The Game by Vi Keeland by Vi Keeland

“Whatever. It wouldn’t bother him?”

“He and I have only been on one date.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Two weeks, maybe?”

“Why no second yet?”

“I don’t know. Jeez, you’re nosy.”

I smiled. “Interested. Not nosy. Job that has him traveling the last few weeks?”

“He’s the head of artificial intelligence at my old company.” Bella shook her head. “There’s no travel involved in his job.”

I debated how far to push the conversation and decided just a little bit further as I stretched my arms across the top of the booth. “What does he have that I don’t?”

“Julian?”

I nodded.

“Humility, for one.”

I chuckled. “How tall is he?”

“I don’t know. Not quite six foot, I guess.”

“I’m six-three.”

“Does that give you a point on your imaginary scorecard?”

“Definitely.”

“Julian is probably not the tallest or best-looking guy, but he has a lot of great qualities.”

“Like what? Big dick? Because if he gets a point for that, I think it’s only fair that I get to show you mine. I have a size fourteen foot, you know.”

Her lips moved, but she managed to contain her smile. “I’ll keep that in mind in case I ever need to buy you socks. Julian and I have a lot in common, if you must know.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Off the top of my head, we both work in artificial intelligence, love math and technology, and neither of us likes sneezes.”

My forehead wrinkled. “He holds his breath too?”

“No, but they make him irrationally angry.”

“Sneezes? Who the hell gets angry over sneezes? It’s a bodily function that can’t be helped. If that’s the best you got for what you have in common, I hate to tell you, but the relationship is doomed.”

“It is not.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t even have artificial intelligence in common anymore. You work in football now. That’s a point for me, not Bozo.” I reached over and swiped a French fry from her plate. “Have you ever dated an athlete?”

Bella leaned toward my plate and took one of my fries. She wagged it at me before shoving it into her mouth. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Hear me out. You can’t know what you like until you try it, right? So how do you know dating an athlete isn’t way better than dating some average-looking dude who…what, plays with robots all day?”

“You know what, you have a point.” She tapped her finger to her lip. “I wonder if Patrick Mannon has plans next Friday night?”

I smirked. Patrick is the Bruins’ center. “He’s married with kiddo number two on the way.”

Bella gave in and laughed. “Our conversation has taken a strange turn.”

A little while later, we’d both finished our burgers and fries. I was full, but ordered dessert anyway, not ready to drop her off yet. The waitress brought my chocolate lava cake and French vanilla ice cream and set it down in front of me with a spoon.

“Can we get another spoon, please?”

“Sure thing.”

Once it came, I slid the cake to the middle and motioned for Bella to dig in as I scooped a piece from my side. “So how did you get into developing algorithms? Were you a computer nerd in high school?”

“More of a math geek than computer nerd. I was actually working toward my PhD in mathematics, hoping to become a math professor, while I worked part time as a data analyst. My job was to track how buying trends came in compared to what the algorithm developers had forecasted. But I’m not very good at letting go of things that irk me, so when the variances were big, I liked to figure out what had gone wrong in the algorithm. Eventually they asked me to join the algorithm-engineering department to help them find out what’s off before the buying happens. I had to learn a lot of coding and different software, but I loved the job.”

“Did you ever finish your PhD?”

Bella shook her head. “I took a leave from the program to try working full time as a developer and never looked back.”

“So you’re saying you almost wound up working in a career that would have probably left you unfulfilled, had you not given something new a try?”

Bella laughed. “You have an uncanny ability to work any conversation back to being about you, huh?”

“It’s a gift.”

“Anyway, I was planning on leaving my job to head up my own algorithm group at a bigger company, where I would be able to work from home. I was due to give my notice the day after a random lawyer knocked on my door to say a man I didn’t know had left me something. Needless to say, that threw a wrench in my plans. Had that not happened, I probably would’ve been living up in Vermont right now.”

“Vermont?”

She nodded. “I love it up there. Since I could work from home, I was going to try living outside the City. I’ve only ever lived in Manhattan.”

“See? We have more in common than you think. I love New England, too. My cabin in Maine isn’t too far from the Vermont border. I’ll have to take you some time.”