Page 144 of Debugging Love

I sit up and plant my hand on my chest. “You think we’re a bad match?” I thought the same, granted, but hearing it from her bruises my ego a little.

“The best conversation we had was when you mansplained how to set up a VPN on my phone.”

Danni cackles.

“I suggested DigiShark because it’s cheaper and more robust.”

“And then you downloaded it without asking and now I can’t figure out how to cancel my subscription.”

“You’re probably looking in the wrong place. Where’s your phone? I’ll do it.”

Danni cackles again.

“I feel like this conversation isn’t private.”

Navya smirks. “It’s not. And I’m the third wheel.” She stands. “Best of luck to both of you. Thank you for the peas, Danni,” she says, raising her voice a notch.

“Anytime,” Danni says.

“I’ll leave you two alone.”

I follow her to the door. Before grabbing the doorknob, she turns to me. “It was nice getting to know you and your family.”

“Same. And thank you for understanding. And I’m sorry this was so awkward. And–”

“Goodbye, Jyotiraditya.”

“You’re going to see me later today,” I holler after her.

I pivot and go find Danni. She’s in the kitchen with a limp dish towel hanging from her hand. We lock eyes and share a relieved laugh.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” I say.

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry you had to meet my family this way.”

She swipes at me with the dish towel. “Stop apologizing. None of this was your fault.”

I grab onto her waist, pull her tight, and dive in for a kiss but she rears back.

“Are you sure about this? I didn’t rank high enough for a callback.”

JustInCase.xlsx. That spreadsheet is going to haunt me. I look up and squeeze my eyes shut. “I really wish you hadn’t seen that.”

“Oh, but I did.” She walks her fingers up my chest. I catch her hand and pull it to my lips.

Her expression becomes serious. She dives for my lips, and I don’t back off. We linger together, stopping for a breath and then greedily going in for more.

She cups my cheeks with her hands, pulls away, and smiles. “One point for ‘Sense of Humor’?”

I groan. “To be fair, you didn’t get my jokes.”

“Because they weren’t funny. You didn’t even laugh at them.”

Danni leans against the counter. I step in closer and bury my face in her hair. “A comedian never laughs at his own jokes.”

“You should stick to coding,” she says, teasingly, before intercepting my lips.

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