“Sure, let’s just get it over with. My editor doesn’t accept any excuses why I’d miss a deadline, breaking and entering of a stalker included.”
I actually kind of want to use my broken laptop as an excuse to change the plot of my whole book. The story is just so sappy, and my characters are just so happy. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good characters and they do lovely stuff, but their beliefs are wrong. My own beliefs are changing and they’re making me see things differently. But I’m afraid that changing everything at this point won’t be accepted by the publisher.
Maybe I should grow some balls and just tell her. I shove my chair back and stand up. “I’ll go get dressed so we can go in a bit.”
When I try to walk around the table, Jonah grabs my hand and pulls me down, giving me a short kiss. Before I can respond, Dean grabs my other wrist, and pulls me in his direction and also gives me a kiss.
“You’re just all together now?” Gil asks with a bemused look.
I sigh. “It’s complicated.”
“No it’s not,” Jonah says. “It just is.”
And that’s the best conclusion to this conundrum I’ve ever heard.
I’m staring at the new laptop in front of me, which has just started up after it was installed. Gil has taken me shopping and he kind of took over the whole buying process. Can’t say I’m mad about it, I know shit all about technology. But looking at my new laptop doesn’t spark joy, it sparks dread, and it must be showing on my face.
"What's wrong?" he asks me.
"Everything looks different," I mope. All my icons are in a different spot, the colors are fucked up and the little thingie I click on to open my menu is completely changed and it's wrong. This is the reason I never update anything, they always manage to throw in some changes I don't want.
"That's because it's a new laptop. Things change."
"But I hate it when they do that."
He gives me a look that tells me I’m being unreasonable and while that’s true, it’s still just how I choose to respond to it. I like my habits, they’re a layer of comfort. Knowing that it’s just a coping mechanism to handle the anxious side of me.
I give in and open the menu, searching for the program I use to file everything.
“So what now?”
“Now you move your ass and let me do my thing.”
He sits down in the chair I just got out of and takes some pieces from my old laptop, which he does something with wires with. I don’t get what he’s doing, I have trouble getting a USB-device in, every time I try it and I have to look at the little plus and minus signs on batteries before I can put them in, still getting it wrong sometimes. So now that Gil is doing this whole wizkid routine, I just stare and don’t try to understand what he’s doing.
He takes a while doing his thing, and I catch myself staring nervously out of the window every now and then, trying to see if I can see Celia before I remember there’s no need to look for her anymore. While my little nerd is trying to retrieve my life’s work, I clean my kitchen and make us several rounds of snacks while I anxiously ask him if it's going to work. After I try to force feed him some olives he tells me everything will go faster if I stop interrupting him. So I make myself scarce, even if it kills me to do so.
It’s not that I want to do anything with these documents. It’s more that I don’t want Celia to have taken them from me. I don’t want her to take any part of me. Messing with my sense of security was more than enough.
“I think I’ve done it,” Gil shakes me out of my thoughts. I catch myself literally excitedly tapping the points of my fingers together. I rush myself to him, staring at my screen.
"What's that document?"
He points at a file that’s called ‘dragonrobberyenlargementpotions’.
"That's a story I wrote when I was fifteen."
"What's it about?"
"It's about a dwarf who has insecurity issues because of his height, falling in love with a dragon who is more in love with its trove than the dwarf. And the dwarf starts stealing the trove to buy fake potions to get taller."
He stares at me in disbelief.
"We spent fucking hours on retrieving shit like this?"
“Yes, and I couldn’t be more thankful! What can I do to thank you?”
He suggestively raises his brows to me and I wonder if he’s going to be making me an indecent proposal, which I find myself very unadversed to. But he goes in a completely different direction.