Page 1 of That Geeky Feeling

1

ELLIOT

“W

here should I put these?”

My attention jumps from one of the three monitors on my desk to Charlotte standing in my office doorway, hugging a stack of paperwork to her chest. Her long brown ponytail swishes from side to side, unable to keep up with her head as she looks around the room.

“This isn’t like you.” She steps inside, her brow furrowed. “It looks like a filing cabinet threw up in here.” Her bright blue eyes scan for somewhere to deposit the folders. “And there were precious few clear surfaces in here to start with, what with all the plants.”

I push my glasses up my nose and try to gather myself. It’s unusual for my oldest brother’s executive assistant to come down here—it’s usually me who makes the journey two floors up to see her. I mean, to see Max. She just happens to sit outside his office.

“Good God.” She makes a face like the shocked emoji. “You’re even storing stuff on there?”

She points at a box on top of the original 1980 Pac-Man arcade game on the far side of the room—my pride and joy that only a privileged few are allowed to touch. Charlotte is one of them. But she only played once three years ago, was terrible at it and never tried again. There’s a second one in my apartment—that one’s from 1982.

“And even that pile of junk is bigger than usual.” She nods at the disorganized stack of computer components, soldering kits, pliers, and random peripherals in the corner. “For someone who employs a bunch of people to fix things, you sure do fix a lot of things yourself.”

“But I like?—”

“To keep your hand in.” Her mouth quirks up at one side as she rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

My head always goes a bit fuzzy when she finishes my sentences.

“But the rest of the mess is because Greta’s on vacation.” I gesture to the empty desk on the other side of the glass wall where my assistant would usually be. “Took her grandkids on an outdoorsy trip to Colorado. She’s due back on Monday, and I can’t fucking wait.”

“Ah-ha!” Charlotte spots a target across the room and walks swiftly toward it, her black pencil skirt clinging to her thighs as she moves. When she reaches the circular side table at the end of the sofa, she picks up my temperamental Japanese painted fern, puts her bundle of papers in its place, and plonks the plant back on top. “Max says you need these.”

Max employs my tech company to build custom data retention software for some of the laundry list of businesses he owns. He’s also the owner of this Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, and he made me jump through the same hoops as everyone else to qualify for space for my office and for my squad of twenty-five people on the floor below. The rest of the Two Coast Tech team is in San Francisco—that end is run by Owen, my business partner and cousin.

“I don’t need them.” I sigh. “Well, I need the information. But I don’t need hard copies. Why the hell can’t he use the cloud like a normal person?”

“Like a ‘normal’ person who has three giant computer screens, you mean?” Charlotte runs her fingers along the length of a fern leaf. Her nails are pastel blue this week. “Why does anyone need more than one?”

I chuckle at the 745th time she’s asked that question, and nod at the screen to my left. “This one is for?—”

“Please don’t.” She gives me one of her mischievous smiles and shakes her head. “You’ve explained it before. In great detail. Even if I understood, I doubt I’d be interested.”

Christ, she’s adorable. But it’s probably best that I don’t tell her about the six-screen wall I’ve built at home. “Anyway, Max is as addicted to printed documents as you are to planners.”

I’ve been trying to wean Charlotte off her array of colorful paper calendars, schedulers, and notebooks and pull her into the digital world for almost all of the nearly four years she’s worked for my brother. I’ve even coded a few things for her from scratch. They’re the most fun projects I work on. Probably because Charlotte is the most fun person to work with. And tease. And look at.

“I’ll leave you to have that fight with him.” She folds her arms, which pulls the V-neck of her silky black-and-white polka dot top a little lower. “I’ve already had to reprimand him today for letting two coffees go cold and insisting I remake them, rather than reheat them. Such a waste.”

“It’s a waste of you too.” She raises her eyebrows as if surprised by the compliment. “He might treat you like an annoying little sister, but he knows you could push him out of the way and run his empire just as well as he can.”

There’s a glint in her eye as she moves toward the door. “By ‘just as well’ you mean ‘better,’ right?”

“Of course. But I’ll leave you to have that fight with him.”

“Oh, and I have to confess”—she looks at me over her shoulder—“I am enjoying the to-do list app you made that gives me a round of applause when I check things off. I haven’t written a list on paper for a week.”

I might have sold millions of dollars’ worth of software, some of which I wrote myself when Owen and I first started the business, but Charlotte complimenting my clapping to-do list might be my proudest achievement to date.

I make a concerted effort not to look too delighted, instead licking my finger and drawing one point to me in the air. “Baby steps.”

“Ha.” She points at me. “Don’t get too excited.”

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