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When I didn’t hear any other conversation, I squinted one eye open to see Linus pulling Kev over to a small desk in the room and sitting him in the chair.
“First, I was hoping you could help me with the data security issue we talked about,” Linus said. “It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other better. Plus…” He grimaced ruefully. “Well, the deadline for my article is this weekend, and I’m starting to panic. You started explaining encryption, but then we were interrupted. If you were going to secure critical information, how would you do it?”
Kev shrugged. “I’d put copies on multiple hard drives and stow them in various safe locations. Safe-deposit box at the bank, hidden safe in the house… you know. That kind of thing. You definitely don’t want them connected to the internet.”
A muscle in Linus’s jaw tightened. “But what if you… needed to work with the data? And you couldn’t afford to have it out of your sight?”
The next part had been rehearsed several times the night before. I held my breath.
Kev pretended to consider it. “Oh… well, for example, there’s some really important data I’m working on for a friend of mine. I have it saved on my laptop, but I use 256-bit encryption. If you’re not logged in as me on the machine, it would take forever to hack it.”
Linus fell for it. His eyes lit up. “Can you show me?”
Kev bit his bottom lip and looked away nervously. “I’m not really supposed to let anyone see it. I could get in a lot of trouble.”
Linus moved behind Kev and rubbed his shoulders, leaning forward to speak next to his ear. “But this is me. I’m not just anyone, am I? I’m your boyfriend.” He paused coyly. “Unless you’ve changed your mind again. Decided to pursue things with that other guy you’re seeing.”
Kev’s nostrils flared. I recognized the sign of his annoyance, and I knew this time it wasn’t aimed at Linus. “I was seeing someone else. But it turns out he was lying to me the whole time about who he was.”
My throat closed up, and my fingernails dug into my palms. So much for hoping he hadn’t noticed my slip.
Kev was brilliant. Why did I keep forgetting that?
“Oh, no! You deserve better than that, sweetness,” Linus murmured, getting closer to Kev again to look at the laptop over Kev’s shoulder.
Kev shrugged. “I’m used to it. It’s one of the reasons I was so happy when you reached out to befriend me in the game. I have a hard time trusting people. I feel like a lot of people only approach me to use me.”
I felt the worried glances of Champ and the others zinging back and forth. This was not something we’d rehearsed, and it cut too close to the truth of Kev and Linus. Dangerously close.
And it was all thanks to me… the guy who’d been too worried about fucking over the op to tell Kev the truth and was now about to fuck over the op because I hadn’t.
Linus froze for a beat before speaking. “Not true. How could you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t mean you.” Kev wrinkled his nose as if wondering how Linus could imagine such a thing. “Of course not. I just mean players in the game who see my advanced level and want to play with me to earn better access in the game. You’re not like that. You’re already a great player. In fact, do you… do you want to play something together now? It might be a fun kind of way to… I dunno. Break the ice?” Kev let out an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry. Ignore me. I just wanted an excuse to see your Horn. Sometimes I think about you lying in bed playing with it, and I thought…” He caught his full lower lip between his teeth and looked up at Linus from under his lashes. “…now that we’re here together…”
“Fucking fuck,” I croaked.
Champ tried to hide his smirk and failed. “I changed my mind. I love this game. The puns are delightful.”
Linus moved around Kev to rest his ass on the edge of the desk next to Kev’s laptop. “Why don’t we trade for a few minutes? Let me poke around in your security setup while I let you see my Horn?”
Laurel let out a relieved breath and spoke through her comms microphone. “Distraction team, be ready.”
Kev seemed to hesitate again, as if truly unsure whether or not he should let Linus see any of the Horn data. From what everyone had decided last night, there was no reason not to load the stolen Horn data onto the laptop. According to Buck, Linus was already well aware of the names on the list and who they represented.
“I’ll show you the security I set up, but please try not to look at the data…” Kev said. “Or I could get in big trouble.”
