“Oh shit.” I pretend to sound completely shocked. “I kicked that one out that we had right away.”
“It might have gotten in and corrupted the systems before we realized it.”
“Would you go into our coding folders and completely trash them, then open new protected files, so this doesn’t continue to be an issue?” He’s all business, not disappointed, just focused. It would have been a better reaction had he thought someone here had tampered with it. I’ll take what I can get and toil over the rest while I do as he asks.
“On it.” I cross over to my desk and spend the rest of the day doing as he instructed. Time flies when I’m this focused, especially because it allows me to forget my reality. Currently, I’m in a world wholly different from my own, and I want to savor it for as long as possible before I have to think about what my real issues are outside my computer screen.
“Goodnight!” A few people call, and I hear footsteps heading towards the exit. I look up from my computer to see Tito waving at the last group to leave.
“What time is it?” I furrow my brows, rubbing my burning eyes that I didn’t know were burning until now.
“It's” he flicks his wrist up to look at his watch. “7:34 p.m.”
“They stayed late.”
“We needed a strong start to ensure we’ll be ready.”
“By Monday?” I ask to clarify.
“Yeah.” He hasn’t looked up from his desk, though he often doesn’t when he’s working. I glance back at my screen to see I’m nearly done with every coding of the devices. Tito didn’t ask me to do this, but it’s what my subconscious guilt forced me to do, I guess.
“That took you a while.” He glances over at me.
“Huh?” I don’t know why I say this because I know exactly what he’s talking about.
“What I asked you to do.”
“Oh…” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear as I type the last line for the last device. This means every one that we have should work perfectly. “I finished coding all of them.”
“All the devices?” His eyes go wide, and he turns toward me.
“Yes.” I look down at our feet, and he scoots over to look at my screen. My hand is still on the mouse, and he doesn’t move it. Instead, he places his hand over mine and used the mouse with my hand to look through everything. I am addicted to his touch. I hate to admit it, but I am. So, I don’t dare move as he works his way into each file.
“What the hell?” He whispers with a small grin that makes me blush. “You’re a genius, Scout.” This is a compliment I don’t think I deserve, considering the fact that I don’t feel brilliant these days. Someone smarter than me would be able to get herself out of this strange situation where loyalty and morality are divided like it's been torn unevenly. All I can do is free fall in the center of them, hoping that when I look down, I’ll see an end to it, but I never do.
“What’s wrong?” His eyes focus on mine as he rests his chin on his shoulder. I realize I’ve been grimacing since, thinking about this whole conundrum of desire and obligation. I guess that’s what it is if you boil it down and throw in high stakes with it. All I can do is quietly sigh and shake my head.
“I think I’m just tired.” I nod, but I’m not. I could keep this up for the rest of the night. Especially if it means not having to think about anything else but work.
“Let’s call it a night. You’ve done more than enough today.” I’m about to fight him on it, but he leans in, pressing his forehead to my temple for a second, shutting me up and taking my breath away for a moment. “Come on.” He whispers before standing up and intertwining his fingers with the hand he’s still holding. He pulls me to my feet, and we lock the computers, heading out of the building with swinging hands like we’re in a musical or something. I almost expect him to break out in song, that dimpled grin on his pink lips and green eyes bright with a hope that is sorely misplaced in my company.
“I have an idea for winding down tonight.” He notes before opening the car door for me and helping me in. I let him, though I want to object to his constant helping that only makes me feel worse about how unhelpful I’ve been to him. He closes the door before I can ask what the idea is and climbs into his side with an unwavering look of contentment.
“So?” I ask as we drive down the highway.
“Yes?” He leans into me a bit with a chuckle.
“You had an idea?” I prompt.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Which was…” I wave my hand for him to tell me. He smiles, probably because he knows he’s found a way to get on my nerves. So, I’m a little impatient.
“I was just wondering if you’d want to have a marathon in my room?”
“Marathon?” Is it bad, I’m thinking, he means sex? Is it worse that I want that to be what he means?
“Yeah, like, choose any anime and just binge it until we go to sleep.” I smile at the idea because it’s not a let-down at all. Not the way I thought it might be if he said something I wasn’t expecting. “I can have a meal brought up to my room. Any meal you want.”