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"The ducks were fun. They were a homage to your little friend out back," I said as I set down my pen so I could stretch. "Please don't tell me you got rid of the ducks."
She was silent for a beat, and I looked at her to see what was wrong. Her gaze was on my stomach. My shirt had ridden up a little during my stretch, revealing some skin. I smiled, clearing my throat; Noah blinked and quickly looked back at her screen.
"His name's Harold." She spoke quietly.
"What?"
"The duck out back, he's Harold," she said simply. "And don't worry, I didn't get rid your distractions…even though I should have."
I smiled at her honest confession and naming of her friend. "If you got rid of my ducks, I would have gotten rid of the billion and one necklaces you bury Leisah in."
She whipped her gaze back toward me. "You wouldn't dare. It's part of her character design now. You can't change the character design, or the story loses half of its meaning."
I snorted at the outrage. She had no business being that pretty while outraged.
"Half? Yeah right,” I said.
"Half," she insisted with a pointed look. When I smiled at her, something changed in her eyes. She blinked, making it disappear almost as it arrived.
"Exaggeration," I said one more time before turning back to my screen.
The noise of the office took over again for a few minutes as we sunk into our art, and then the abrupt sound of Noah's pencil dropping made me pull away from my work. My stomach twisted as I looked toward her.
"What's wrong?" I asked, trying not to sound too worried. My mind immediately went to her hand. She'd been pretending like those gloves were helping, but I caught her wincing every now and then. Noah was in pain, and like most artists, she was in denial about it. I didn't say anything because I knew how those things were. I also figured she was on her way to recovering, but maybe I'd been wrong. Maybe she was working herself into a lingering injury.
"Kraken entered the contest," she said without looking up. "God damn it—I mean, gosh darn it. Sorry."
I pressed my lips together, trying not to smile at her delayed attempt at professionalism. "You sure?"
"What do you mean, am I sure?" She motioned to her screen with a huff. "I'm looking at it right here."
I pushed away from my desk, wheeling my chair over to her side of the cubicle. Her back stiffened when I got close.
"Let me see?" I asked, feeling a little stiff myself. Even though we'd been talking during work, there was still an understanding that we were keeping our distance since my question after our Q&A. I'd never wanted to fix the silence between a stranger as much as I wanted to right now.
That's probably because she's not a stranger.
She wasn't, hadn't been since she got here, but there was no other column for me to put Noah in. She existed in a class all her own, out of reach. Before the Q&A, I would have gladly kept her there. Now, I wanted something more simply because she'd be able to distract me. She was the one person who’d helped me stop ruminating over the same things.
"Here." Noah tried to make her voice flat, but I could tell by the slight bob of her throat that she was nervous.
I tried not to lean in too close. There was still a good, respectable foot between us as I rested my elbow on her desk. She circled her mouse around a familiar username, and my eyebrows raised when I saw the ranking. The nerves I had about being so close to her were temporarily gone when I got a look at that number.
"This is current?" I asked, hoping this was some bad joke constructed by the eccentric owners of Inkmic.
"Yeah," she said with an unvoiced "duh" in her tone.
I gestured to the screen. "Refresh it."
"It's current," she promised.
"Noah.” I dragged out her name in a playful tone. The syllables felt good on my tongue. Had her name always felt like this? Like something I could repeat and never get bored of?
"Fine." Noah clicked the refresh button, and she brushed her cheeks like she was trying to wipe something from her skin. "There you go, and would you look at that? It's even worse than before."
In the small window since I'd moved over to her desk, kraken had jumped five places. He was in tenth place. After posting one chapter, he was in tenth place.
This was bad. I'd secured my number two spot, and I had enough momentum to overtake the current leader. If my estimations were correct, I would be number one by the end of the week.
