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I spend the next half hour digging deeper into my brother’s IT expert, who impressed me during that first meeting. My research suggests that he might just be the guy I need, but that guy is currently on vacation for the long weekend, which opened the door for me have a work date that I’m seriously wishing didn’t involve work. Then again, hoping for more than that would be ignoring Charlie’s wishes. What am I getting myself into?
Charlie should come first. His business should come first. I should not be tempting myself by getting any closer to Lisa than I’ve already been, because Lord knows I’ve already felt a serious spark around her, and seeing her again, alone, is only going to make things worse. But dammit, I haven’t felt a spark like that in, well, ever. Yes, I’d been enamored with a few girls in my youth, and I’d even had a few relationships that lasted several months, but those had been purely physical. Lisa is different. She intrigues me. She challenges me. And as shitty as it is to flirt with ignoring Charlie’s wishes, I can’t deny that I’m seriously tempted to ignore my brother for the first time in my life.
Chapter 6
Lisa
My breath catches in my throat when I open the door.
“Hi.” I smile, hoping I don’t sound as breathless to his ears as I do to mine.
“Hi.” His deep voice sends chills down my spine. The good kind.
“Where’s your laptop?” I frown.
“I don’t need one.”
“How are you going to write the technical portion without a laptop?”
“I’m not going to write it. I’m going to dictate it. You’re going to write it.” He winks.
“So, I’m your scribe?”
He laughs. “No, you’re the wordsmith. I could sit in front of a blank screen for hours without typing a single word, but in that same time, I can tell you more than you’d ever want to know about the technical side of the process, and you can make my words sound really impressive.”
I’m not sure if he’s teasing or giving me a genuine compliment, but I step aside to let him in. He takes a moment to survey the space, and I follow his eyes, wondering what he sees.
My home is typically craftsman, the main room framed by wood beams and built-in shelves. An overstuffed cream couch and chairs brighten and soften the space, while an oriental rug and some throw pillows add color. I find it cozy, but I can’t tell what he thinks.
“Drink?” I ask.
“Water, please.”
I gesture to the living room while I retreat to the kitchen to get his water. When I come back, I find him perusing my shelves. Most are full of books, everything from fact to fiction, history to mystery, and while his eyes seem to linger a bit on the classics, he doesn’t pick anything up for further inspection.
Chris turns when I sit on the couch and set his water on the coffee table. Grabbing my laptop I prop my feet up and open it to get started. He takes a seat next to me, so close the cushion tilts in his direction, making it hard to balance the computer. I take a deep breath and fish my glasses from the collar of my shirt. He clears his throat, sending another shiver up my spine. Good lord, this is going to be a long afternoon.
I click the application icon, and a document fills the screen. “So, this is the application,” I start. “I was able to fill in most of the fields with content we already had. The company description, competitive advantages, and go-to market strategy are already complete, unless you want to add anything?” I glance in his direction briefly before turning my eyes back to the screen.
“It all looks good to me,” he rumbles. “I might add something about the efficiencies of the platform, you know, how it can replace other tools and save parents and teachers time that they can then spend with the students, but otherwise I think you covered everything.”
“That’s a good idea.” My fingers fly over the keys as I type up that sentence, which takes several tries since I’m acutely aware of how my arm brushes against his as I type. It’s suddenly very warm. I reach for my water, hoping to cool both my throat and the ache simmering between my legs.
“I like that,” he says when I finish.
“Thanks.” I can’t stop myself from smiling under his praise as I scroll to the next text field. “Here’s the technical section. You’ve only got six hundred characters, so you have to be precise.”
“Okay. Where do you want me to start?”
“Start?”
“I mean, do you want an overview, or do you want to just jump right into the mechanics of the platform?”
“I think we give a good overview in the company description. Let’s start with the mechanics and see where that takes us.”
“Okay.” He walks through the talking points Simon had given him the week prior, demonstrating a solid grasp on the technical aspects of the software without sprinkling in a bunch of buzzwords that distract from the message. It’s exactly what I would have asked Simon to do if he were here, which makes me think either he’s less techie than he comes across or Chris is not your average landlord.
Thirty minutes later, after a bit of back and forth to tweak the language until we’re both satisfied, I send the document off to Charlie. But while our work is done, neither of us seems in a rush to move.
