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Peyton rotated her chair. “What?”
Adrienne pointed at me, and Peyton spun around in her chair. “How long have you been there?”
“Not long.”Not as long as I would have liked.Grabbing a chair from one of the other empty desks, I pulled it up next to her. “Food.” I pulled out the containers and slid them over. “You need to start taking better care of yourself.” It came out harsher than I meant. I’d followed her around enough to know how often she got lost in her work and forgot to eat. It bothered me to no end that her friends didn’t take care of her like that.
“Whatever,” she muttered as she bit into the sandwich I’d brought her. I pulled out my pocketknife, twirling it around my knuckles as I tried not to smile at how fake annoyed she was.
“What’re you doing?” I asked, staring at the screen with all the letters and numbers.
When she shot me a glare at me, the one that I recognized as “don’t ask,” I shook my head. “I’m not asking for you to tell me everything. Just curious to know what that is.” I shrugged, trying to play off how badly I wanted to know more.
“A virus.” She took a massive bite of her sandwich.
“What’s it supposed to do?” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “C’mon, Einstein. I meant it when I said I wanted to know. I don’t care about specifics. But come on, explain this to me.” I was begging, and I didn’t care who heard me.
“It’s boring, but fine.” Peyton pulled up something and explained what she was building, what the virus was supposed to do, and how it could get into a system.
Her smile and excitement grew as I asked more in-depth questions. Thank you,Coding for Dummies.
“What’s your calling card?” I asked, not sure if I’d used the right word.
She scoffed. “Don’t have one. Don’t need one.” She went to lick sauce off her thumb, but I snagged her wrist and put her thumb in my mouth, sucking it clean. Her eyes went wide, completely focused on my mouth.
“Why don’t you need one?” I asked as I let go of her hand.
“Wha—” She cleared her throat. “What?”
Satisfied at how flustered I made her, I kept myself from smiling. Peyton always wore this impenetrable mask, but I occasionally got raw, unfiltered emotions. Mostly when I pissed her off. I lived for those moments, seeing her knocked off balance. Reveled in making her stutter, short circuiting her brain.
“Calling card, baby. You don’t do that?” She shook her head. “Why?”
“First, because I need to be invisible. If I added something that told everyone who’d been in their system, they’d come looking, or try to compete with me or something.” She went back to her computer, tapping the keyboard to wake the screen up. “Ghosts are untraceable.”
Why was I always bringing these women food?
It was mostly my woman I was feeding, but I didn’t miss the hungry eyes on the food, or the narrowed eyes and skepticism when they saw it was me.
If there was one thing these women knew how to do, it was make a man think he was unwelcome. Probably worked on countless men. Leanne showed me to the conference room and told me they’d be there soon. Sure enough, less than a minute later one of them showed up, and then they were somehow all in the room, elbowing and jostling each other for food. I tried not to laugh. They acted like they hadn’t eaten in days and they’d willingly shank each other for a crumb.
I waited patiently. I’d come here with a plan. Communicate. It was the key to success with women, whether they were eight or eighty. I had a few things I needed tocommunicatewith them.
Betty was the last to stroll in, taking her time to decide what she wanted. A hand reached out, and Betty grabbed it and twisted, making the woman attached to the hand squeal. Then she grabbed the entire container for herself and plopped down in a chair. Someone else growled like an animal.
I took a step back, wanting some space between them, the food, and me. Were they always so feral? Or were they just hungry? I wanted to find Peyton and ask if this was normal.
“Stop making that face,” Tyler said. She scared me the most. And learning from Peyton that she was the fucking MacGyver of weapons had only confirmed my instinct to steer clear. Physically, she wasn’t any different from the rest of the women in the room. They all had this vibe like they’d kill me, then dry my mother’s tears at my funeral. But where the others occasionally turned that side of them off, Tyler never did.
“Yeah. You look scared. Don’t let Peyton find out we chased you off because we’re hungry,” Izzy said.
“Peyton’s the worst of us,” Chris cut in. “Remember that time she tried to stab my hand for going for the last dumpling?”
“Maybe it’s because she forgets to eat when she’s working and none of her friends stop to remind her to take care of herself.” Five pairs of eyes flayed me to the bone. Oh, shit. Fuck. What did I just do?
“Oh.” Betty laughed, her eyes shining with glee. “This’ll be good. Continue.”
“I’ll let that snide little comment slide. And only”—Adrienne jabbed her finger at me from across the table—“because you buy great outfits.”
“He didn’t even buy it. He gave Leanne the money,” Tyler argued.
