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What the hell is wrong with me? I’m not traditionally the kind of guy who notices the small details. I hate to say it, but I’m the guy who likes to have fun. I know how to work hard, and I’m not a partier or a player, but I don’t like to take anything too seriously, including relationships. After the whole not falling in love pact with my cousins, I even cut the casual dating down to mutually acceptable one-night stands.
“Ugh, you’re one of those guys,” Lindy suddenly remarks.
I realize I’ve been staring directly at her bottom. She has a very nice bottom, which looks even nicer in her tight jeans. I quickly rip my eyes back to her face even though I’m sure my face is somewhere around the shade of plum, maybe maroon.
“No! I…sorry. I was thinking about, uh…sorry, work. It’s been…” I’m grasping here, and I know it. I’m floundering pathetically. “I really wasn’t thinking about your bottom. Sorry.” Her arms cross, and she gives me a dangerous look. “I mean, I truly wasn’t. How…how did you manage to get into my security system so easily anyway? It’s supposed to be airtight and hacker-resistant.”
She rolls her eyes, which are the same color as a tropical ocean, and scoffs, “Hacker-resistant? Your Granny said it’s hacker-proof. But it’s neither of those things. I got into it in under ten minutes, and I’m not even that good.” Then, she seems to realize what she just said and backtracks. “I mean, not that I do this for a living or anything because I don’t. And it’s certainly not a hobby. Nope. I just…it’s a skill, one I happen to have. I’m good with computers and coding. I always have been. It’s a passion for me. That’s it. I don’t do illegal things. Never have, never will. And I don’t do jobs for hire either, except when crazy old ladies show up on my doorstep in the middle of the night. I thought she was in trouble. Let me just say your Granny is a consummate actress.”
“Oh, I know she’s very good at getting what she wants.”
“In this case, I think she wanted to humiliate you because it’s the only way you’d listen.” Her eyes narrow. “Take the point. I did it in under ten minutes, and there are far better hackers than me out there. Someone could probably have done it in thirty seconds if they were really good. Thirty. Seconds. So don’t market that shit. Just don’t. Your Granny’s right. It needs some major improvements.”
I don’t know if it’s the necklace—it’s easy and convenient to blame everything on the bloody cursed bastard—common sense, or maybe this is what Granny wanted all along, and I’m just finally getting it because she always did say I can be kind of dense, but I blurt out something entirely wild.
“Will you fix it then? Can you? Do you want a job?”
Lindy stares at me like my head might have reversed places with my ball bag, and now I have a ball bag as a head. No, that’s not right. If that happened, I think she’d probably scream, then bust a gut laughing. Who wouldn’t?
“Uh, no thanks. I don’t want a job.”
“What about a consulting job? From home? You won’t have to work here. You can if you want, but you won’t have to. You can work remotely if you’re more comfortable that way. You can review things and at least give me some pointers or tell me where the weak links are. I’ll pay well. Even better than what my Granny paid you.”
She laughs sharply at that. “She paid me ninety so…”
“Dollars?” Granny could have done better than that.
“Grand.”
Ninety fucking thousand dollars? I nearly fall over. “Why would she…how could she…that’s a lot of money!”
Lindy rolls her eyes. “No need to get indignant or rude about it. She thought you’d lose far, far more money getting your ass slammed with lawsuits over your security system. The truth is, I would have done the job for like five thousand. Her job, not yours. But don’t tell her that. I’m quite happy with the giant bonus.”
Glarhhhhhh! I physically have to reach up and push my bottom jaw shut.
“Anyway, no. No thanks.”
She turns, and I wait about ten seconds before I sprint after her. I’m not above begging, not this time. “Please!”
She whirls and looks up at the ceiling. She’s intriguing and beautiful, especially with all the sunlight from outside streaming through the big front windows and illuminating her pale skin, high cheekbones, and full lips like a red-haired angel.
“Uh, no.”
“I’ll match it. What my Granny paid you. I’ll pay you to fix it, and you don’t have to work here. You can work from home. I’ll give you health insurance and pay for your living expenses for six months, and I’ll even let you take the credit for the software design.”
