Why couldn’t he talk to her like a normal person? Why did every conversation feel like navigating a minefield blindfolded?
He pushed through the door to his office and let it swing shut with a solid click. The comfortable hum of servers and the soft glow of multiple monitors greeted him like old friends. He collapsed into his custom-built chair, the contoured shell molding his body, and dragged both hands down his face.
A door he could close. Screens he could control. Systems listened, did what they were told.
People? Not so much.
His trembling fingers hovered over the keyboard. The cursor blinked at him, patient and non-judgmental. He let out a shaky breath, trying to release the knot of tension lodged between his shoulder blades.
Lena’s face kept flashing through his mind—that moment when her smile died and something wounded flickered across her features. He’d put that there, with his stupid mouth and his inability to say what he meant without wrapping it in layers of sarcasm and awkwardness.
You’re better than most.
God, what kind of compliment was that? It sounded like he was grading her on a curve, awarding her a participation trophy. What he’d actually thought was that she was brilliant. Watching her organize chaos into elegant solutions made something in his heart do weird things he didn’t have words for.
Of course, those weren’t the words that fell out of his mouth.
They never were.
David’s jaw clenched as he forced himself to focus on the blank document in front of him. Job descriptions. He could do this. They were structured and logical—things he understood. Things that didn’t require him to navigate the treacherous waters of human emotion.
His fingers found the keyboard and started typing, the familiar rhythm soothing some of the jagged edges inside him. Each keystroke helped pull him back to solid ground, a tiny anchor in a churning sea.
But even as the words appeared on his monitor, clinical and precise, his thoughts kept drifting back to Lena’s office. To the way the overhead lights danced on her hair. To the flash of hurt in her eyes he caused without trying.
He saved the document with more force than necessary, the click of the mouse sharp in the quiet room.
He should stick to what he was good at. Code didn’t mind awkwardness. Servers didn’t get their feelings hurt.
They definitely didn’t look at you with turquoise eyes that made you want to be better than you were.
Chapter 12
Summer Squall
Lena staredat the empty doorway, like it might somehow explain what had just happened. The muffled echoes of David’s retreating footsteps faded, leaving a heavy silence behind. It pressed against her chest, cold and unwelcome. That had not gone well.
She lowered herself back into her chair, her limbs stiff, the leather creaking beneath her weight. Did she actually just get into an awkward, borderline fight with David? Lighthearted, affable, endlessly sarcastic David? It didn’t seem possible.
Maybe she’d imagined the descent; except she hadn’t. It had been real. And stupid. Now, a ball of embarrassment and hurt sat coiled in her core, hot and dense, lodged somewhere between her ribs and gut.
She studied her hands, still fisted where they rested on the desk. Her chest ached in a way that always came after something small but deeply unsettling—like when someone you admired gave a look you didn’t expect, or said something so wrong it lingered in your thoughts longer than it should. A dull throb, persistent and unwelcome.
Reflexively, she reached for her phone—thumb already halfway to “Emma” before remembering that Emma was awaywith the task force team. Far too busy to listen to this petty drama. Venting in person was one thing. Interrupting work another. Did she really want to dump this all at her friend’s feet?
She hesitated, her thumb hovering over the screen, the glass smooth and cool beneath her touch. The answer was no, definitely not. She didn’t want to be that person.
She put the phone down with a sigh that stretched all the way into her bones; the sound seemed to fill the empty office. Her eyes wandered over her desk, but nothing held her attention: forms that needed approval, schedules to complete, even her half-drunk chai tea sitting in an oversized mug that had long gone cold. She wrapped her fingers around the ceramic—tepid, no warmth left—and pulled them away again without drinking.
A fine sadness unfurled from her heart, thin and creeping—the kind that made everything in the room seem dimmer and lonelier. The overhead lights now glared too brightly.
She had no one else to call.
The thought struck harder than expected.
Walter had taken on the role of mentor, but she couldn’t talk to him about something like this. About David, of all people. About awkwardness and feelings and how a maybe-sorta crush exploded into a crazy misunderstanding.
She supposed Kate qualified as a friend now, but that wasn’t cemented yet—and certainly not something she wanted to test by unloading her emotional baggage. Especially not when Kate was still recovering from… all of it. God, thinking about what she endured made Lena feel selfish for spiraling over a conversation. She’d see Kate at lunch tomorrow.
