Page 21 of Debugging Love

Kayla:8OOBS

Morgan:I’m not working that tasker. If Christopher gives it to me, I’m quitting.

Me:No you won’t.

Morgan:Did you tell Christopher about your date yet?

Me:Nope.

Kayla:How is your 8UTT today?

Me:Varying shades of blue and purple.

Morgan:Aw, Danni’s 8UTT looks like Uranus.

A loud hiccup fills the office.

Kayla:This is my second case of hiccups today. Shoot me.

After several more minutes of aimless chatting while Kayla chirps like a bird, we head to the conference room for our weekly team meeting.

I take a seat at the table, settling into one of the faux-leather, well-cushioned chairs. The tempered glass wall across from me isn’t soundproofed in the slightest but it lets me watch the rest of the team saunter over.

We’re a motley crew. Young, middle-aged, old, White, Black, Hispanic, Indian. Abeer sits to my right. He’s older. An immigrant turned citizen and a dependable coder who takes orders well but rarely throws out new ideas. Reese, a tall, White, lanky Charleston-native with a tech-related, 50K-follower YouTube channel sits to my left. He’s thumbing his nose at his premature alopecia by growing every remaining hair on his headto its fullest length, including his scraggly beard which he pulls into a ponytail.

Morgan and Kayla sit across from me—Morgan next to Tanner, the twenty-three-year-old newbie to the team, and Kayla next to Juanita, who switches into Spanish whenever she’s super annoyed with management or with any of us. Usually Drew.

Drew is a contractor who carries his silicon-valley experience as a chip on his shoulder. He started six months ago to upgrade HR’s out-of-date web services after a data breach. Corporate wanted the best of the best. We got Drew. He’s good at what he does, I guess, but whatever.

He flops into a chair at the foot of the table and tosses his bangs out of his eyes. His 3D-printed equine blinkers lack sex appeal, existing only to block peripheral distractions like a horse who needs help staying focused.

“I’m here. We can start,” he says.

Juanita mutters something in Spanish.

Abeer nudges me with his elbow and looks down. I follow his gaze to his phone. It’s open to his translation app.Lord grant me the serenity to not kick that idiot in the teeth.

“You’re recording her?” I whisper.

“I’m learning Spanish,” he answers. “Curse words mostly.”

I snicker.

Kayla hiccups so violently that she bounces in her seat. “Sorry,” she says, followed by another hiccup.

“Can we put a bag over that?” Drew says. As Corporate’s golden boy, he gets away with more than the rest of us.

“We can put a bag over that attitude,” Violet answers.

Juanita mutters something in Spanish again.

Abeer angles his phone screen toward me, and I read the translation.We can put you in a bag and throw you in the dumpster.

Christopher walks in carrying his laptop. “Ignore Drew, Kayla. I don’t think he’s had his coffee yet.”

“I have had twenty-four ounces of pre-workout.”

“Take off those idiotic glasses,” Bruce grunts. He’s a stout, older Black gentleman. The best coder on the team until Drew came along. He’s bitter. I don’t blame him.

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