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“Can we offer you anything to drink?” Jude asked while sitting next to Melinda. “Coffee, tea…”
I eyed Jude. He was wearing different clothes today, but he had adopted the style I showed him last night. A dress shirt, sans tie and jacket. One collar button undone. Sleeves rolled up to his elbow.
He listened to my advice.
It was a really small detail, but it immediately endeared him to me. Maybe our flirting last night meant just as much to him as it did to me. Suddenly I wished that wehadbeen able to continue our date, no matter what effect it might have had on this interview.
Both of them were staring at me. Jude had asked a question. “Oh, uh, I’m fine, thanks,” I said. “I grabbed a latte before coming here.”
Okay, I needed to regroup and focus. This was a job interview, just like any other one. If anything, meeting Jude last night made thiseasier,because I knew that Jude was a smart guy who I would be happy to work with.
“Very good,” Jude said, sliding one of Melinda’s printed pages in front of him. “I know you two probably already went over your background, but let me get caught up…”
He started by asking me about the specific programming languages I was proficient in. We discussed Javascript first, then dove right into Ruby. The benefits of object-oriented programming languages versus procedural ones. He asked me about my opinion of dynamic typing and exception-handling functions, which allowed me to give a five-minute-long rant about why I hated C++ so much.
It gave me a strange sense of deja-vu, rehashing everything we had discussed last night, but with greater detail. Jude kept his face even, but occasionally smiled when I said something funny. And when I walked him through the blockchain-based program I had written three years ago, he seemed genuinely impressed.
“I think that about covers the requirements for the job,” he eventually said. “Do you have any questions about the company itself?”
“Melinda gave me the basics earlier,” I replied. “I do have a question about the benefits package.”
“Of course,” Melinda said. “In addition to your salary, you will be paid in RSUs. That is, Restricted Stock Units. They’re basically shares in the company, but with a three-year vesting period.” She shuffled through her papers and frowned. “I must have left that document on the printer. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Jude and I both watched her get up and leave the room. As soon as the door closed, our heads whipped around to face each other.
“I had no idea you were the one applying for the position!” he whispered.
“I had no idea you were the CTO!” I replied. “Last night, you said you were just a coder!”
“I mean, I am. That’s primarily my job right now. The CTO thing is just a title. At least, until we finish the first round of hiring and get a dozen coders under me.”
I almost blurted out,I’d like to get under you. Somehow I managed to suppress my humor-based defense mechanism. Being around Jude again was making me feel buoyant, like I was lighter on my feet than before.
“Last night…” I began.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “The way you got kicked out like that… I’m so sorry.”
I shrugged. “Forget about it. It’s not your fault.”
He hesitated, but before he could say anything more, Melinda returned to the conference room. Jude and I returned to our blank stares and polite smiles.
“Here are the details of the RSU structure,” she explained. “You have to declare them as ordinary income, unfortunately. That’s the key difference between them and your typical stock option plan. As I said, there is a three-year holding period before they vest. And unfortunately, you must remain with the company for that length of time. If you leave early, or are fired for cause, then you lose any unvested RSUs. But hopefully you willloveworking here, and that won’t be a problem!”
“Hopefully,” I said, smiling and trying very hard not to glance at Jude.
“The position, as we discussed, is Senior Computer Engineer,” Melinda explained. “You’ll report directly to Jude here…”
As she spoke, I was distracted by movement out in the main room. Through the glass walls I could clearly see a man walking down the stairs from the second floor, with a skip in his step. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a T-shirt. His hair was messy. The only thing to differentiate him from a hobo were the expensive-looking Air Jordans on his feet.
He pushed open the conference room door and said, “Sorry I’m late. Finalizing everything with Mr. Rossi’s peeps. I feel like I’ve been gangbanged by paperwork.”
I froze as he took his seat. I knew this man. The feathery hair and swooping cheekbones. The friendly emerald eyes. The smile that was both charming and sexy.
It was the man from last night.
The owner ofMarcello’swho had kicked us out.
6
