“Let’s go, newbie.”
“Go where?” he asked warily.
“To meet with the lunch crew. It’s food time.”
The normal request was even more suspicious than if she’d asked him to join her on a wilderness safari. There was no way it was just a normal lunch. Right?
She narrowed her eyes on him. “Why are you staring at me?”
“Who else is going to be there?” he countered.
She rolled her eyes. “No clue. Ask your boyfriend. Now, let’s go!”
He immediately shook his head, and the only reason he didn’t spin around to go back to his work was because she wouldn’t be able to read his lips that way and that was rude. “I’m not really good company right now. I think I’ll just work through lunch.”
Planting her fists on her hips, she scowled at him. “No way. You need to eat. It wasn’t a request.”
“Roz…” he sighed, both exasperated and sad. Why couldn’t his family have fought like this for him? “I know Emmett’s been talking about me, and I’m sorry he made you worry, but I really don't feel up for anything social right now.”
She scoffed. “He hasn’t, actually. He’s been incredibly tight lipped about what happened to you. All he said was that you had a rough night and asked people to check in on you. I know he’s come up here a few times, but he doesn’t want to interrupt you so he always tiptoes away before you notice him. He’s trying to help, Jonah.”
“I know that,” Jonah murmured, frowning at his feet. “I just…” He wanted to say he was hoping to put some distance between himself and the people he’d met at Spellbound. It wasonly a matter of time before he had to leave. He’d lose them too eventually. But he got the feeling that’d only piss her off more, and he just didn’t have the emotional energy to argue with her.
He heard her jingle as she came closer, squatting in front of him so he couldn’t avoid her gaze. “I know what it feels like to want to push the world away when things are rough, Jonah. You’re only making it harder on yourself if you hide. Let your friends help you.”
“I don’t want them to pity me,” he croaked.
She shrugged. “So don’t let them. Show them what a badass you are that when things are tough, you face it head on. You don’t hide away in your office. Now let’s go! I’m hungry, and I was promised good food.”
He snorted, and he felt a little tension loosen in his chest when he gave in with a nod. He figured he might as well get this over with. Once it was out there, he wouldn’t have to talk about it again. Hopefully, anyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
They didn’t head to the cafeteria like Jonah had expected. Instead, Roz pressed the elevator button to go upstairs, not down. That was confusing for Jonah, he’d never been upstairs and had no idea why he would need to go up there, but Roz didn’t look interested in answering questions. She hovered in the air, poking at her phone and frowning at it before tilting to screen toward him.
“Which one?”
He glanced at the screen with a frown. She was showing him two monitors, one curved and one that was just plain massive.
“What’s the plan for use?” he queried. “What you pick depends entirely on what you use them for.”
Her smile seemed almost proud when she replied, “This is why I like you. You’re actually smart. I’m looking for my home set up. I don’t really play games, but I do some private cyber security stuff at home. My monitor is throwing errors so it needs to be replaced.”
He considered the options with a frown. “How often do you get visitors at your home? It’d be more expensive to put a privacy screen on the curved one.”
She snorted, shaking her head at him. “You’re thinking like a human. We use spells for privacy, so it’s not more expensive for a certain type of screen.”
He made a face. He’d honestly forgotten about that. In his defense, in general, the work he did with tech thus far was the same across the board. He hadn’t had to deal with anything magical when it came to IT yet.
“I’d say the bigger one, honestly. The specs are better.”
She hummed, looking at her phone again. “I think you’re right. I like the look of the curved one, but I don't need anything fancy.”
The door opened to the 52nd floor, and they stepped out to a quiet office with a spider person sitting at the front desk. Jonah swallowed uneasily, but Roz didn’t stop at the reception desk, just flitted right past and went down a hallway on the right.
“Uh– Hey!” the receptionist called, sounding annoyed. Jonah’s shoulders went up. He wanted to say something, the receptionist didn’t know Roz couldn’t hear her, but he’d thus far avoided getting close to spider people, and he was still a little freaked out by them. He tried not to be, Emmett said more than once that they were just people, but he couldn’t help it.
The arachne spun around to look at him, her lips pulled into a tight frown. “Are you two together? You’re supposed to check in with me before going anywhere. Especially down that hallway.”
