Dag grinned. “He’s turned into a workaholic, hasn’t he?”
She made a face. “Oh yeah.”
Dag laughed.
“What’s so funny about that?”
“If you’d known him when I met him, you’d get it.”
A cute crease appeared between her eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
“Chris was a supreme slacker when we met,” Dag said, leaning back in his chair.
Her frown deepened. “Hey…”
He shook his head. “He thought the world owed him everything. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you gotta admit, he grew up in a pretty uh…privileged lifestyle.”
She still frowned at him. “I…I wouldn’t say that.”
“Well,” he lifted a shoulder. “Maybe not from where you’re coming. But compared to how I grew up, he did. Anyway, it’s good to know some of that stayed with him. A workaholic. Who’da thought.”
She lifted her chin. “There’s nothing wrong with working hard.”
He laughed out loud at that. “Nope. Nothing at all.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You seem like someone who doesn’t have to work very hard. Someone everything just comes to easily.”
His jaw almost hit the small table. What the fuck? “You gotta be kidding me,” he said slowly, staring at her.
She drew back a little. “No. Am I wrong?”
“You are so wrong.” He shook his head, forced a smile. “I’m not making a very good impression on you, am I?”
She blinked. “No…I mean, yes…”
He laughed again, shook his head. Wow.
“From what Chris told me, you didn’t like working for someone else so you started your company developing online games, things went crazy, you made a pile of money, sold the company for even more money and now you’re resting easy looking for something else fun to do.”
Well, it was true, on the surface, and he wasn’t someone who particularly liked defending himself. He never gave a shit what people thought of him. But Kassidy’s words burned a hole in his gut. He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Never wanted to slave in a corporate box working for someone else.”
“There are benefits to working for someone else,” she said, a little quietly as if he’d annoyed her.
“Sure there are. I didn’t mean…”
“Chris loves his job.”
“I wasn’t insulting him, Kass.” His gut tightened even more.
She rolled her lips in briefly. “No?” Her defense of Chris made something inside him go soft, drew him to her. Dammit.
“No. I admire Chris. He has the logical mind that I don’t. He’s focused, I’m all over the place sometimes. He’s accomplished a lot.”
She nodded slowly.
“And you too,” Dag added. He looked up as the waitress approached, and ordered a beer. Kassidy asked for a mojito. He turned his attention back to her. “You obviously love what you do.”
“I do, but I’m never going to be a millionaire, working in training and development, even for a big company like RBM.”
“So you equate success with how much money you make.”
Her eyes widened. “No! I don’t. That’s my point.”
“Then why’d you say that?”
“Because…you…”
“Because I have money, you think that’s how I define success.”
She gave a short nod. He sighed. “Well, it’s not. Don’t get me wrong, I like money, but that’s not what it’s about for me. You like the security of working for someone else, but I like taking risks—it’s a thrill for me. It’s not good or bad, right or wrong. Everyone’s different. And right now, I have money, but a couple of bad decisions could flush that all down the toilet. Whereas you know you’ll get paid next week. And the week after that. Right?”
Her eyes were wide and moved over his face as she studied him and listened to him. “Yes,” she finally said. “That’s right.”
The waitress returned with their drinks.
“So you like taking risks,” she said, pulling her glass closer.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “That’s why I skydive.”
She gasped. “Skydive? Jesus! You jump out of planes?”
“Yeah. It’s a rush.”
“You jump out of planes for fun.” She shook her head. “Oh my god. That’s crazy.”
“The first time scared the hell out of me,” he said. “My buddy in the plane almost had to push me out. I was hanging on by the tips of my fingers. Probably would’ve stayed there forever. But sometimes…you just have to jump. Take a chance.”
“That’s a pretty big chance to take.”
“That’s what makes it exciting.” He lifted a shoulder. “I had to learn to slow down, to analyze and weigh things and make careful, rational decisions. I tend to rely on my gut too much, but you can analyze and weigh things and procrastinate to death. Sometimes you just need to go with your instincts. Even in business, sometimes you just have to…jump.”
“So, that’s what you like—taking risks.”
“I also like creating, coming up with ideas.”
“I could tell that earlier. You were all full of energy when we were talking about your idea.”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “I love that part of it. You’re exactly right—it energizes me.”
Their eyes met and a connection shimmered between them despite the fact that she him pegged wrong, all wrong.
“Tell me how you and Chris met,” he said, picking up his beer, not sure if he really wanted to hear this story.
“We told you, we met at work.”
“You were doing training for his department?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “I guess we were both attracted to each other, but we waited until the project was done until we went out together. It made going to work every day pretty exciting for a while, though.”
“What was it about him that attracted you?”
She tipped her head to one side and gave him a narrow-eyed look, as if she found his question odd. He probably should drop this. “Well, he’s good looking, of course.”
“He’s pretty.”
She frowned. “No, he’s not.”
Dag laughed. “Sure he is. He’s a pretty boy.”
“Well, he does have a sweet smile.” Her own mouth curved. “But he’s so big—I guess that’s why I don’t think of him as a pretty boy.”
“Yeah. The big muscles save him from looking too cute.”
She laughed. “And I love his shoulders.” She gave a little shrug. “But I liked how he was so…accepting.”
“Huh?” Dag sat back, watched her face. He hadn’t expected to hear that word from her.
“I was junior on the project team. When I’d remind him about the human impacts of certain decisions, he listened to me. I really liked that. He could have ignored me, but he made me feel like I had something important to say.” She looked down at her drink. “He was very focused on the project goals, very task oriented, very let’s-get-it-done. But when there were problems, he’d sit back and not react. Other people would freak out and start rushing into crazy decisions. I liked how he listened to everyone, even me. Sometimes people get lost in the business decisions, and for me, it’s all about the people. It’s the people who make the company.”
Dag nodded. Yeah. That was Chris. The way he’d accepted Dag as his friend from the first time they’d met, despite their vastly different backgrounds, despite the fact that Chris was a golden boy who’d gotten all kinds of breaks in his life and had it all, whereas Dag had started with nothing and had had to fight for every damn thing. He’d treated Dag as an equal. Yeah, that was a good word—Chris was accepting. Of most things.
Listening to Chris’s girlfriend praise him, watching her face light up as she talked about the man she loved, had something tightening hot and hard in Dag’s chest.