Page 42 of The Refusal

“I’m sorry about your face,” I mumble, unable to meet his eyes, and a different kind of heat climbs up my neck.

“S’okay,” he mutters into the sidewalk, dropping his hands between his knees and staring at the ground. “But I probably need to ice it.” He stares off to the side and silence envelops us. “Let’s go back to the apartment, and I’ll tell you the whole story about why I was in your system, why I had that map.”

I stretch out my hand, and he surveys at me warily before grasping my fingers as I pull him to his feet. I eye his cheek. Purple is coming up under the reddening skin, and I grimace at him in what I hope resembles some sort of apology. He gives me a half smile, then winces, and we drag our feet back toward his building, keeping a decent distance from each other as if neither of us can believe the fight is over and any second one of us won’t lash out. We’re both silent on the stairs, and, as we walk through his front door, Jo is sitting on the sofa, fully clothed and turning her phone over in her hands. She jumps to her feet, gaze flicking from mine to Fabian’s, letting out a loud gasp when she sees his face.

“What’s going on? You hit him?” She’s looking at me like I killed a panda.

I nod, desperately willing Fabian to keep his mouth shut, but he waves his hand.

“I deserved it,” he says.

“Is this about the tracking program? Because—”

Heat rises up in my body and I focus on the ceiling, anywhere but meeting her eyes. Fabian, God bless him, shakes his head.

“I’ve told Janus that I understand about the code you put on my computer. I’ve talked to him about you and me working together, and he’s cool with that. We should bring him up to speed on where we’ve got to.”

Work is a perfect excuse for my odd behavior, and I latch on to it like a drowning man, but her eyes are narrowed on the pair of us. What is she thinking? Does she think I’m a lunatic for reacting like I did? Being pissed that it wasn’t my T-shirt she was in, my bed she slept in? Jo’s hand flutters up to her hair, trying unsuccessfully to smooth the wayward curls.

“We were up late last night examining your system. I gave Fabian full access. That’s probably breaking the contract I signed, but we’ve been flat out since I explained everything to him yesterday.”

She gestures to the bedding still on the sofa, like she’s trying to demonstrate how busy they’ve been. She doesn’t need to explain herself to me; I don’t care about some damn contract. I try and pull up a proper response, ridiculous though that clearly is.

“Of course, Jo, I’m glad you’ve been working on it closely. Thanks for sorting it all out with Fab while I’ve been away.” I’m coming across as a bit stiff, but my gut is curling in on itself with this whole conversation; we need to move on from all this awkward.

So I don’t have to look at them, I sink down onto the blankets on the sofa and start talking.

“I didn’t want to go behind your back like that, Fab. We—”

But he’s already shaking his head. “I get it.”

“Tell me why you hacked into the system in the first place,” I say, and he drops down beside me and puts his head in his hands, sucking in a deep breath before straightening and staring at the exposed brick of the wall around the large windows.

“When you told me your company had been attacked I got concerned,” he starts.

And then he’s off, telling me about the dodgy places he’s been hacking, how he thinks he might have been traced by some Russians or possibly the Chinese; about being stopped in the street; his worries about my business, about me being targeted for some reason. And, finally, he tells me that he wanted to check that my system was safe without me knowing. Jo seats herself in the battered leather armchair next to where Fabian is perched on the sofa, absorbing every word.

“I’m so sorry if this is anything to do with me,” he eventually says, eyes fixed on mine. “Jo and I worked some pretty sophisticated tracking code into your system last night, so, if they have another go, we should be able to work out who it is. I want to make sure you’re not affected.”

I nod at this. “Why didn’t you just come to me first, explain?”

Fabian shrugs and picks at his nails.

“You’ve suffered through enough of my crap, Janus. All these years—” He rubs a shaky hand around the back of his neck. “Shit, man, you shouldn’t have to do that for me. Bail me out, sort me out. I’m no friend to you at all.”

I put my hand on his arm, staring down at where my fingers have wrapped around muscle and bone.

“Don’t fucking talk like that, okay? We’re here for each other when we need it, remember?” I examine his red-rimmed eyes, the flat line of his mouth. My eyes drift to Jo, distracted by her freckles stark against her white face and pale bloodless lips. They’re both putting everything into this. The last remnants of my fury seep out of me, and every hour I spent on the plane throbs in my back and my head.

“Breakfast?” I say, and this gets me a reluctant half smile from Jo as Fabian’s mouth quirks.

“Are we finished hashing this out?” he says.

“Yeah. Do you have any incriminating information on whoever you think might have done this?”

His face creases into a grin and it breaks through the gloom that has settled like dust. “I’ve got incriminating stuff on everyone, man, that’s the whole problem. Let’s go find something to eat, and we can talk about it.”

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