up with at a party after too much cheap liquor and a lot of bad decision making. The next morning without my knowledge, he took an unflattering picture of me and made a meme that went viral on campus.”
Ren grimaced. “Classy guy.”
“Yeah.”
“And you made him pay for that, I hope?”
“I’d been messing around with minor hacks for a while, was part of a little underground club and stuff. Nothing major. But when that happened, I was so . . .” Mortified. Embarrassed. “Pissed. I broke into the guy’s social media accounts and posted some updates on his behalf.”
Ren leaned forward onto his elbows, eyes lit with interest. “Okay, now I need to know what these updates were.”
She shook her head. “Uh-uh. I’ve said enough.”
To prove her point, she shoved a tortilla chip in her mouth and chewed, pointing to her mouth. See, no more talking.
“Come on,” he goaded. “Don’t leave me hanging. Was it that he likes to pick his nose or he secretly loves Justin Bieber?”
She coughed, almost choking on her chip, and she could feel the mild buzz of the beer messing with her resistance. He looked so eager to know, so openly entertained. That type of attention was its own kind of buzz. She lifted a shoulder and swallowed her bite of food. “It was nothing, really. But I’m sure his friends and family were fascinated by all his deep admissions about how he humps his childhood Care Bear to get off and t
hen cries about it. I may have also posted a photo of said Care Bear—who really was looking a little abused.”
A loud laugh escaped Ren, one that rang through the restaurant. “Amazing. Mental note: Don’t piss you off.”
She lifted her almost empty beer and pointed the neck at him. “Wise advice. A woman scorned is dangerous. Scorn a woman with hacking skills and that’s your ass.”
“No kidding.” He grabbed the check from the waiter and tucked his credit card inside. The guy was back in a minute and they finished up the last of their drinks. “Ready to get out of here?”
No. Yes. Maybe. “Sure.”
Ren stood and pulled out her chair. When she got up, his hand easily rested on her lower back again to lead her out. So much of this had felt like a date, but she had to keep reminding herself that a) he’d said nothing of the sort, b) he seemed to be friendly to everyone, and c) he was not like this with the women he slept with. He was a dominant. She’d seen that side. This was nice-guy Ren. She’d misread the last guy she was with. She certainly wasn’t going to read more into this one than she should.
They stepped outside and turned down the street that would lead them back to the parking lot outside of FoxRen.
For a while they were quiet, and Ren’s hand slipped away from her as they walked along the row of darkened storefronts. Just two co-workers sharing the sidewalk. “So what was the meme? He must’ve really did you wrong to get Care-Beared.”
She flinched at that. “Not important.”
They reached the spot where her car was parked and he turned to her, concern in his eyes. “That bad?”
She looked away and her jaw flexed. “It was called Beer Goggles: You think you went home with this but woke up to this. I was, of course, the After picture.”