I step back to open the door wider, gesturing to the man himself.
Jared is all but hopping foot to foot. He doesn’t waste any time; he leans a little to talk to Nathaniel. “Have you been to the lab yet this morning?”
Oh God, now what happened?
Nathaniel stands up. His face is even more strained with tension. “More failures?”
Jared shakes his head with a giant, goofy grin. “No, man. Every test not only passed, but exceeded our expectations.”
I let out a breath. Nathaniel pushes past me to the door. His arm brushes me and a small static shock buzzes my arm even through my shirtsleeves. He shoots me a discreet look of concern.
“Let’s go look.” He’s already putting his blazer back on.
I step back to let them go. I guess the inevitable will come later. I force a smile at his emotional shift. They’re just outside my office and I’m moving back to my chair when Nathaniel asks, “Aren’t you coming?”
“Probably not a good idea,” I say.
“Come on, Jules. You may be a lucky charm,” Jared teases.
Oh, the irony, my friend.
The casual smile Nathaniel wears starts to fade as his eyes narrow in focus. “Jules,” he repeats to himself.
“Uh oh, Big Cheese has his big idea face.” Jared says.
Nathaniel’s gaze shoots to me. “Jules!” he says, bubbling over with joy.
“Yeah, it’s a really clever nickname.” Jared shares a “he’s totally nuts” look with me but his infectious joy has me grinning.
“No, not J-U-L-E-S.Joules, with an O.”
Jared rolls his eyes and shakes his head conspiratorially with me. “That’s nerd humor for you. I’m sorry you have to deal with this level of dad joke.”
Nathaniel is growing more animated. “You’re a fricking genius.” He rattles Jared’s shoulders once before sprinting toward the door and presumably toward the lab.
“It wasn’t that clever,” Jared says to me. I shrug and we head after him.
Something just clicked in that supercomputer brain of his and all I can selfishly think is that it will give me a reason to stay a little longer.
* * *
Nathaniel
A lifetime passes until I can be alone with Julia again. Thoughts spill over all day and I can barely keep up with my own brain. I’m thrilled that the tests are working. It’s no surprise, if my theory is correct. I’m so afraid that in my haste to share the good news about the tests I will accidentally say too much.
I spend the day with Jared and Kate working in the lab. Test after test performs better than we ever expected. If we can keep these results going there’s a chance we will be able to deliver Lite-Brite on time to the customer. We spend almost eight straight hours in the lab trying to figure out how we can make this new information work. Julia goes back to her desk after the first hour.
“I better get these supporting docs moving,” she says and sneaks away.
I give her a look that I hope she interprets correctly:We need to talk more.
She glances to Jared and Kate who are looking at the machine with their heads down before she mouths. “Tonight?”
I nod.
When I finally wrap up for the day, I go to her locked office to find there is no light coming from inside. We can chat tomorrow and that’ll be fine. I need to start running tests on her immediately. I head back to my office and decide to call Lincoln and check in on him. He said he was going to school today and if anybody asked what happened he’d just say he got knocked in his boxing class.
As I’m checking in with him—he sounds good as can be—I notice a small post-it note on my keyboard.
