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Yeah, the Tennessee thing so wasn’t happening—as evidenced by the interfering jerkface standing beside me—but the idea that Adam had sought me out made me feel good. Before I could respond, though, Hux dropped Rodrigo back in my lap, sans bow tie.
“There. That’s better,” he grumbled. He looked at the design on my Star Wars polo shirt and snorted out an appreciative laugh. “Nice shirt.”
“Oh, uh.” I glanced down at my chest like I hadn’t already seen the quirky design a million times, mostly to hide my blush. Of course Hux was the one other person on the planet who got it. “Thanks.”
He leaned his ass against my desk and folded his arms over his chest. “Now, talk to me about this vulnerability. I still can’t believe I missed something large enough for you to gain access to the system and run a script.”
Hux was medium height—maybe three inches shorter than my five-eleven frame—but unlike me, he was built. Every part of him, from his thighs, to his abs, to the tattoos on his forearm revealed by his rolled-up shirtsleeves, was packed with solid muscle. I didn’t want to notice it, especially not at that moment, but the way he was leaning put it all on display.
I swallowed hard and fumbled my Horn back into my pocket. “You didn’t. I mean, you did. But, uh… only sort of.” Great job, Kevin. Really articulate. “Getting in to run the script was easy. You know the best way to gain access to a system isn’t to hack your way in with brute force—” I began.
“No shit. It’s social engineering.” Hux sounded bored. “Call someone and pretend you work for their IT department, then ask for their password. Or write an email pretending to be from their credit card company and see if they’ll follow your bad link. Blah, blah, blah. Wait…” He paused for a second to narrow his eyes at me. “You can’t possibly think I was dumb enough to fall for any of those things.”
“No! Not exactly. Um.” I took a deep breath and carefully didn’t look at Hux because just the sight of him kept tripping me up. It was truly unfair that someone so jerky should be so hot. I tapped my index finger against my thumb once, twice, three times, five times, eight times, thirteen times to calm myself. “You know social engineering’s not all about telling lies, right? So, an opportunistic person might wait until their target left their desk to, say, collect their bunny’s travel cage in the other room—” I chanced a glance at him.
“Wait… wait.” Hux blinked, and then his entire face went red. I’d seen him angry—often—but not like this. “You… you used the bunny against me? You accessed my system and programmed it to run that script when we got back to the office?” he whispered. “You made me look like an ass in front of my boss, Kevin. Fuck you.”
I blinked at him in confusion. “Wait, what? You… you already knew that I’d accessed the system to run the script. I mean, that’s why you’re back here at the house—”
“But I thought you’d accessed it through an actual vulnerability, asshole!” Hux straightened and ran a hand through his messy hair. “I didn’t realize it was because you’d created a vulnerability just to exploit it.”
“No. I… I didn’t! I mean, technically I did, but only because—”
Because there was an actual vulnerability in the system, and he wouldn’t listen to me. Because I wasn’t sure how else to get his attention. Because I’d been desperate and, yes, pissed off, and I’d wanted to get through his ironclad ego any way possible just so he’d take my warning seriously. Take me seriously.
“Because you wanted attention again,” Hux finished. “You wanted to save the day again.”
“No!” I insisted angrily, pushing away from my desk. “Not at all. That’s not it at all.”
In fact, after overhearing Hux’s conversation with Champ, I’d decided to admit my wrongdoing and draw Hux a map to the vulnerability so he could find it, fix it, and be the hero himself, because I was a giver like that. I’d been working my way up to my confession with my messages about Rodrigo earlier, but then Hux had demanded the information before I could offer it.
Now, with Hux’s eyes flashing fire and his jaw clenched as he stared me down, I was starting to regret being so softhearted. Because the truth was that Hux had fucked up by not finding the threat, then compounded that fuckup by not listening to me, and doubled down on the fuckup by leaving his computer unattended. The fact that he was blaming me when I’d tried again and again to be helpful was…
Well, it was hurtful. And that made me angry.
“I mean… technically, you’re the one who left your computer unguarded, so really, you made yourself look like an ass, wouldn’t you say?” I clapped back. “I admit that I—”
