I freeze, trying to understand what she means. “Nash?”
She nods. “With the screenwriter mentors. They were supposed to do a video call but...” She shrugs.
“But the Wi-Fi’s not working.” I can picture it now. Nash would want everything to be perfect. He’d log in early to get the right angle on the camera. Then, when he couldn’t connect, he’d huff and stomp around his office, cursing instead of doing anything to fix the problem. No wonder Patrick looks nervous.
Harpreet’s eyes rise to the ceiling. “I think it’s the extender.”
I growl. We’ve got extenders in every corner of this building, trying to make a signal stretch in ways it was never meant to. I’m going to have to talk to Nash about hardwiring again. The bump to his ego and the cost of installation would be cheaper than my fee to come once a month and climb ladders until I find the faulty signal.
“Can I borrow this?” I ask Patrick, grabbing a chair from the long table he appears to be using as a desk.
“Oh. Oh, sure,” Patrick stutters. “Do you need a hand?”
I sigh. The kid is cute. “Do you know much about internet connections?”
His gaze drops, and he clicks his mouse, pulling up the network options on his laptop. I smother another sigh. Helpful people are great, but Patrick will strain something if I don’t let him off the hook soon.
“It’s fine. Just don’t report me to the health and safety committee for standing on this chair, okay?”
His face scrunches up like he’s about to ask if they actually have a health and safety committee, so I hurry back to work.
The extender is mounted on the ceiling outside Nash's office, and it does seem to be malfunctioning. The power light is on, but there is no connection. I stretch up to reach overhead toward the three spindly antennas that stick out from either side.
“God dammit, Harpreet! It’s still not working! Where the hell is Brady?”
The door to Nash's office swings open, and before I can say anything, he barrels into the chair I’m standing on.
“What the—” he says, as his shins bang into it, and the whole thing tips dangerously. I shout and pinwheel my arms, but I’m going down, the chair lurching out from under me. Guess Patrick better call that health and safety committee after all—except then strong hands grip my thighs, digging into flesh.
For a second, the world blips in and out. My heart is pounding in my ears, and I’m breathing so hard I can’t focus on any one thing. Finally I settle enough to realize my hands are also tangled in crisp fabric covering solid, warm muscle. My eyelids flutter, and when I look down, I’m staring into Nash's breathless face. Stunned, I watch as he licks his lips and opens and clothes his mouth a few times, before he finally rasps out, “Are you okay?”
My voice is also hoarse when I say, “Fine.”
His gaze drops, and I am very aware of the fact that his face is directly in line with my crotch. He’s still got his hands on my legs, and the whole position is very...
I glance over my shoulder. Patrick is watching us, eyes gigantic behind his glasses. He’s half-stooped, like he was about to leap into action and got stuck. Harpreet and a guy I’ve met before but don’t remember his name are standing in the door of the meeting room, looking startled, while a few other people can be seen gawking over cubicle walls.
Quietly, I clear my throat and unclench my fingers where they have a death grip on Nash’s shirt. Nash appears to have the same thought, because he drops his hands, although maybe his fingers run down the backs of my thighs for a second longer than they should. I wobble as he lets go of me, but at least he doesn’t reach for me again.
“Sorry,” he says, taking a step back. His eyes are on the toes of his polished shoes. “Guess I should have watched where I was going.”
I stare up at the ceiling, grimacing at the mangled extender. I must have ripped one of the antennas off when I started to fall, and the whole thing is twisted. For a second, I’m pissed, because technically I broke it, but then I remember that the jackass currently standing six inches from my dick literally ran into me, so he is going to pay the bills.
“I think I found your problem.” I give Nash a weak smile. Our fingers brush as he takes the busted extender from me. He’s still looking uncertain as he makes some odd noises that sound like he’s working to find words. When I check over my shoulder again, everyone is still frozen.
“Can I—” I swallow as my head swivels back around to Nash in slow motion. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Nash nods jerkily. “Sure.”
The loudest thing in the office right now is the rattle of the air conditioner through repurposed ductwork.
“In private?” I say.
Splotches of color are spreading over Nash’s face. He takes a stumbling step backwards through his open office door, bumping against the desk. The extender drops from his hand. I climb off the chair and take one last look behind me. Harpreet and the other guy—Doug, my brain helpfully reminds me, his name is Doug—are very dutifully staring at the carpet. Patrick, though, is watching us with naked awe, his mouth open, his fingers poised over his laptop keyboard like he’s been live-tweeting this whole debacle. I give him a dirty look before I follow after Nash, closing the door behind us.
Nash is still agitated as I sit. He’s holding the extender between his hands on his desk, playing with the two remaining antennas. His brows are furrowed as he stares at them with a focused intensity that gives me a second to study him. His shirt is pearly pink, his tie grey. His office may have unreliable internet, but he’s still wearing silver cufflinks. For the first time, I notice subtle lines on the fourth finger of his left hand. He wore a ring there, and now he doesn’t. Have I ever seen him wear a wedding ring before? His apartment certainly showed no other signs of human habitation, but there’s a picture on the wall behind his desk of two smiling boys.
Whatever. My job is not to make guesses about his personal life. My job is not to think about the warmth of his body under my fingertips or the brush of his breath over my fly. I am here to fix his internet, keep his computers running, and do my best not to roll my eyes when he cracks another phone.
