Page 35 of The Dazzling Heights

“Watt. I don’t want her résumé. What is shelike? Introverted? Optimistic? Judgmental? Does she watch cartoons on Saturday mornings? Does she get along with her brother?”

“She’s cute,” he began carefully, “and smart.” Dangerously so. Nadia was feeding him more, but Watt couldn’t keep up this charade. The words began to pour from him like venom. “She’s also shallow and petty, and insecure. Self-centered and manipulative.”

Nice going.

You’re the one who told me to tell the truth!

Cynthia shifted on the bench to face him. “I don’t understand. I thought you liked her?”

Watt let his gaze drift to the trees nearby, genetically engineered to grow dozens of fruits on the same branch. An oversized lemon hung next to bunches of cherries, alongside a row of pinecones. “Actually, I don’t like Leda at all,” Watt confessed. “And she doesn’t like me. She might even hate me. Normally I wouldn’t care that I’m at the top of her shit list, except that she has something on me.”

“What do you mean, she ‘has something on you’?” Cynthia narrowed her eyes. “This is about your hacking jobs, isn’t it?”

Watt looked up sharply. “How do you know about those?”

“I’m not stupid, Watt. The amount of money you’ve got is more than you could make as an ‘IT consultant.’” She lifted her hands to make air quotes around the phrase. “Besides, you always seem to know just a little too much about people.”

Watt could feel Nadia’s uneasiness like a hand on his wrist.We can trust her, he thought silently.

If you say so, Nadia conceded.

“You’re not wrong about the hacking,” he told Cynthia, and part of him was relieved to finally admit at least this much of the truth to his friend.

“So what’s happened that you’re now asking me advice about Leda?”

“Like I said, Leda isn’t my biggest fan. And with what she knows …” He shifted uncomfortably, and swallowed. “I really need her to not tell anyone. If she trusted me—or at least, if she stopped despising me—maybe she wouldn’t tell.”

Cynthia waited, but he didn’t continue. “What would happen, if she told what she knows?” she prodded.

“It would be very,verybad.”

Cynthia let out a deep breath. “For the record, I don’t like this atall.”

“The record has been duly noted,” Watt assured her, smiling in relief. “So you’ll help?”

“I’ll try my best. I can’t make any promises,” Cynthia warned. Watt nodded, but the weight pressing down on his chest already felt lighter, just from the knowledge that Cynthia was here, and willing to try.

“First things first,” she declared. “When are you going to see her again?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should probably ask her to hang out, so that you can take charge of the situation, reset the dynamic,” Cynthia suggested.

The thought of voluntarily hanging out with Leda was so strange to Watt that he visibly flinched. Cynthia caught the expression and rolled her eyes. “Watt, this girl won’t stop hating you if she doesn’t ever spend time with you. Now, what are you going to say when you see her?”

“Hi, Leda,” he tried.

“Wow,” Cynthia deadpanned. “You overwhelm me with your incredible wit and conversational skills.”

“What am Isupposedto say?” he burst out, exasperated. “All I want is not to go to jail!”

Cynthia went very quiet and still. Watt realized with a sinking feeling that he’d said too much.

“Jail, Watt?” she asked. He nodded miserably.

Cynthia closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they shone with a new resolve. “You’re going to have to be convincing as hell.” She stood up and walked a few steps toward the museum, then turned around. “Pretend I’m Leda and I just arrived. Say something nice to me. Not just ‘Hi, Leda.’”

Compliment her,Nadia offered. “Leda,” Watt began, suppressing a smile in spite of everything at the silliness of the role-play. “It’s great to see you.”