CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Brad opened his eyes and yawned, refreshed after his little morning nap. Last night was amazing. Jeuley was amazing. He could definitely get used to this.
Wait a minute. Brad sat up. He was alone. Swishing the covers up and completely off the bed, surprise and general unhappiness set in.
She hadn’t stayed overnight? Her side of the bed was cold.
Shit. He must’ve freaked her out. She was probably back to thinking he was a pervert and never wanted to see him again. Maybe Danny had been right about Brad’s lack of skill in bed. Why am I thinking about Danny right now?
Jeuley hadn’t given any indication that she wasn’t pleased. Confused once, but certainly not unpleased. And she sure hadn’t seemed uneasy about anything. They’d programmed and tested. Lots of testing, actually. Brad smiled.
Could she really hate him now?
Maybe she just had a super duper idea and went home to work on it. Yeah. That had to be it. She’d mentioned how her work was always better in an environment without interruptions.
And he knew he’d be a huge interruption and a distraction. Every time he coded a new command, he’d want to try it out on her. And then they’d just end up testing for another couple of hours and not get anything done but each other.
He resisted the urge to call or message her, but jeepers it was tough.
She must have had some great blast of programming creativity. That must be it. Please let that be it. In that case, Brad could turn his attention to the coding she’d given him to do and stop worrying if something was wrong. Yeah, that’d be good. Then, he could synch the Brad and Jeuley animated characters up to it for testing.
He sighed, remembering how crazy the vid had made him. Not just because it was working, but because it made him completely give in and lose control to the point where he had to have her. The real thing. The real amazing, mind-blowing thing. He had to connect with her. As though his life depended upon it.
Wow. He’d never felt that way before. Maybe Jeuley was the kind of woman that Mike was–Oh shit. Mike said he’d pull out of the deal if Brad got involved with Jeuley. He’d said it would complicate everything too much. Oh shit again.
Perhaps he wasn’t kidding about complications. Perhaps all of these new feelings were what Mike was getting at. Like they’d cloud Brad’s vision of the synch project and make him lose sight of the finish line. Oh no, no, no.
It wasn’t possible to erase and forget everything that had happened. His best bet was to hide it from Mike and pray he didn’t call the bluff.
Brad got out of bed. Patches and Blue Root accessories were still strewn over the floor. They’d put their controllers back on, in true techno-geek hacker fashion, but her stimulator was amid the Blue Root parts.
Was it possible she left everything behind in her frenzy to get away?
Stop thinking about it and get on with your day. There’s a ton of work to be done.
And hadn’t he told Danny to come over this morning to discuss whatever girl-trouble he was having with Rachel?
As Brad walked toward his shower, he stubbed his toe on something hard hidden by clothing. While rubbing his pinky toe, he hopped into the stall. What a way to start a day.
Glad for the relaxing stream of water, Brad did his best to clear his thoughts. Today’s agenda could only include programming. Anything more than that and he’d end up interrupting Jeuley and he knew he shouldn’t do that. Plus, it was highly likely that Danny would show up at the worst moment. It was better to focus on the tasks at hand and let Jeuley come to him.
Over the course of the day, using Jeuley’s masters and a little bit of tweaking of his own, Brad managed to get more detail into the vid synch. The hard part was going to be installation. He still needed to figure out a cost effective and timely installation process before he could give Mike Moffat a call…the inevitable call loaded with good news and hidden truths.
Brad’s door chimed. It was Danny.
“Sorry I’m late. I had to work today. Besides, you were probably gettin’ it on with Jeuley anyway, huh?” Danny gyrated his way in and closed the door behind him.
“Will you quit that? She left last night.”
“Yeah, but not before you got it on. I can tell by the look on your face.”
Is it really that obvious? “We were very professional right up to when I…never mind. We’re supposed to be talking about you and Rachel.” Brad searched his memory for what he’d asked Danny yesterday morning. “Did you come up with an answer to my question?”
“Why don’t we go out for a brew instead of staying in?” Danny headed back toward the door. “Besides, you don’t even remember what you asked me anyway, do you?”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“Got your world rocked pretty good, did ya?” Danny nodded and winked.
“Yeah, okay, let’s go.” In order to speed up the process, Brad shuffled Danny out the door. “Fallen Bytes?”
Danny walked down the hallway. “Is that ‘yeah’ it was ‘okay’ or ‘yeah okay’–just tell me anything to get me to quit asking?”
They stepped into the lift and Brad tapped the screen for ground floor. “Both.” For some strange reason, he didn’t want to breathe so much as a word of what he’d shared with Jeuley. No way in hell. Especially if she wasn’t around to confirm the details. Brad didn’t want to be thinking his life had changed forever if she was only thinking they’d just tested a few programs.
Wait. Did having sex with her change his life?
No. Well, not exactly. They’d made excellent progress on the synch. But now that she’d shown him how any advanced hacker could whip it together, he wasn’t sure programming was as much of a life-altering event as the testing they’d done together.
Stop that, will you? Business and pleasure were not supposed to mix.
When they left his building, Brad couldn’t help but look across the street. Jeuley’s FMC 429 was still parked in its stall. She must be home. He resisted the urge to detour and followed Danny.
Fallen Bytes was nearly deserted except for the youth crowd. There was a hand-written sign over the bar that read “Short-handed today. Please serve yourself if we take too long. Sorry for the inconvenience. Swipe purchase card below this sign if necessary.” Maya looked like a Blue Root victim for sure. She was the only waitress in the whole place and she was sitting down, breathing very heavily while gripping her chair.
Danny looked at Brad. “Damn. Even this place. Most of the guys at work didn’t show up today, either. I was kinda glad because even when they were at work, they hardly turned off their Blue Roots. Well, except when they had to take a piss. Even my boss was slow on the uptake today. He found Carnal Bacchanal.”
“I do think it’s odd, though, that you and I are probably the only people here wearing Blue Roots but not using them. I swear having it on makes me think about fucking ten times more than I usually think about it.”
Danny walked straight over to the bar and poured himself and Brad some Black Toad. “Me, too. But I know the difference between my brain and my dick. Fucking should involve both.”
“Good point.” Brad nodded in complete agreement.
They each took a seat at a table facing the door. Brad wasn’t sure what to make of the strange situation. Last he’d looked, productivity had slipped another percent, but he had figured that people were at work, just not working as hard. How irresponsible can everyone be?
Then again, in an odd way, this Blue Root fad exploding with a vengeance was a good thing. Once people figured out how to not let fucking control every waking moment, they would be even more interested in vid synch capability. They’d be quite willing to spend the money. Hell, if the adult population continued spiraling downward into sexual bliss, children could likely end up ruling the world.
“All right. I’m about to tell you something I did, but I want you to guess it first.” Danny took a drink of his tea.
“Does it answer the question I asked you yesterday about Rachel?”
Danny nodded. “What would you say the weirdest thing I could tell you would be right now?”
Uh-oh. This could get bizarre. “That you quit your job and have decided to open your own Thrifty-Mart using all the junk in your apartment as your starting inventory?”
“No. But that’s a damn good idea.” He grinned. “Come on. Think even weirder than that.”
“You’re gonna open the store and get Rachel to quit her job at Prixus to work with you.”
“I like your thinking, but no. Think even crazier. Like as in not even remotely possible for me.”
There could only be one answer to that question. “You’re getting married?”
“I wasn’t planning on asking her, but after you and I’d talked, she came over after work and I was gonna ask if we could work around her cat, but before the right words came out of my mouth, she thought I was popping the question and I didn’t know what else to do.”
Brad’s jaw dropped. He didn’t even try to say anything while he attempted to wrap his mind around the unfathomable news.
And Danny didn’t wait for him before continuing. “She looked so happy. And then when we finally started talking about her cat and how I can’t be around it, she wigged out. I mean, it’s just a cat. Can’t she give it to one of her friends or something?”
That was quite a dilemma after all. The fact that a woman actually wanted to put up with Danny in the first place was a shocker. Brad sipped his tea before formulating a response. “Yeah, but wasn’t she the one who dumped you the first time. And wait, is it one of those where you’re fine around the person, but not around the cat? Didn’t they figure out EOT for that?”
“I wish it was that easy. They figured out essential oils for after exposure to the animal and for when people like me are allergic to the hair and when it gets all over everything, but not for when I’m allergic to the whole animal itself. This is so fucked up. I mean, I don’t hate the cat. I’m sure he’s a great cat, but I just can’t figure why Rachel would choose her cat over me. It’s just like in high school. I haven’t done anything wrong, yet.” Danny slurped down the last of his tea.
Shaking his head, Brad chuckled. “Not yet, huh? Maybe it’s not too late to get started.”
