Page 37 of For You & No One Else (Say Everything 3)

Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then reappeared. Then disappeared.

His phone rang.

He laughed and answered. “Uh-oh, am I in trouble?”

“Beck! You didn’t,” Eliza said, her voice a gasp. “I said you didn’t need to do that.”

“Didn’tneedto, but you wanted to. You just have a better moral compass than I do. Your conscious can stay clear. I did it on my own, and there won’t be any permanent damage.”

She groaned. “What exactly did you do?”

He shifted on the bed, sitting up a little higher against the headboard. “Nothing terrible. Him clicking on the phishing link let me into his system. I went in and found your video. Deleted it off his computer, which should sync and delete it off his phone, too, so he won’t be able to repost it anywhere.”

“Oh my God,” she said with a distinct note of glee in her voice. “That’s…amazing.”

“And I may have slowed his system downjust a little,” he said, trying to land the words gently.

“Beckham!” The word was full of admonishment.

“It won’t hurt anything,” he assured her. “It’ll just be annoying, and any help-desk tech will be able to clean it out if he gets it serviced.Ifhe gets it serviced. He’ll probably assume he got something from thevastamounts of porn he’s downloaded and won’t tell anyone.”

“Vast?” she asked, unable to hide her curiosity.

He smirked, loving that she couldn’t help asking. “Yeah, I mean, look, to each his or her own. If it’s not hurting anyone and everybody’s consenting, people can get off how they want to get off, but he’s quite the collector. It took me a while to find your video amongst all the other video files. If he’s going to random sites for it, he probably gets computer viruses on the regular.”

She let out a breath, the sound soft against his ear. “I can’t believe you got into his system.”

He could hear the relief in her voice underneath her proper moral objection to breaking and entering, and knowing that he was able to give her that made the risk totally worth it.

“Man,” she said after a long pause. “You’re kind of a scary genius, Beck. I better stay on your good side.”

He frowned. Even though she’d said it with a light tone, he sensed the trepidation underneath it. “Eliza, you don’t have to worry. Seriously. Despite what you’ve seen today, I stick to the ethical hacking side of things.”At least these days.“I drifted into the gray today only because this guy deserved it. I didn’t do him any permanent harm. I simply stole a video he shouldn’t have had in the first place.”

“I know,” she said softly. “And I really do appreciate it. I’m glad it’s gone, like really glad. I just get…nervous breaking rules. Probably from all that Catholic school I went to. Nuns could be nice, but they also could be scary as all get-out if you got in trouble.”

He’d splayed his hand against his chest, and he could feel his heartbeat pick up speed at the mention of religion. “I get that. I was raised…in a church. Not Catholic so no nuns, but I think in that circumstance, you either get really good at following rules so you escape notice or you feel so smothered, you completely rebel against them.”

“I’m guessing you chose the latter.”

She had no idea. “I did. But I’ve reined it in. I don’t break rules just to break them anymore.”

“The thoughtful rebel,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

“Something like that. I mean, I had to dosomething. I couldn’t very well align myself with the Sith,” he teased.

She laughed. “Right. Maybe my activity for the night will be starting a rewatch of the Star Wars movies. I haven’t watched them in a few years. I’m suddenly in the mood for watching the Rebel Alliance kick some ass.”

He glanced at his TV. “Vital question: release order or chronological order? If you answer wrong, we may have to end this friendship now.”

She scoffed. “Obviously, release order.”

He let out a purposely dramatic breath. “Okay. We can still be friends.”

“You’re such a nerd,” she said, voice warm and the shift of fabric sounding in the background as she apparently adjusted her position.

Was she already in bed, too? He tried to stop himself from picturing that. “We’ve established this. But now you’re letting your nerd flag fly, so don’t throw stones, Eli.”

“Never.” After a pause, she cleared her throat. “Well, I better let you go. Thanks for being my digital-detox sponsor tonight.”

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