Page 138 of Debugging Love

“Well, yeah, and–”

“And you’re afraid of me.”

“No.” He squeezes my hand. “Maybe a little. Remember the day I saved you from the spider?”

“Tomato elbow?”

He nods. “I liked being your hero. I liked it so much that I wanted to be your hero again. But, you’re pretty self reliant, so I had to get creative. Also, I’m thickheaded. And sometimes I can’t see past my own nose.” He leans closer. “Especially when I’m with you. When I see your lips, all I want to do is…”

He cups the back of my neck, pulls me closer, and kisses me so hard I’d fall over if I wasn’t desperately pressing my lips against his. And then his Teams app dings.

We draw far enough apart to smile at each other.

“We’re supposed to be working,” I say.

“You don’t think ‘kissing your coworker’ is in our job description?”

“No, I really don’t,” I say with a laugh.

Chance gently kisses my cheek and then sighs. “Fine. I guess we do have a lot of work to do.” He rests his hand on my knee. “I’m going to need gum for this.”

When he’s rummaging in the kitchen, I say, “How’s your gum-chewing withdrawal going?”

“It was going great until a minute ago.”

I hear drawers and cabinets opening and closing, a “gah” and a “for the love of marsupials.”

“This could be a problem.” He reappears but heads straight to his bedroom.

While he’s rummaging for Orbit Sweet Mint in there, my eyes rest on his task bar, home in on his open Excel application that’sbegging me to open it. He’s still throwing stuff around in his bedroom. This will be quick.

I maximize the spreadsheet, and a file called “JustInCase” materializes. The left column is a list of names. Across the top are categories. I scroll down and find my name.

“You gave me a 6 for personality. A 1 for sense of humor? Why am I the only one who has a score in the ‘Racist’ column?”

Chance rushes up behind me. “Why are you looking at that? I told you I didn’t want you to see that.”

“Your callback threshold is 60? I didn’t even meet your callback threshold!”

“You were cranky that night. Listen–”

A knock at the door cuts him off.

“It’s dumb. I don’t know what I was thinking. Women shouldn’t be ranked based on eight categories that add up to eighty with two optional columns that throw off the math. Especially not you.”

More knocking on the door.

He swings around the chair and grabs my forearms. “Hold that thought,” he says, and then he goes to see who is at the door.

“Mom. Dadi,” Chance says. “What are you doing here? Navya?”

I twist around.

A fit and toned middle-aged brunette and two Indian women, both in embroidered sarees are standing just inside the door. The older woman’s hair is pulled back in a braid. The younger one, Navya I assume, is petite, fresh-faced and makeup free.

“Adi,” Chance’s dadi says with her arms outstretched.

He takes turns giving them all hugs. I wonder if I can slide out behind them unnoticed.

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