Page 10 of Work with Me

“Everything else?”

His gaze shifted to the side. “Managing the backlog, reporting, mentoring the team, you know, all that.”

“But I do that. I’m the team lead.” Well, okay, I was responsible for it. Maybe I hadn’t done it as well as I should’ve. I’d been so shell-shocked about the thing with Callie that I’d been afraid to make any personal connections at all in the Austin office. I’d figured if we all just did the work, it’d sort itself out in the end.

He wiped his hands. “Now she’s the team lead.”

I slumped on the bench. It was happening again. I’d fucked up, and another piece of the company was being taken from me. But I’d never let Cooper see how much it hurt, and I wasn’t about to start now.

“Here, try this.” I held out a piece of okra.

“You know I don’t eat fried food.”

“It’s a vegetable. Try it.” I extended the crisp round to him. “Trust me.” I’d never eaten it before I came to Texas, and the difference in texture between the crunchy outside and the gooey inside fascinated me.

He squinted at me but took the piece of okra from my hand. He stared at it for a second and then popped it in his mouth. After the first crunch, his mouth went limp, but he chewed it and swallowed like a champ. He gulped some water before spluttering, “That’s revolting.”

I picked up another piece and crunched it. “Maybe it’s an acquired taste?”

“Focus, Jay. We need to talk this through.” He wiped his mouth on a fresh paper towel. “I have full confidence in your coding ability, but sales of this product are going to make or break our first quarter. Remember how many people rely on us. The sales team. Marketing. Customer support. If we have products for them to sell, to market, to support, they have jobs. If we don’t…” He spread his hands, palms up.

“You can’t be talking about layoffs.” My friend could be a cold bastard, but I didn’t think he’d gone to the dark side. With fucking Weston, our CEO.

Cooper clenched his jaw. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but you haven’t gotten a salary this year. Neither have I. The recession has been hard on our customers. Fewer people buying cars means less money for telematics systems, for manufacturing optimization software. Fewer people working means companies can’t afford expensive business analytics systems. They’re struggling, and now, so are we. I don’t want to lay people off, but if this product is delayed, we might need to furlough some of them until it’s ready.”

The faces of my team members flashed into my brain. The senior developer, Amit. The new guy, Tyler. Even Ivan, the security guard. Marlee, my assistant back in San Francisco. She didn’t really have anything to do now that I was here, but I’d refused to furlough her. She lived with her dad, who couldn’t work, and they both depended on her income.

“No furloughs.” I relaxed my grip on my knife and fork and laid them down on the aluminum tray. They’d left red lines on my palms. “I’ve got this, Coop. I won’t let them down.”

“I know, Jay. But Alicia’s in charge now.”

“Coop, give me another chance. I—” I wasn’t ready to beg, but I’d do anything to get him to believe in me again. Not to be letting him down. “Tell me what I need to do to prove myself to you.”

He stared at me, those freaky ice-blue eyes boring into my soul. He’d always seen me for who I was, no matter what smokescreen I hid behind. “Fine. Three things.” He held up three fingers and ticked them off. “Produce good code on time. Earn the respect of the team. Work together to achieve your goals.”

Good code, I could do. On time wasn’t always guaranteed, but I’d try. The respect of the team? Easy. My reputation was legendary. The new guy, Tyler, practically worshiped me.

But work together? Not my strong suit. I’d learned a long time ago not to trust anyone except Cooper. He was the only one who’d never mocked me for my lack of focus, for my impulsiveness, for my disregard of authority that got me into trouble. Better to keep my head down, write my code, and rely on the other guys to do the same. But maybe if I spent a little more time interacting with the team, that’d be good enough for him. Besides, their jobs—everyone’s jobs—were on the line. That was worth exposing myself to ridicule.

“Fine, I’ll do it. You’ll see. I’ve got this.”

“I have full confidence in you and the team. With Alicia’s help.” Pushing his tray of half-eaten chicken away, he said, “Now, did I see a soft-serve machine?”

Cooper monitored his sugar intake with the same intensity that he followed his investment portfolio. He wouldn’t touch self-serve, artificially vanilla flavored frozen dairy dessert with a ten-foot pole. So that was his signal we were done with this conversation, and his word was final. That was the way it’d been since Stanford. He made the decisions so I wouldn’t fuck them up.

I reached across the table and gripped his wrist. “I’m trying to change, Coop. I won’t let you down. I won’t let anyone down.”

When he nodded, I released him. We both knew that after coding, letting people down was what I did best.

Not this time. I’d prove to Cooper I could do this one thing without fucking it up.

4

ALICIA

I’d just liftedthe steaming mug of Earl Grey to my lips—after a sleepless night with copays on the brain, I needed the hit of caffeine—when Jackson Jones sauntered into the communal kitchen, all long legs and athletic grace. I was glad I hadn’t drunk it yet; I wasn’t yet used to the wallop of seeing those soft, pink lips nestled into that dark beard, and the tea would’ve ended up on my blouse.

His lips weren’t crooked up in a smile, not like when I’d met him yesterday before he knew I was replacing him as the team lead. They were set in a flat line. Gripping a green smoothie in a clear plastic cup with the straw still capped by the top of its wrapper, he approached to stand so close to me I had to crane my neck up to look him in the eye. Had he done it to intimidate me? If so, it wouldn’t work.

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