My team. A silent scream inside him burst that bubble of pressure that was making him hold his breath in and just stew in his own frustration. He whipped around on the sidewalk, and she abruptly stopped right behind him, a few nose distances away. “Why on earth would I work on your team? A team that was supposed to be mine.”
She pointed at the bar that was next to the office building. “Let’s go here. They make a great manhattan. I’ll tell you why.”
Something in him softened with the word manhattan. Like it wasn’t just his favorite cocktail but some magical beverage from a faraway land that could ease his worries. At least if she stole his job, he could get a drink out of her, right?
“I can tell you want one. Come on.” She hooked her hand around his elbow as she dragged him toward the door.
He wasn’t quite ready for her to lead him anywhere, but he would allow her to buy things for him, including overpriced cocktails he normally wouldn’t splurge for on his own. He shook his arm out of her reach. “I’m coming. But I’m telling you now that it will require no less than two drinks.”
CHAPTER 9
“I know we’ve had our differences, but I really want you to be my lead developer,” Emma said, now that they were settled at the bar, twin martini glasses in front of them, ice crystals on the top like a skating rink falling apart in the summer.
He sipped on his cocktail. She was at least correct about this. A very delicious drink. But there were a lot of missing pieces in the story of how this job was once Rishi’s and had somehow slipped and fallen into Emma’s lap.
“Well, let’s take a step back. Jas promised me that promotion when I was done with my current project. I was supposed to move to Seattle and lead the app. Now it’s in Bangalore. Now you have it. Now none of it makes sense.”
“I asked Maria about the app, and she told me that our desktop division was likely to shut down and that they were moving the project to Bangalore to save money. I’m leading it because my job will not exist now, and I’ve already led a successful implementation of the desktop version of the software.”
So his little dream of staying in the US and making more money to send his family was nonexistent anyway. Great. And Emma was losing her job. That softened the blow for him a little. “Jas didn’t tell me it was a cost-saving measure” was all he replied. And down went the first half of his manhattan.
“And I didn’t know you were already supposed to lead the project.” Her hand clutched onto his forearm. The heat from her palm was momentary before she picked it up and set it back on her lap. “I just told Maria I didn’t want to let Helix go without a fight. I’d really like you to work on the team. Everyone says you’re the best. And I have a vision of what we could do next with it. I want the app to be awesome, and I feel like you would be essential to making that happen.”
“I don’t know . . .” He tried to envision the next year or so. Trying to stay here and find something had proved impossible. But making “awesome” happen for Emma would also be impossible.
“What would you do instead?” she asked, taking a dainty sip that seemed very uncharacteristic of her. For some reason he’d expected her to swallow the whole glass in one gulp and then wipe her mouth off on her sleeve.
“That remains to be decided.”
Her shoulders rolled forward, and she sulked at her glass. “I know you told Jas you didn’t want to work with me.”
“Well . . . can you blame me?”
She looked up at him from where her hand was tucked into the chaotic vines of red hair. “You should ask everyone else I work with. They’ll say I’m lovely.”
“Really? Lovely? Is that a verbatim description you’ve fed to them?”
She raised her eyebrows at him and said deadpan, “Yes, my team is actually a horde of robots who I’ve programmed to only say kind and generous things when my name is mentioned.”
“I don’t know what goes on in the corporate office.” He laughed.
“Seriously, if you have doubts, you should ask them. Ask Maria, ask whoever. But I promise if you work on my team, I will make you look amazing, shine, sparkle, whatever you want. I just want to make this app great.”
Her eyes had this genuine gleam to them when she talked about Helix. Very different from the look she’d had at the coffee shop the other day. She did seem to care about the work. “But why do you care so much about it? I’m sure you could get another job.”
Emma’s smile slipped away as her gaze shifted to the rows of bottles behind the bar. “Working on something that really helps people has been so fulfilling. It’s not like it’s just another money-generating engine for the company. Plus, my grandmother had to quit school to work on her father’s farm and never had the reading skills she wanted. I guess Helix was like my tribute to her.” She blew out a breath and looked back at him. “Sorry, that got a little heavy, huh?” She huffed out a laugh.
Rishi didn’t know what to say. He was blindsided, and he knew it might take some time to redraw the picture of Emma in his mind. Before, she was a career-driven job thief. And now she was a thoughtful coder who built software in memory of her grandmother?
He said, “If you want to do something else, we can take good care of it, since you don’t really work on apps.”
“Well, you’re an app specialist who works on web crawls. So why not the other way around?”
He choked on a laugh. “No, I’m not.”
“Well, that’s what it looked like you were working on in the office.”
“Oh, I just was playing around with a search engine I made.” He ordered drink number two from the bartender.
“You made your own search engine? Why?” she asked.
He laughed. Because you took my job was what he wanted to say, but did that even matter now, since they would have moved it back to India anyway? There was no way she could understand his situation. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why? Try me. If we’re going to be working together for the next year, we should get to know one another.”
He turned to look at her. “I haven’t agreed to work on the app.” His chest was tight, like the air inside him wanted to escape his lungs and be swallowed at the same time.
“Yet,” she said.
He tried not to roll his eyes. “Well, since I’m going back to India now, it’s time for me to get married, and I have to find a wife. Hence, the web crawl.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. He felt her body stiffen beside him. Now things were even more awkward, and she still wouldn’t get it. She was an American and likely didn’t know a damn thing about his culture and traditions. “See, I told you you wouldn’t understand.”
Emma turned to him and scanned him up and down, apparently analyzing what kind of loser had to write his own code to find a wife. Her mouth opened like she was going to say something; then, with a slight shake of her head, she looked back down at her drink.
She cleared her throat. “No, I get it. But aren’t there like a thousand sites out there to help with that already?”
“Yes. But none of them are good enough. I haven’t found the right girl, and it’s . . . time. My parents keep sending me all the wrong girls. It’s just a search I made.” He sighed. In a million years, this was not a conversation he’d ever imagined having with her.
“Has it worked then? Did you find someone? Maybe I could use it.” She half groaned, half laughed.
“Well, as you said, I’m more of an app dev than a web crawl specialist, so I’m sure it’s not anything like you would design.”
Her eyes lit up. “Can I see it? My last job had me creating web crawls to mine data for the company. Just saying—I’m not that shabby.” She elbowed him in the side with a big smile.
“I don’t know . . .” He couldn’t let her into this window of his personal life. They were strangers who just worked at the same company and who apparently both held their grandmothers in high esteem.
“Please!” she whined like a toddler. Her lac
k of maturity could also make her a bit more endearing than threatening. “It sounds fun.”
Although maybe because they were strangers and not friends, it didn’t matter. He could use someone with expertise to look at it. So now, at least if she took his job, he could get a drink and her opinion on whether his code would work.
“Fine.”
He pulled out his laptop while she literally clapped beside him. Okay, so really like a toddler now. Like a toddler tipsy on bourbon, excited while watching the fireworks on Diwali. He laughed. How was this all happening?
He set it on the table, and Emma moved closer so they were both looking at the screen. Too close. He could feel heat coming off her again, though maybe it was just the fizzling of her childlike excitement. He could smell a faint mix of citrus and flowers and bourbon, which, to his surprise, was not an altogether unpleasant scent. He shifted a little to the right to create some distance.
“Hmm . . . there are quite a few things going on here.” She scrolled through the code. “I mean, you used Python, so that’s good. But the techniques are outdated. In the past few years, there have been a lot of advances in machine learning, and there are some new open-source bots that can help with a search like this.”
“Okay . . . ,” he said, trying to figure out what she was getting at. “So, it’s basically useless?” Great. No surprise there. His little bourbon high was fading fast. He closed his laptop and shoved it in his bag. He was going to have to wade through the sea of matches his parents found for eternity. It was a full-time job—checking his email, reviewing every profile, and trying to find out if any of the girls could be “the one.” And, when someone did seem promising, he’d look her up on social media to find out that she was one of those people who reposted obviously fake stories about celebrities with a stupid caption, like they were best friends. Or checked in everywhere she went, like she was begging someone to come stalk her. Or had an unhealthy cat-video obsession.
Maybe he was choosy, but he felt he had a right to be—this was his life.
Her hand stopped his as he pulled at the zipper on his bag. “Wait. I have an idea.”
Panic buzzed inside him. He was sure her idea was that he quit the company for being an incompetent coder who couldn’t draft a simple algorithm. Why had he let her see his code? This wasn’t going to end well. “What could that be?”
“If you join the team, I’ll write you a marriage code.”
“What?” Rishi shook his head.
“Please? I need your skills to make this app successful. And it seems like you could use my help with your code.” Emma crossed her arms and leaned back. “I could have it up and running for you fast. Like, super fast.”
If she could see an issue with his flawed code in less than a minute, she could probably have the results in a few weeks. His parents could stop sending him less-than-ideal matches. The pestering calls from his mother would evaporate. “The one” had to be out there. He could find her. Was it possible?
But there was more at stake here. He’d have to be on her team, watching her try to lead a group of app developers who should be on his team.
“I don’t know . . .” His stomach tangled.
“Did you try your search already?” she asked.
“Maybe.” Rishi’s phone buzzed, and he picked it up, trying to avoid further probing into his current algorithm. As if on cue, it was another email from his dad with another woman’s profile attached to it. It was like all his spare time in Seattle was spent eating takeout and analyzing these potential matches. A hobby that was apparently going to continue for a while once he moved back home. Unless he accepted Emma’s offer.
“And did it come up with any results?”
“Not really.” Rishi wouldn’t admit what it had found.
“Hmm. I’m not really sure what you have to lose then.”
What did he have to lose? His dignity. His pride. His sense of self-worth. Any respect that his coworkers had for him if they found out. A groan stretched out of him as he rubbed at his temples with his palms.
“Rishi, you’re thinking about this too much. I would love to help you with your search, and I really need you on the team. This app and my job are really important to me. I’ll do anything it takes to make it work for you.”
“Anything?” He immediately pictured Emma tied up. He’d set a cup of coffee and a box of doughnuts in front of her, just out of reach. With each doughnut, he’d hold it so close to her that her face would twitch with longing so that she’d think she’d get a bite. And just as her lips parted, her tongue rearing back, mouth opening wide, he’d jerk it away and stuff it all in his mouth.
She rolled her eyes. “I mean, you know, within reason. I was thinking along the lines of going above and beyond helping you with your web crawl and making you look awesome for leadership.”
He slumped over on the bar, his head pretty much cradled by his hands. Finding a wife would at least mean one less worry for his family. One less worry for him. He peeked through his fingers at Emma, who was giving him this hopeful, starry-eyed look as she sipped her drink. She seemed fairly innocent at the moment. And then, in Bangalore, he at least had friends and a real defense squad if anything went awry.
He looked at his phone and clicked the attachment from his dad. He opened it, wondering if fate would grace him with an answer. Maybe it was a woman he could envision as his wife, or something in her CV that spoke to him about a potential future together. But he didn’t feel anything as he looked at the photo. There was no bright spark of hope in the document either.
And he didn’t really have another job out there that was calling to him.
So what other choice did he have?
He took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Really?” she asked, excitement evident in her voice. “We’ll have a great team. Make a great app. Everything! You won’t regret this.”
He wasn’t sure about all of that. But maybe, just maybe, it was possible that with her help, he’d finally find his future wife.
CHAPTER 10
Emma looked up toward the SeaTac airport, set against the sky, gray on gray, and tried to picture what her new Bangalore sky was going to look like. Funny how as her current life was crumbling around her, the shock of moving halfway across the world hadn’t really hit until she was ready to get on the plane. Going to a land where she knew nothing and no one. Except Rishi.
“Any last words from Jeremy?” Jordana asked as she pulled into the departures lane.
“No, he had some fire drill at work the other day, and we’ve been communicating only over email. I’ve been trying to avoid him, honestly.” Emma sighed. This was code for hiding in her office (now bedroom) with her white noise machine on whenever he came home.
“Well, it can’t not be weird with the two of you living like that. You’re like a brother and sister who are fighting but who have seen each other naked. Awkward,” she sang.
Emma laughed weakly and looked out the window. They’d had a few more conversations after the night of the disastrous pizza, but it was mostly Jeremy confirming her decision and working out the logistics of getting a roommate to replace her half of the rent. She didn’t feel any better than she had a few weeks ago about how they were leaving things, but she kept telling herself it was for the best.
“You’d take this job, right? I’m doing the right thing?” Emma asked.
“Look, it’s going to be awesome. You are going to have an amazing time. What’s not to like? Instagram every meal for me, okay?” They pulled to the curb, and Jordana got Emma’s suitcase out of the trunk of her car, while Emma checked her carry-on for the seventh time, ensuring her laptop, phone, and passport were all inside. She dragged her body out of the car and wrapped her arms around Jordana.
“I’m going to miss you!”
“Maybe this will be a good, new start for you. Look at it like that.” Jordana moved a piece of hair out of Emma’s face as it blew in the wind. “Plus, there are l
ike half a billion men there, and you’ll forget all about Jeremy.”
“Ha.”
Uneasiness ballooned in her belly over being suspended in a hulk of metal over the earth for so long. But she’d looked up the statistics. It was safer than a car. She knew better than anyone how safe cars were. They said their goodbyes, and she walked into the airport.
After security, she took a deep breath and pulled out her phone. She’d harassed Rishi throughout the week to take the same flight as her and had even coaxed out his number.
She messaged him. Hi, at the airport. Where are you?
Getting coffee across from the gate.
He’d responded, so it couldn’t be that bad. Besides, he’d be so busy finding a wife and making wedding arrangements that he’d forget all about their little ongoing altercation of the past few weeks. Judging by the way his clothes seemed tailored to his body, hugging at his thighs and snug on his biceps, with shoes that looked like they were handcrafted in Italy, he clearly didn’t have concerns with financial stability like she did. He probably hired a personal shopper, like Maria did.
Why a guy as objectively handsome as Rishi needed to create his own search engine to find a wife was beyond her.
“Hi,” she said, clunking her backpack onto the table.
“Hey.” That was it. He looked back down at his laptop.
“What’s your seat?” Emma asked. Maybe she could distract herself by working on his code. What better plans did they have during the next two flights to get to India?
Rishi pulled out his phone. “34B.”
“Hmm. I’m five rows away. I’ll see if I can find someone to trade me seats.”
Rishi’s fingers froze on his keyboard, and he looked up at her. “You will?”
“Yeah, we’ll work on your code during the flight. Why waste time, right? A promise is a promise.”
Rishi boarded the plane, recognizing that distinct smell of disinfectant and trapped air that he particularly hated. The last trip over, he’d sat by the bathroom, and he couldn’t get the smell off his clothes even after disembarking. It clung to him like a coating made of synthetic summer days and fresh bacteria, and he’d ended up changing shirts in the airport bathroom.
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