Page 23 of Work with Me

“And what else?”

“When he gets knocked down, he gets right back up.”

“That’s right. And that’s what we Webers do, too.”

“Yeah.” One corner of his mouth turned up.

“Let’s watch him kick some bad-guy butt.”

I might not pee standing up, but I was still a good programmer and an even better leader. At our review on Monday, I was going to show Cooper Fallon exactly that. And until this project was done, no matter how many times Jackson Jones and his bro-culture tried to knock me down, I was going to get back up.

9

JACKSON

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”Tyler buried his face in his hands.

Alicia and I sat side-by-side at our desk, frantically searching through Tyler’s fucked-up code for the bug. Her lips were compressed and pale, and a droplet of sweat trickled from her temple down the flawless skin of her cheek. I’d never seen her this rattled, not even when she’d been struck by a hailstone minutes before her first meeting with Cooper and me.

When we hit the bottom of the program, Alicia barked, “Again. From the top.”

I rubbed my eyes. They ached almost as much as my toes in my fuck-you-Cooper boots. “No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’? We have to find the bug and fix it.”

“We’re out of time. Cooper texted me he’s coming up.”

Alicia’s eyes widened. “He’s here? Already?”

“Promptness is kind of his thing.”

“Shit,” she muttered. “Shit. Shit.Shit.”

She wasn’t so perfect now with the sweat trickling down her neck and her lipstick chewed off. I wished there was anything I could do to help—Cooper was going to rip all of us a new one, including Alicia, who was blameless in the mess—but the only thing that’d piss him off more than this code fiasco was if we made him wait.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler said again. “I was trying to help. I felt bad about coming in late on Friday, and I decided to work over the weekend, add some new functionality. I didn’t think I’d fuck it up so bad.”

He’d already been in the office when I arrived that morning. His bloodshot eyes, stubbled chin, and grayish skin indicated he’d been there at least overnight. “You should’ve called someone, man. Me or Alicia. Or Amit. We’d have come in and helped you.”

“I thought I could fix it.” He laid his face on the desk. He lifted his head and dropped it with a thunk. “I should’ve been able to fix it.”

“We’re a team, Tyler.” Alicia’s words came out strangled through her clenched jaw. “We work together, not alone.”

My chest tight, I stood. “Let’s go in.”

Slowly, the team gathered up their laptops and notepads. Tyler took his satchel like he expected to be fired on the spot and walked out of the building.

When I entered the conference room, Cooper looked up from his phone. “Jay!” He smiled, the real one he saved for friends. Then he caught my expression, and his smile dimmed. He raised his eyebrows, and I shook my head a fraction.

He squared his jaw and stood, offering handshakes all around. Tyler, who went last, wiped his hand on his jeans before offering it to Cooper. He looked everywhere but in Cooper’s eyes.

“Okay.” Cooper took a seat at the end with a direct view of the screen. “Show me what you’ve got.”

No one moved to connect a laptop to the display cable. In fact, no one moved at all. Silence hung in the room for three…four…five seconds.

I stood. Might as well take the blame. It wasn’t Alicia’s fault. She’d tried to keep Tyler from taking that sticky note out of the backlog. I was the one who’d encouraged him. Besides, Tyler had only followed the example I’d set when I’d tried to show Alicia up by finishing our module solo. At the root of it, I was the one who’d fucked up. As usual. “Cooper, I—”

“We don’t have anything to show you, Mr. Fallon.” All eyes swiveled to Alicia, who’d also risen from her chair. “I’m still trying to set norms with the team, and there was a miscommunication.Imiscommunicated. The code isn’t ready today. We should have something prepared in a couple of days, and I can schedule a remote demonstration then.”

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