Page 5 of Hacker Heart

The weekend passes too quickly—probablybecause I spent it laying around binge watching The Umbrella Academy with Val—and the next thing I know it’s Monday morning and it’s back to the grind.

As is my way, I’m ten minutes late when I walk in the door. I stroll over to my desk, boot up my computer, then turn on all three monitors. I’ve just hit twenty-nine and not once in my life have I been on time for anything. Nobody so much as lifts a brow when I eventually make my way into the breakroom joining the already in-progress weekly meeting.

There’s a free spot between Meg and Kline,hard pass, and another next to Valentine at the end of the table. I slide into it, and he snags a glazed doughnut and napkin for me without me uttering a word. “Thanks,” I whisper and Val winks but says nothing, seeing as Dad is addressing the room and handing out assignments.

I break off a piece of my doughnut and pop it in my mouth, careful not to mess with my lipstick. It melts on my tongue, and I barely hold back a moan. Val stiffens ever so slightly beside me, and I side-eye him. He shrugs me off, so I go back to devouring the deliciously sweet and sticky pastry.

These babies are the reason I bust my ass at Trick’s Gym several times a week. And it’s totally worth it.

I’m just licking the last of the icing off my fingers when the meeting wraps up. I wipe my hands on the napkin Val had given me, then wash them at the sink for good measure. Food is not allowed anywhere near my computer. Food brings ants, and ants are creepy. They also create problems nobody wants to deal with if they get inside your processor.

Snow sidles up to me as I’m drying my hands. She stands there staring at me with a smirk on her blood-red lips until I snap, “What?”

“Looked like poor Val was about to burst a blood vessel watching you eat that doughnut,” she says, leaning her hip against the little kitchen counter.

This again.I shake my head and give her shoulder a condescending pat. “You’re delusional.”

She scoffs. “Pot, meet kettle.”

Snow’s been singing this song for years, and it’s getting old. “He’s my best friend. What don’t you get about that?”

“Oh, I’m not disputingthat. I’m just sayin’ if more was on offer Valentine would beallover it. I’m surprised he didn’t pop a boner the way he was fixated on your mouth while you licked the icing from your fingers.”

“He was not.”

“Uh, yes Belle, he was.”

“He really wasn’t.”

I would have noticed, wouldn’t I?

Disbelief blankets Snow’s sharp features then she throws her hands in the air. “You’re kidding me with this shit, right? You are the smartest person in the room, Belle, and you can’t see that guy is head over fucking heels for you.”

I purse my lips, but nothing comes out. Val is my friend, mybestfriend, but he’s not into me. That’s a pipe dream I let go of a long time ago.

Snow frowns, then tilts her head. “I can’t figure out if you refuse to see it because you don’t want to acknowledge that you feel the same way, or, if you pretend not to notice because you like the attention. In which case, dick move, big sister. Val deserves better than that.” Then she turns on her booted feet and stomps out of the room, leaving me alone with my tumultuous thoughts.

The second Millerwrapped the meeting, I was out of my chair and sprinting for the door.

Sometimes I’m not sure if I’ve got a filthy mind, or if Belle is purposely torturing me. I mean, come on—licking icing off her fingers? What man on the planet can see that and not have dirty, dirty, thoughts? I had to lock myself in the bathroom for a good ten minutes and think about dying kittens and hamsters with incurable diseases.

Back at my desk, I’m filling in some paperwork when I feel her presence enter the pit and as always, my gaze automatically drifts in her direction. Her brows are furrowed and she’s gnawing on the corner of her bottom lip as she makes her way to her workstation.

My eyes stay fixed on her. Not five minutes ago she was in a blissed-out sugar high, and now she’s…forlorn.What the hell happened between then and now?I’m still watching, and wondering, when Kline smacks me on the back of the head.

I spin around, glaring at him. “What the hell?”

He raises a brow but doesn’t say anything as he continues to stare at me.

“You know normal people communicate through this nifty thing calledwords. And they string them together to create sentences. You should try it some time.” I turn back to my computer; I don’t have the time or inclination to decode Kline and his unique form of communication.

But it doesn’t take long for my attention to wander back across the pit to Belle, and the downward slant of her normally smiling lips. Not much ruffles her feathers, so someone must have been a real dickbag to get under her skin like this.

After an hour of sneaking glances and not detecting any change in her mood, I push my chair out from my desk and roll across the room to her. She needs a distraction.

She lifts her head as I near, an infinitesimal upturn tilting the corners of her mouth. “What are you doing?”

“I’m pretty sure my laptop is either about to shit itself or it’s got a virus. Mind coming around to check it out for me this afternoon?”

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