job—something that I’d been working at for years—with a friend. The results of this competition would change one of our lives dramatically and possibly affect our friendship forever.
When I looked back at Jordan, he was scrutinizing me between narrowed eyes. I blinked. “What?”
“’Thanks for the tip?’ What the hell is that supposed to mean?” His features twisted with suspicion. “You aren’t giving him tips and ideas, are you?”
I shrugged. “He’s helped me, too. This isn’t cutthroat.”
Jordan set down his apple core on a napkin and dusted off his hands. He turned to me with what appeared to be forced patience, as if explaining something to a ten-year-old for the fourth time. “It’s business, Lucas. In the words of one of my role models, the chairman and co-founder of Nike, Business is war without bullets. It is, by nature, cutthroat.”
I shook my head. “Jeremy’s my friend. I’m not going to wage war with him.”
Jordan’s brow rose. “Am I betting on the wrong horse?”
I laughed at him. “I’m neither a soldier nor a horse. Get over yourself.”
Jordan shook his head, suppressing a smile. “Marriage has obviously made you soft. We’ll need to work on toughening you up, padawan.”
“Fuck the Star Wars references, Obi-Wan.” He knew, along with anyone else who knew me, that I couldn’t stand the allusions. One could not go through most of his adult life being known as Lucas Walker and not hear something along those lines almost every day of the week.
Jordan pushed up from the table with a wide shit-eating grin. “Use the Force, Luke. I mean Lucas.”
“Fuck off,” I snorted at him good-naturedly and he waved on his way out.
When I returned to the Den, Kat wasn’t at her station. I assumed she’d gotten tied up in her own schedule. Suddenly Kyle, one of the developers, appeared at my side with his tablet. “I need to get these resolved bugs signed off today.”
I glanced at him and then back at the checklist on his tablet. “You’re going to have to wait for Katya to do that. I can’t override her.”
He stared at me, as if unbelieving, for a moment, then made a sour face. “Can’t or won’t? What are you afraid she’s going to hit you over the head with a frying pan?”
I continued typing, not even willing to dignify the comment with a response.
He let out a frustrated sigh. “She’s impossible. Can’t I just work this out with you?”
I turned my chair toward him, stone-faced. “No, you can’t. And if she’s not signing off on your QA, then there’s a damn good reason for it. It’s not just some whim.”
Kyle’s face turned smug. “Oh, right. Gotta keep the home fires burning, right? Stick up for the little wifey?”
“Are you through with the preteen temper tantrum?”
His eyes narrowed. “Can’t you just do me a favor this once? I just can’t with her.”
I drummed my fingers on the desk, impatient for this exchange to be over with and suddenly sympathetic that Kat had to deal with this attitude on a daily basis. I remembered her exhausted resignation in the car this morning, the way she’d nervously fidgeted, dreading Kyle’s pushy behavior. Usually she was a tigress, standing up for herself and others when she felt the need. But this morning, not so much…
“Then maybe you need to put some real work into your code so it’s not full of bugs. Katya does her job, and she does it well and my judgement of her work has nothing to do with the fact that we’re married. Got it?” Kyle’s mouth opened to interrupt me but I overrode him. “If this game ships with low quality, if all of our nuts on the line, man.”
His face suddenly split into a grin and he snorted. “Well not hers, ‘cause she doesn’t have any.”
“Thanks for the anatomy lesson.” Sexist bastard.
“I have a to-do list a mile long,” he whined.
“Then you do what we do and you pull all-nighters ‘til it’s done. Or you tell your boss you’ve got too much on your plate. But when you deal with the QA on your work, you do it respectfully or you’ll answer to me. Because she’s a highly competent colleague not because I’m married to her. Got it?”
“Screw it. Whatever, man.” He threw up his hands in surrender, then snatched up his tablet.
“That’s how we roll around here,” I said to his back and I swore I heard him say “pussy-whipped” in the string of words he muttered under his breath.