Page 74 of A Brother's Secret

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Data…

“She doing better?” Dragon asked me a few days later. I blew out a breath between gritted teeth, my cheeks turning into bellows to force the rest of the air out and took the half a second my mouth was occupied doing it to think.

“Yes and no,” I said finally, into the phone.

He’d called me, but his question had been his version of a greeting. It was one of the things I liked about him. He was to the point, didn’t waste people’s time or treat the important things like a game, not when hearts and minds were on the line to this degree.

“She around you?” he asked.

“No, I’m out on a gig.” I sat back in the borrowed desk chair while my laptop ran through the diagnostic code on its screen, hooked up to the client’s mainframe trying to figure out why the fuck it was doing what it was doing.

“Where’s sheat?”

“Home, why?”

“She settlingin?”

“Again, yes andno.”

“She’s the active type,” he said judiciously.

“Yup.”

“Think it’s time to find her a job or something?” I chewed my bottom lip. “Data?”

“I’m thinking,” Isaid.

Dragon grunted on the other end of the line, “You didn’t hear it from me, but Trigger is impressed. Hasn’t shut up about her artwork.”

“Shit, yeah, he has her portfolio, doesn’the?”

“Might want to take her by the shop. A familiar setting, even if it’s different, might do her some good. Break her outta that funk you were complaining about.”

“Was honestly waiting for her to say something about being bored,” I said with a smile. “Don’t want her to rush into anything. She’s good atthat.”

“Boy, please. She’s a work-horse type, needs to be involved in something. You can tell her type from a mileoff.”

I smiled to myself, he wasn’t wrong. It was probably time to put out some feelers and see if there was something I could get her into, even if it was only part time. Sometimes all you needed was something to focuson.

“Thanks for checking in, D.”

“You got it, what brothers are for.” hesaid.

Yeah, sometimes I just needed the reminder. My laptop beeped and I looked up, “That’s my cue. I’ve gottago.”

“See you this Friday?”

“Yep.”

“Keep the shiny side up, brother.”

“You too, man. Bye.”

I hung up and set my phone down, muttering to myself, “Now why the fuck would you do that?” at the technology in front of me, letting my work suck me under and rollme.

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