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“You wanted to drive me away by telling me.”
“Maybe.” My breath hitches, and my voice wavers. “But you brought cake instead.”
“I did bring cake.”
Oh god, his expression is so soft, but his eyes are even softer. He’s looking at me like I’m someone. Like I’m someone worth seeing. Not the girl who hacks, not the girl who grew up with no family, not the girl who had to leave home and never look back, and not the girl who has almost no friends and kind of sucks at interacting with people in general. He sees me. I don’t even know how to define that, but I just know that all those things that happened before…well, I don’t want it to be who I am and all I am. When Kirian looks at me, it’s like he sees something more. Something no one has ever seen.
“And you’re here,” I choke, still amazed at that.
“I am here.”
I’m getting so close to tears, and I don’t usually do tears, so I wrap my arms around myself to try and steady the storm that’s threatening to overflow. “You aren’t disgusted or dismayed at how I learned my parkour skills, how I learned to sneak into houses, or how I learned to hack. You aren’t put off because I’m a little bit broken, or at least I was, and that it’s taken a while to put myself back together. You’re still here, even though you know I have no family to go back to other than my sister, who is someone I really hope I can figure things out with one day and be close to again. You’re not even telling me that I’m a bad person for leaving Seattle the way I did.”
“You’re not a bad person. You may have done some things that people didn’t like, but you’re not a bad person. If it’s serious, and they’re after you, I can give you the money to pay them back.”
Ugh, tears. Tears are majorly threatening right now. “No, it’s alright. They weren’t nice people. And uh, I didn’t take money from them. Not exactly. Expose them, hurt their political aspirations, business chances, or careers, maybe. Expose them for being liars, cheats, perverts, or dangerous people, yes. Anyway, that’s more along the lines of how it went. Sometimes I got paid for those jobs, but sometimes I didn’t.”
Kirian nods in understanding, and it’s far more than I ever expected anyone to do whenever I thought about letting all those stuff see the light of day.
“If you need a job, you could always come and work for me. We could be nerds and make security software together. I wouldn’t mind at all because I’ve actually been thinking about it. When I launch the software, I want to give away what I can for free to anyone under a certain income bracket, to people who need it.”
“Are you serious? That’s…that’s kind of amazing. Even though…” I bite my bottom lip hard. “I don’t know if I’m ready to come and work someplace. And especially for you. That seems like a tough one.”
“You worked for me today.”
“And look what happened,” I scoffed.
“That was after,” he protests. “As for the security systems for people who can’t afford them, you inspired me. Or rather, this neighborhood did. I was looking at the houses and streets after dark, thinking it wasn’t safe. I noticed all the young families who were probably living here because they can’t afford anything else. I know you needed a cash-only place, but for some people, this is the best they’ve ever going to be able to afford, and they deserve to be safe. They deserve good things, just like you deserve good things. I know there’s this part of you that thinks you don’t, but you do, so stop punishing yourself. You aren’t perfect, but that’s okay. No one is. I didn’t ask for a perfect soulmate, and if I were counting on finding someone, I wouldn’t have sweated any of the curse stuff because I know such a person doesn’t exist. I’ve been a pretty big asshole in the past, but I’ve never held it against someone for not being perfect because there’s no such thing. No one is perfect, including me. I’m far, far from it.”
I look him up and down. “I don’t know. You’re pretty close. Uh, physically, at any rate.” When I say that, Kirian does something adorable. He blushes. Not a full-on red face like I often get, but two spots of color appear on his cheekbones, and it’s utterly fascinating and endearing. “The way I figure it, people are a little bit like computers, or hmm, let’s say your security system. Even if you think there isn’t room for improvement, there usually is. Somewhere.”
Kirian makes a noise low in his throat that sounds a little bit like a mixture between a cough and a hum. “I just don’t want you to run again. I was so afraid you’d disappear.”
