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I mean, in how many jobs are you asked to spend hours online trying to build a psychological profile of someone? Also, I know Tate likes oddballs, the weirdos and the nerds who got teased at school because they understood quantum physics but couldn’t figure out basic cafeteria social rules. But he didn’t want the kind of weird that would go psychopathic if they weren’t picked for a project, people so isolated and lonely, they’d become fixated with someone at work. It was not an easy project.
This girl, Corinne Lassiter, was not easy to figure out. I’d watched the interview, which had been recorded and I knew what Tate meant. She was distant, a bit cool almost to the point of being rude. Stand offish. She didn’t come across as desperate for the job, but there were small tells in her face, little tics that gave me the idea she really wanted the job but was hiding it well.
But I wasn’t sure. I was trying to learn more about her from her social media posts but she hardly posted anything. She commented on other people’s posts though and this was all I had to go on for now. I noticed someone coming into the office and looked up. It was Felix, tall and blonde, grinning at me.
“Hey, is Tate here?”
I looked at the time. “He’s still in a meeting with some dev guys, did you guys have a date?” I didn’t recall seeing it on his diary and he hadn’t said anything to me.
“No, my meeting finished earlier and I thought we could go for lunch?”
“Oh, he doesn’t eat lunch.”
Felix looked at me with a frown. “We had a huge meal last night?”
I nodded. “He broke his fast last night, but today it’s back on. Then he has one meal a day. Today was breakfast.”
Felix shook his head. “What, two seeds and a spoon of oats?”
I laughed. “And two eggs!”
“Why?”
“He says it clears his mind, keeps him focused.”
Felix shook his head, “Sounds like starvation to me!” I agreed with him but I didn’t want to say it out loud. The mere thought of going without food for something like twenty hours was enough to make me faint with hunger.
“You don’t do fasting?” I asked him.
“I love food too much,” he said, patting his very flat and probably toned tummy. Then he said, “Then how about we go for lunch?”
I couldn’t see why not.
“What do you feel like?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Somewhere close, somewhere nice.”
I grabbed my bag and we headed out.
I liked being with Felix, he was easy-going and very laid-back. I couldn’t imagine him getting wound up and tense, the way Tate was almost all ofthe time, especially lately. I asked him about how he’d met Tate, and he told me how he’d come to the States on a college exchange program. They were in the same math class, always arguing with the professor about certain equations and their application. They discovered a love of nature and going to off-the-beaten track destinations.
“Has he changed much since then?” I asked him, as casually as I could. I didn’t want to show that I was too interested in Tate.
“In some ways, yes, in others, no,” Felix said. He had an interesting accent. His time in the US had taken care of that, presumably.
“He was always a little intense, you know, obsessive almost. But this health stuff and the adventure trips, that is new.”
“Mmm…” I processed this new information.
“I was best man at his wedding. Him and Star fifteen years ago.” He shook his head. “That was something! A beach wedding, beautiful summer’s afternoon and all of us barefoot in the sand.”
I was desperate to know more but I didn’t want to ask. Fortunately, Felix felt like talking.
“I thought he was too young to get married, you know,” he leaned towards me, dropping his voice as if he was scared anyone would hear. “I liked Star, but she was, you know, not like him. She had a restless, wandering energy. I didn’t think it would last and it didn’t.”
I told him that I’d met her in LA and told him a bit about the weekend, without going into all the saucy details about what I got up to there, especially between the sheets with Tate.
“I love LA!” Felix exclaimed. “It’s like living in a movie!”
