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I shouldn’t have hired her. That was the big, obvious mistake in all of this. As long as I was her boss, and she was my employee, we couldn’t do anything. It was a legal nightmare. A moral one, too.
But of course, that would have been a far worse offense: choosing not to hire her because I wanted to date her.
Is that what I want?I wondered in the darkness.To date her? Or am I simply infatuated with puppy-love?
I took solace in the fact that we were swamped with work at ACS, and would be for the next few months while we rapidly expanded. Even if I wanted to date Amber, I wouldn’t have had the time.
But that just meant we would be spending a lot of time together inside the office. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
I went into the office early the next morning. By Silicon Valley standards, anything before ten was early. Walking into the office at six-thirty was like going to work in the middle of the night.
I loved being in the office that early. Everything was silent. No distractions. Back in the day, when we were creating PayScale, I did some of my best work early in the morning before Owen rolled into our tiny rented office. Today, arriving early hopefully meant avoiding Amber.
If I could keep her out of my sight, then I could keep her out of my thoughts. Of course, that was impossible based on our proximity. Owen came jogging up the stairs with extra energy at eight, a big smile on his face as he waved to me. I wondered what had him in such a good mood.
Around nine, I went to get another cup of coffee. My plan was to hole away in my office with the windows frosted, headphones on and blaring music so nobody could disturb me. Then I wouldn’t have to see Amber. I could start to put things behind me.
But when I got to the top of the steps, I saw Amber walking through the front door, chatting briefly with Melinda.
Yesterday, after we kissed, I experienced my first real fight-or-flight response. Now I experienced my second. I wanted to turn around and sprint back into the safety and seclusion of my office. The only thing that stopped me was that Amber had already seen me.
She smiled as she climbed the steps. Her dark hair was worn down today, and it slid around her shoulders with every step. She looked tired, like she had pulled an all-nighter, but she was still devastatingly beautiful to my eyes.
“Morning,” she said.
“Um. Good morning,” I replied. Then, struck with a sudden burst of courage, I decided to tackle the subject head-on. “I am sorry about what happened yesterday.”
She smiled ruefully and shook her head. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault Owen…” She trailed off. “Oh. You mean the…”
“The kiss,” I said, lowering my voice to make sure Owen couldn’t hear. I didn’t want to know what he would say about the whole thing if he found out. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m your boss. It was wrong to do it to you.”
“Do ittome?” She gave me a weary eye-roll. “I’m an adult. I was there too. Plus, I’m the one who asked you out to get a drink.”
“AndI’mthe one in the position of power,” I insisted. “I have to make better decisions. It won’t happen again.”
Even though I desperately want it to. At that very moment, standing two feet away from Amber, it was all I could do not to fantasize about throwing her up against the wall and kissing her again. I knew that if she disagreed with me, if she said she wanted to take me out for that drink and see where it led, I didn’t have the strength to say no. I would cave in an instant.
But Amber said, “I get it. I understand.” She looked disappointed. “This is way too much, too early in the morning. I wasn’t prepared for an HR lecture before I’ve had my third cup of coffee.”
“Third?” She looked like she hadn’t hadanycoffee. “Are you okay?”
She shifted her laptop bag on her shoulder. “I had a long night. Spent way too much time boosting the security on my home network. Adding an extra firewall and a whitelist access system. I also found a zero-day vulnerability in my videocard driver. Wouldn’t want anyone exploiting that.”
She looked past me, in the direction of Owen’s office. I expected to see anger in her eyes, but there was something else today. Determination, and maybe a contemplative acknowledgment of something I didn’t understand.
“Better get after it, then.” She reached out and brushed her fingertips against my forearm. “I’m glad you’re wearing your shirts like this, now. It’s a good look on you.”
She smiled, then walked to her office. It took me three long seconds to break out of the daze created by her touch—and her compliment.
18
Jude
After getting another cup of coffee, I holed myself up in my office to get to work. The mountain of code that needed to be written was overwhelming, but it was easier to tackle since Amber had created the roadmap.
But after an hour, I noticed a problem. I stumbled upon it while trying to decide which Dogecoin side-chain to work on first. Most of the roadmap was flawless, but there was one part that needed more work.
Bolstered by the knowledge that we had something technical to discuss, I went to her office. The door was open, but I paused to knock politely on the door frame.
