Page 83 of Wells

She swipes to the next screen, tilting the tablet so I can see. I lean forward slightly, scanning the layout. Her phone vibrates against the wood.

Neither of us looks at it.

It pulses again. A text preview lights the screen, visible from where I sit. Cas Shebbard.

Hey, can I see you again?

Cera glances down, reaches for the phone, and flips it over without reading the message. Her expression doesn't change.

"Sorry. I'll silence it."

"It's fine."

She taps something on the screen and sets it back down, still facedown. Then she returns to the tablet.

"So local time, got it. Anything else?"

I force my attention back to the slide.

"No. That's good."

She stands, picks up her phone, and tucks it into her pocket.

"I'll have the updates to you in an hour."

She leaves.

I sit motionless at my desk, staring at the space where her phone was. That didn't read like a girlfriend's text, or someone checking in about yoga. That read intimately. And it said again.

My fingers rest on the keyboard. Muscle memory pulls me toward the search bar before I register the intent.

I could have the answer in under five minutes. First name, partial message, Cera's known associates cross-referenced with her location history. Whoever Cas Shebbard is, he or she is in her contacts.

I can see the search query in my head, the commands I would type, the databases I would access. It would take less time than making another pot of coffee.

My hands don't move.

The feeling in my chest is sharp and unfamiliar. It's not a concern in the operational sense, something more acidic.

Jealousy.

I'm jealous of a name on a phone screen, and I don't even know who it is or what the context is. And beyond seeing where this goes, we've not defined any of this. Except no announcement at work.

The recognition makes it worse. I don't do this. I don't sit in my office wondering about people I don't know and whether they matter. I assess threats. and solve problems. I don't feel uncertain about things I could eliminate with ten minutes of work.

Except this isn't a threat. It's a text message. And Cera flipped her phone over immediately. Was she hiding it?

My cursor hovers over the browser icon.

I think about the night I traced Peoria's IP address and how easy it was. How completely I violated the one rule I built my life around because I wanted to know, and then how that knowing changed everything.

This is the same instinct wearing a different face. If I want to do this right, I can't keep doing this. This isn't how real relationships work.

I close my hand into a fist and pull it off the keyboard.

If I want to know who Cas is, I can ask Cera, how normal people do it, like someone who trusts her enough not to run surveillance on her past.

The idea feels awkward and inefficient, and nothing like the way I'm built. But I made a choice when I deleted Midnight's account. I can't build something real with Cera if I keep treating her like a file.