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CHAPTER 4
ALARIC
I’m enjoying being the new me. I was pretty much a dumbass yesterday, expecting people to make sure I was included and not making a move to include other people. Turns out that yesterday was a day that at least two developer teams had projects due, and everybody was too busy to eat lunch together anyway.
The CEO and President of TechBridge, Carson Markham and Julian DeBerg, are both coders and best friends from college, and they both stop by my desk to welcome me. “Sorry we didn’t greet you yesterday,” Mr. DeBerg says. “We were in deep with those projects. Glad to have you with us.”
“Glad to be here, Mr. DeBerg.” And I am.
“We use first names around here, even for execs,” Mr. Markham says. “I’m Carson, he’s Julian. That’s it. No “misters” at all. Glad you’re on board, Alaric.”
We shake hands, and I stop having to remind myself that I deserve this job. Then my team members—Juliet Marsh, James Gunn, and Marcus Johnson—announce that we’re going to Mindy’s for lunch and they’re buying mine. So now I really feel welcome, part of the team.
At lunch, I explain about my social awkwardness. “Be really blunt with me, okay? Tell me what you need, or what you don’t want. I can deal with that.”
“I’m the same way,” Juliet says, tucking a piece of short hair behind her ear. “They’re used to me.”
“She’s a pain in the ass,” Marcus says with a grin, and she rolls her eyes. “But she’s an excellent developer.”
“I can code rings around you,” Juliet shoots back, and she’s smiling too.
“Don’t mind them,” James says. “Want my pickle?”
Gross. I shake my head. I can’t eat anything too sour, too sweet, too squishy, or too strong. Onions, nope. Hot peppers, double nope. Oatmeal, forget it. Spinach, I’d rather starve.
I can’t help talking about beautiful Rochelle. How we met, how I thought I was a disaster, and then she rescued the situation. How we’re going to have dinner tonight. What I should do or not do.
“Be yourself,” Juliet says, leaning across the table to stare into my face. “If it’s not right when you’re honest, then it won’t ever be right and you should let her go.”
“Yeah,” James echoes. “Don’t worry about screwing up. It’ll either work, or it won’t.”
Which doesn’t exactly give me a blueprint, but lets me know that it’s not right to hide the way I really am.
So by the time work is over and I’ve written a whole section of code that I’m pleased with, I’m so excited I can barely walk straight. I bounce out of my chair and head for the door, only stopping when Marcus swings a big hand across my path. “Hold up, dawg,” he says. “Don’t go out there looking like a hyper Chihuahua.”
What?
He sees my confused face. “I mean, slow your roll. Chill.”
“I have no chill,” I explain.
He laughs. “Okay, lemme try this another way. Don’t…okay, don’t look like you’re gonna die if she doesn’t like you. That’s too much pressure on her.”
That makes sense. I nod.
“Just relax and be yourself,” he reiterates.
“My self is pretty hyper because I like her,” I say, shrugging.
Marcus just looks at me, then sits back in his office chair and laughs. “I take it back. Be as hyper as you want. But if she doesn’t like it, don’t blame her. Let her be herself too.”
“Got it.”
When I get out of the TechBridge building, Rochelle’s nowhere to be found although it’s close to 6 p.m. Do I walk back to the apartment? Do I change clothes? Do I just go to the pizza place? A quick search on my phone shows me that Benny’s New York Style Pizza is only two blocks away, so I head straight there.
She’s waiting outside the building, looking through the windows of the shop next door, but when I get close, she turns her head and sees me, and smiles.
Her dark hair is down loose on her shoulders, and she’s wearing a dress like a long-sleeved t-shirt with a skirt, purply-red like grapes. She looks beautiful.
