Page 79 of Debugging Love

Luckily, I don’t have to. We’re team building not working. I muster up the courage to hustle past Chance while my mouth says, “You holding up that wall?”

“That’s the plan,” Chance says, a hint of a smile curving those resistable lips. Chance is resistable, and I’m resisting. I’mforming a resistance. Me, myself, and I are going to win this war, a.k.a. the one where I code a benefits app without developing any emotional attachments.

“What’s wrong?” Morgan asks when I slide up to her. She’s wearing a flowy A-line dress with cork-soled sandals.

I look at her innocently. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“You look constipated.”

Kayla nods in agreement as Violet exits the conversation in search of snacks.

“I’m just–I hate forced socializing. You know that.”

“You like socializing with us,” Kayla says. She takes a swig of her drink and then adjusts her shirt collar. It’s a white, short-sleeved button up that hugs her curves.

“You’re two people. This is a room full of people.” I glance over at Abeer and Heng who have already claimed their spots in the third row.

“That you work with every day,” Morgan adds.

“Which makes it a little bit worse.”

Morgan pats my shoulder. “Doesn’t it, though?”

“I’m only here to earn cool points with Christopher,” I mumble.

“Bruce just said Christopher isn’t coming,” Kayla says. “The CIO gave him a last-minute tasker. He’s gonna be up all night working on it.”

The injustice of her comment turns my face into a funhouse entrance–the big clown face with the wide open mouth. “Why am I here then?”

“To watch every episode of the new season of Temporal Grifter, dummy,” Morgan says.

“I don’t like Temporal Grifter,” I say.

“Who doesn’t like a show about time-traveling werewolf space cowboys?” Kayla asks, her expression matching her feigned disbelief. She’s well aware of my viewing preferences.

“Me.”

Kayla flips a wiry curl over her shoulder. “Danni doesn’t like time-traveling werewolf space cowboys,” she announces to the room.

My punishment is a chorus of gasps followed by shocked silence and a roomful of stares. I face it head-on. “Time-traveling werewolf space cowboys are dumb,” I say, shrugging.

“Danni isn’t a real nerd!” Juanita hollers over the rising cacophony of disbelief.

Chance’s wide grin glows in my peripheral vision.

“Start the show. Start the show,” Juanita chants. Everyone joins in. I’m vastly outnumbered.

I throw up my hands. “I’m a bigger nerd than all ya’ll.”

Violet chuckles. “Danni tried to sound southern.” Her purple top matches her name and her lipstick. “That was cute.”

Morgan and Kayla find seats in the second row. Behind them, people settle in, the light dims, and the screen lights up with the Netflix home page. Drew is manning the controls. He pulls up Temporal Grifter and tabs down to Season Two, Episode One, hits play, and a cowboy-hat-wearing werewolf temporal grifter named Wayward appears on the screen, tips his hat, and smiles at us before being sucked into a wormhole.

Hunger tickles my stomach so I visit the snack table. As I’m transferring squares of cheese to my tiny plate, Chance walks up beside me. He pokes a strawberry with a toothpick and plops it into the fruit dip. His nearness makes my hands tingly. I take a deep lungful of air as inconspicuously as possible.

“I don’t like time-traveling werewolf space cowboys either,” he says as the show’s theme music swells into the room.

“Which part don’t you like? The werewolves or the cowboys?”

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