Page 53 of Debugging Love

“You didn’t break up with him?” Morgan gapes at me, her shocked expression transformed into ghoulishness by the shadows. Why isn’t there better lighting in here?

“Not that time,” I mumble.

“Danni!” Morgan admonishes.

“I know. I know! That’s why I’m not going to let it happen again.”

“Except it did happen again,” Kayla says out of the corner of her mouth like she doesn’t want to take full credit for pointing out the obvious.

“I mean, it’s not happening with my benefits portal app. I’m not letting Chance steamroll me and rewrite half of my code. My code might not be as fancy, but it’s simple to read and it works. There’s nothing wrong with my approach. I’m not here to prove to everyone how smart I am.”

Morgan tucks her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Well, for starters, no one is disagreeing with you. At least not in this room. And Chance isn’t your boyfriend. So this isn’t a repeat of your disaster with Zane.”

“Hey!”

“What?”

“I never said my relationship with Zane was a disaster.”

“You’ve implied it many times.”

“Fine. It was horrible. That’s why I can’t make that mistake again.”

Morgan leans forward to close the distance between us. “You aren’t making that mistake again,” she says carefully. “You and Chance aren’t dating. This is different.”

I scoff.

“What’s that look for?” Morgan asks.

“She’s overcompensating for the fact that she thinks Chance is hot and doesn’t want us to know,” Kayla says.

Thank goodness for poor lighting. Maybe they can’t see the ripe tomatoes posing as my cheeks. “He’s not hot,” I say, stiff-lipped.

“He is so hot,” Morgan says.

Kayla nods her head vigorously.

“Then you guys can date him!”

“I might,” Morgan says.

“It’s a definite possibility,” Kayla adds. “I just haven’t worked up the courage yet.”

“Trust me. You donotwant to date a coworker.”

Morgan smirks. “Let us worry about that. You worry about your benefits portal app and not falling for Chance while you guys work late nights together in the dark office alone.”

My cheeks ripen at the thought of alone time with Chance in a dark room. These two are bad influences. I push myself back to standing. “Don’t worry. I plan on maintaining a professional distance. Chance is trouble. I know his type. You two can have him, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I head out of the storage closet before they can plant more ideas about Chance and me together alone in a dark room. Ironically, Chance is the first thing I see when the bright office lights hit my eyes, and as my gaze follows the contours of his cheeks and jawline, my fingertips turn into tiny little furnaces. I’m like ET except I have ten glowing fingers. But I donotwantto cure Chance’s childhood trauma–or whatever else caused him to be this way–with gentle caresses along his chiseled chin. He’s my coworker. Coworkers don’t find each other attractive. Also, he hacked up my code without asking my permission. He’s not the type to ask. He’s the type to do without considering other people’s feelings.

Chance looks up from his monitor. “Did you forget something?”

It takes a moment to register that I’m standing by my cube like an idiot as I contemplate hownothot Chance is–not with that personality anyway. “No,” I say quickly before pulling out my chair and sitting down.

I slump to hide from Chance’s face and pull up my project management app. I’ve already started on the backlog, dividing tasks fairly between Chance and Heng, giving myself a higher percentage. As I’m systematically dragging tasks into the “To-Do” column to prepare for our first week of work, Chance pops his gum repeatedly like it’s the Fourth of July. I scootch up a bit to get a better look at him as his jaw muscle bulges from the constant chewing. He snaps and pops in quick succession before grabbing a wrapper and spitting his gum into it. Happy Independence Day everyone, that was the finale.

I refocus on my screen and continue dragging and dropping while Chance pulls out another piece of gum and starts chomping on it. Nope. I was wrong. That wasn’t the end.

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