“Yeah, yeah.” His gaze traveled back to his computer screen. “No, not really.”
Apparently, Fizz was facing a crisis.
“I’ve been in meetings all day with Greg and Vijay,” he said. “We are so behind schedule, I don’t think it’s possible for us to catch up. And Greg is so fucking useless, I—” He stopped abruptly, rubbing his jaw. “I should just give up now. There’s no point.”
“No, don’t say that.” I knelt beside his chair and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “It always seems impossible before it’s done. How can I help?”
He turned to me with a somber smile. “You’re wonderful, you know that?”
My heart softened like warm butter. “Seriously. What can I do?”
“Nothing.” Alex gestured at his laptop with irritation. “There’s this major bug that’s existed for days. I keep trying to fix it, but at this point I’m only making it worse. It has a work-around, but that ruins the whole user experience. I feel like I’ve stared at it for hours and I am no closer to coming up with a solution.”
“Well, sometimes when I’m having a hard time solving a problem, I step away from it for a little while. Give my brain a break. Then, when I come back to it with fresh eyes, it’s like I magically find a way to fix it.” I stroked his wrist, the soft skin peeking out from beneath the cuff of his shirt. “Why don’t you go for a walk or something?”
With a deep breath, he said, “You’re right. I need to step away.” He slapped his laptop closed and shoved it in his bag. “In fact, I’m gonna bring this home with me. Maybe a change of scenery will help.”
“Great. Mind if I join you?”
He knitted his brow. “Um...”
That was not the reaction I’d been hoping for. I was thinking he’d give me an enthusiastic “Absolutely!” Or at the very least, a lukewarm “Sure.” Instead, he was hesitating, chewing the inside of his bottom lip, thinking it over as if this was some thorny problem to be solved. Like I was a bug in his code.
Then I thought: Stop being so paranoid. Obviously, he was very busy. He probably just wanted some peace and quiet so he could work.
“I’m sorry.” I stood up and brushed off the front of my pants. “Forget it.”
“No, Mel, I—”
“Really, it’s totally fine. You need your space to work. I understand.”
“I do have to take care of this, but I’d still love to spend time with you. Are you okay with watching me code?”
“Of course,” I said, beaming. “You can bounce ideas off me if you need to.”
“Great.” He stood up and kissed me. It was quick, even a little chaste, but the contact was enough to leave a shivering sensation on my lips that traveled straight through to my toes.
We headed out, hand in hand, and the moment we walked into his apartment, he was already reaching for his laptop.
“You were right about stepping away.” He stood at the breakfast bar, waiting for his system to load. “On the walk over here, I got a couple of ideas for how to get this thing working again.”
“That’s awesome.” I put down my purse and popped open his fridge. “Can I get you something to drink while you’re working?”
“Uh, sure.” He focused in on the computer screen, and while his hands flew across the keyboard, I poured us two glasses of wine. After a few minutes of silence, he let out a frustrated roar.
“Not working?” I asked.
“Nope.” He gulped down half his glass of merlot in one swallow.
“Would it help to talk it through with me?”
“Couldn’t hurt.” He slid closer, so I could see his screen, then explained the crux of the problem, walking me through his code line by line. We ran through a few test cases, checking values in the debugger.
“I just don’t understand why this keeps happening.”
“It’s because of this.” I pointed to a function call. “On line two fifteen, you’re passing this value by reference—it’s getting modified within the procedure.”
His eyes bulged. “Oh my God. How did I miss that?”
“I told you, there’s something about a fresh set of eyes.”
“No, there’s something about your eyes.” He kissed my forehead. “I love this big, delicious brain of yours.”
Love. He’d said it in a playful way, yes, but men so rarely played around with that word. Not unless there was a hint of truth behind it.
He tapped a few keys before letting out a triumphant whoop and shoving his laptop aside. “Now that you solved that problem for me, we can hang out properly.”
“You mean you’re done with your work?”
“Technically, I’m never really done. If I wanted to, I could work all night, all weekend, and still have more to do.”
Anxiety darted through his eyes and his mouth turned downward. And suddenly, I realized something that should have been crystal clear from the very beginning.
“You really are always working when you say you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you’re distracted with your phone or get up to leave first thing in the morning or forget to text me or whatever, you’re not lying when you say it’s about work. You really are working that much.”
“Of course I am. Haven’t I been telling you what a nightmare this whole thing has been?”
“You have. I’ve had a hard time believing it, though. A lot of guys say they’re working when they’re not. It’s a convenient excuse, you know what I mean?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Not really. You sound kinda paranoid.”
“Well, I am kinda paranoid. But it’s because I’ve been through this before.”
“Did your ex lie to you about working when he wasn’t?”
“No. Not my ex. My dad.”
Alex leaned toward me and caressed the back of my hand. His expression was an open invitation. Fully focused, no distractions. “What did he do?”
I told him what I knew about my mother and my father and the demise of their marriage. Which wasn’t much, admittedly, but it was enough to make me question men and their motives for the rest of my life. The whole time, Alex listened intently. When I was done, he pulled me into an embrace.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.” He stroked my hair with what could only be construed as love. “And I want you to know that I would never do that to you. I promise, I’ll never give you a reason to doubt me.”