I blink. “Huh?”
She laughs. “I asked what you do for work.”
“Oh!” My eyebrows rise, and my cheeks heat. “I er …” I can’t believe this hasn’t come up sooner?
“Mia is a super clever database designer,” Ethan says, beaming with pride.
I shrug, looking down. “I’m just a programmer.”
I look up again to find Juniper’s blank stare.
“I.T. stuff,” I clarify.
“Oh.” Juniper pastes on a fake smile. “Cool.”
“No, no it is cool. Honest!” Ethan swoops in to defend me. “She writes in like three different languages, and—”
Juniper’s eyebrows rise. “French?”
I shake my head, smiling. “Coding languages.”
Again I’m met with her glazed-over expression. Fuck. We’re so compatible in other areas, but in this case, it’s like I’m a boring office worker while Juniper’s still so cool and carefree. She tells us she’s “between jobs” right now, and she’s just content travelling around and picking up work here and there as she goes.
I swallow. And dammit. I want to sound cool too. “You know in action movies when they’re ‘hacking’ the system?”
Ethan laughs at my use of air quotes. He knows those scenes are a major pet hate of mine—I find them so cringey, I can barely watch, but still—
“Well, my code can look a little bit like that,” I say.
Juniper feigns a smile. “So … not French then.”
I drop my gaze. “‘Fraid not.”
“Her current fave is Larva,” Ethan says, clearly trying to big me up, but to no avail.
“Laravel,” I correct with a shrug.
“Yeah. Laravel.”
“That’s a pretty name,” Juniper comments, finding common ground.
I sip my mocha. “It is, isn’t it?” I eye her, smiling. “Not as pretty as Juniper though.”
She blushes. “You are too kind.” Juniper then turns to Ethan. “And you’re an English teacher.”
He sighs. “Those who can’t do—”
“Oh, we know you can,” she quips, and we all laugh.
“He’s actually a college professor,” I say. I cup my hand around my words as I add in a stage whisper, “His favourite language is Shakespearean.”
“You guys!” Juniper guffaws. Then, with the utmost insincerity, she says, “Computers and Shakespeare are my absolute faves!”
Which, of course, breaks any residual ice. I think our good old British sarcasm must be rubbing off on her.
Juniper stares down at her latte. “I am a total dud when it comes to PCs,” she says to me. “And I always, always struggled with Shakespeare.” She grimaces, avoiding Ethan’s gaze. “We had to doMacbethin school.” She shudders at the thought, and honestly—same. “I didn’t even read it.”
Ethan gasps and I stifle a smile.
