I cleared my throat, my face so hot I was worried my skin would melt off.
“Maybe we should take a break. I feel weird that you can read my thoughts right now.” I mumbled.
He for sure knew I had a freaking crush on him. Dang it.
He continued to watch the glyphs, and his eyes flashed as the thought slashed across my mind.
I hastily sat up, pulling away from the device, and the screens went dark. I rambled—frantically trying to divert his attention from whatever it was he just saw on the screens.
“Uhm, yeah, I can feel where the device connects to my thoughts, but you’re right. It’s grabbing on too hard—it doesn’t feel flexible enough tomanipulate. We need to figure out a way to massage the memory instead of pulling it…”
I glanced at Jay to find him fiddling with the prototype and chewing on his bottom lip.
“Milo—”
Horror exploded through my chest as I realized he wanted to talk about whatever he’d just seen on the screen.
I’m never letting him use that thing on me again! Oh my god!
“What about oscillating the signal?” I blurted out, desperate to distract him from whatever it was he wanted to say.
The last thing I wanted to do was talk about my extremely inappropriate crush on my boss. Especially notwithsaid boss.
It was just a crush; I would get over it. I could still be professional.
Jay stared at me for another long moment, and then finally, he smiled. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized he was going to let it go.
“You’re such a whizz,” he beamed, and that warm feeling boomed in my chest again. It was rare that anyone ever paid me any compliments. They usually just called me names.
“I’ve been stuck on this for weeks; it never once occurred to me to mess with the transmitter.” He laughed softly, scratching the back of his neck. “I was going in circles trying to dial back the power.”
I gave him a tentative smile, shoving my glasses back up my nose.
“It’s just an idea. It might not work.”
“So if it doesn’t work, we try something else.” He shrugged. “It’s a good idea, Milo. Come over here. Let’s hook this thing up to the computer and see if we can experiment with the signal output…”
The day flew by. Working with Jay was the easiest, most natural thing in the world. He got just as excited as I did whenever one of our tests was successful, and by lunch, we were already contemplating giving the NeuroManipulator another test to see if our adjustments made a difference.
“Ready to give it a shot?” Jay asked, swiveling to face me in his chair, giving me a boyish grin.
I smiled back at him. “Heck yeah!” I beamed. “Though maybe you’ll be the guinea pig this time. You’ve been in my head twice now. I need a break.”
Jay’s eyes shone, and he reached across the desk. He lightly tapped my temple with two fingers, causing my breath to catch slightly.
“I like being in your head, though,” he teased, and I blushed.
“Your turn, or no dice,” I insisted, remaining firm.
Even just a few hours ago, I might have felt nervous standing my ground, but Jay made it feel easy to be myself. He never made me feel silly or clumsy, and I was beginning to feel more relaxed around him than I’d ever been with anyone in my life… outside of maybe my parents.
“Alright, wiz kid. You drive a hard bargain,” he said. We both stood up to make our way back to the surgical chair when the elevator dinged, signalling a new arrival into the lab.
The comfortable, easy-going atmosphere I’d been enjoying vanished when two men strode out of the elevator.
The older of the two was wearing a charcoal grey suit. He was tie-less, and his shirt was open at his throat. His short brown hair had a slight wave to it, and he had smile lines on his face that had me placing him in his mid-sixties.
The younger man was clearly related to him. He was in business casual attire with well-tailored navy suit pants and a crisp white shirt, also open at the throat.
