Page 24 of Dear Daddy, Please Want Me

Saul poked around randomly in the database. There wasn’t a damn thing he hadn’t tried already, and watching Levi was much more compelling anyway. He went over some of his outputs from earlier.

After about three more songs, Saul finally had a flash of inspiration. He set up a query, searched it, formatted the data, and… nothing.

He looked up in exasperation, only to find Levi gazing at him adoringly. The boy didn’t even pretend that he wasn’t watching him. He just gave a saucy wink and got back to work.

His flirting was so over the top that Saul felt his lips quirking up in a smile. There was sexy and suave, and then there was just… silly. Levi had crossed that line a while ago, and it was kind of adorable.

And yet also sexy. He just wanted to reach out and touch, to run his fingers through that hair and kiss those lips that were still moving silently in time with an upbeat version of “O Hanukkah.”

His thoughts were interrupted when his phone buzzed. The food had arrived and he went downstairs to fetch it.

When he came back up, Levi had closed both laptops and dredged up two mismatched place settings from the kitchen and dimmed the lights.

Saul rolled his eyes when he saw it, because, seriously? But he was smiling at the same time.

Saul’s defenses were crumbling fast. He wasn’t quite sure what this was. A seduction? A game? A playful flirtation to pass the time? Either way, he was blown away that Levi had chosen to let himself go around him.

He could hardly remember his objections when he laid out their meal from the two bulging bags. Levi oohed and ahhed over the selections, thanking him in that joyously sweet way.

He’s your employee, he reminded himself. You should just tell him that nothing can happen before this goes any further.

He couldn’t bring himself to do it, though. Not when Levi was scooping little bits of each dish onto his plate and humming in appreciation when he took his first bite.

Not when he shoved half a taco in his mouth to keep it from falling apart, then looked helplessly at Saul because his mouth was too full to talk.

Not when he somehow got a dab of whipped cream from the tres leches cake on his nose and Saul wiped it off with a napkin.

And not when he took his last bite, then leaned back in his chair in a show of satisfaction.

“That was delicious,” he murmured sleepily. “Now I just need a cozy nap.” He stretched and wiggled from his seat.

Oh, yes. The nap that Saul had interrupted earlier.

“You could take a nap on the couch,” Saul offered. His office had a plain black, industrial-style couch that faced his desk. There were three sections covered with that easy-to-clean and hard-to-destroy plasticky fabric and metal arms. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but he’d slept there before when he’d had crazy deadlines.

He already knew that he’d spend Levi’s whole nap watching over him. He could even tuck him in with the throw blanket he kept in the bottom drawer of one of the cabinets.

Levi gave the couch a longing look, but then shook his head. “If I sleep this late in the evening, I’ll never sleep tonight.” He sighed theatrically. “I suppose we should get back to work. Once we find this thing we can go home.”

The words stopped Saul cold. Whatever this thing was, it was about to end. It hadn’t even started yet. Hadn’t been anything.

But on Monday, they would both go back to work, and Levi would be his usual, responsible self with a twinkle in his eye. And Saul would go back to his drab existence.

He didn’t quite know what was going on, but he was pretty certain that if he gave it up now, he wouldn’t get another chance.

Was that what he wanted?

No, he knew what he wanted. Well, mostly.

But was that what was right?

He opened his laptop again, staring sightlessly at some random profile’s match list. He’d looked at the same screen so often that he didn’t really see it.

Someone had dressed the interface up a bit for their holiday promo, adding some sparkle to the top and a glittery sheen to the background colors that displayed the match percentages. It seemed appropriate for the sparkling feeling of the day.

Saul vaguely remembered approving that work, then hearing that it had been put off because of something else. Apparently the color scheme alterations had gone live and it looked pretty good. He’d have to compliment whoever had worked on it on Monday.

That was when he saw it. The bug.