And then I see it. LEGO Paris stretches across Vincent’s dining-room table. It’s as if nothing ever happened. He rebuilt every single building and structure to completion—even the Louvre. Vincent finished what I destroyed.
Softly, he stirs, and I shimmy behind him, holding him the best I can in such close quarters. I wrap my arm around his chest. It slowly rises and falls, and he moves slightly when I nuzzle my face into his neck.
“Tickles,” he murmurs. My beard. Oops. “You’re still here.”
“I told you,” I say, kissing the back of his head, “I wasn’t leaving you.”
“Mmmh.” He pushes back into me.
“Vincent, I’ll be right beside you, even when it’s hard.”
He exhales, his warm breath blowing the hair on my arms.
“Do you believe me?”
He nods, and I pull him closer.
Surveying his work, I’m completely in awe of his skill and speed. “You finished it.”
“Had to. Couldn’t stop.”
I pull him closer, the heat of his body against me, yearning to be even closer and savor the sensation of his skin against mine.
“I’m so sorry.” My lips brush the warm, soft skin on his head.
“It was an accident,” he whispers.
“Because I’m a klutz.”
“My klutz.”
He clutches my hand to his chest and squeezes it. Tears nip the corners of my eyes, and I do my best to melt into him. Yes, I almost ruined his masterpiece. But he’s not upset. He fixed it. I’m here. We’re okay.
“What time is it?” he asks. I have no idea. No clue.
“Early. Hold on.” I reach for my phone on the coffee table to check the time.
The screen lights up at my touch, and notifications assault me. They’re layered on each other, jumbled, so many I can’t make sense of the clutter. I touch one, and my phone flickers on. Eight missed calls. Fourteen messages. All from Shreya within the last hour. My stomach drops. What the fuck happened?
CHAPTER 35
Vincent
“This isn’t good.”
Geoff paces the conference room. There’s no soft entry this Monday morning. No coffee and cronuts. Kent texted Shreya yesterday before five a.m., and the rest of the day unfolded in a blur. By mid-morning, after scrambling to figure out next steps, I sent Kent home. Sweetums needed to be fed, and I needed to focus. As the process wasn’t finished and it was already Sunday, Geoff called for a postmortem Monday morning—mortem as in death. Post as in after. After death. Clearly, taking my eye off the prize, I made a careless, stupid error. And once again, Geoff needs to fix my fuck-up.
Greater than. Less than. Taught to most first graders, I should know these symbols. And I do. Usually. Mostly. Children need to know which one is which. I remember sitting in Mrs. Willow’s class. Her hair pulled into a neat bun. “Imagine it’s an alligator’s mouth. The hungry alligator wants more, so that’s greater.” But in my seven-year-old brain, when a gator turns around, he’s still hungry. But that’s less. The symbol doesn’t change. The direction does. To this day, as a forty-year-old grown man, I’m still confused. I misread the error message. It was greater than 500 gigs. Not less than. I should have selected yes. Turn compression on. This is a disaster. My disaster.
“Greater than 500 gigs,” Geoff says. “There’s no compression. The data set is too large.”
“Okay, what does this mean for performance?” Shreya guzzles her coffee. “How bad is it?”
Kent sits in a chair at the end of the long conference-room table. Quiet. His face pained and searching.
“The data loaded. The system works,” Geoff begins. Kent’s eyes widen, a glimmer of hope sparkling.
“But … ” Shreya says.
