“I just need your IP.”
I shoot him an email with it. His laptop dings, and in under thirty seconds, our computers are synced up. The code for his software program scrolls before my eyes, and I click the mouse to pause it, returning to the top.
“So where are you at with it?”
“Trying to kill the bugs in the UI, but every time I do, something else breaks.”
I scan the code rapidly before starting up the program. “There’s a lot of leftover junk in there.”
He sighs. “Some of it’s just junk.”
I highlight a section on my screen, careful to stop and start where I want to. “I’m gonna take this out and see what it does.”
“Go for it.” He sips his coffee and stares at his screen.
After an hour of not much more than this, I’ve isolated four redundant sections of code that are stalling out his user interface. “When was the last time you took a step back from this?”
Evan startles slightly. It’s the first time either of us has spoken in a while. “I don’t,” he says. “Can’t.”
“Is the entire future of Four Points Freight hanging on you getting this right?” I ask, just so I understand the stakes.
“No. Nothing like that. But Hunter wanted me on this, and everything else is finally running smoother, so…this is pretty much all I do all day.”
I glance at him. “Does this go with the saying can’t see the forest for the trees?”
He’s looking at me, and his mouth curls into half a smile. “Yeah.”
“You could have called me.”
He doesn’t respond to that.
“You think I didn’t want to hear from you?”
“Something like that,” he mumbles.
I talk as I clean up the contradicting logic in the section I’m working on. “I thought you said no hard feelings.”
“I saidIdidn’t have any hard feelings. I didn’t assume you didn’t.”
“Yeah well you were right not to assume that.”
“So why are you here?”
“I told you. I read the letter you sent Isaac.”
“He showed it to you?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Why?” Evan asks.
“Because he’s my boyfriend, and he wanted to talk about it.”
Evan sucks in a breath, and I hear his fingers moving over his keyboard. The appearance of the app changes as I work. He’s manipulating the appearance of the icons and buttons, making it look trendier.
It’s not affecting what I’m doing, so I don’t comment.
“He still wants you,” I say.
