“Being a little shit. I won’t smoke anymore.”
Parker hums, then returns to his book as if totally disinterested with my apology. Dante should teachhima lesson. Wait, no. I don’t like that. Dante is only allowed to teach me lessons. But someone else should definitely teach Parker a lesson because he’s obnoxious.
Jacob finishes at the sink, then salutes us all. He disappears upstairs, leaving a frowning Hayden staring after him.
“Mason appears to be leaving the house today, so I’ll be tracking him.” Parker aims a steely look at me. “I placed a very heavy security system around your house on top of your subpar one that looks fancy but doesn’t actually do shit. It was hard bugging the place while Mason was there. You both don’t have as many survival instincts as you should, you know. He slept through me breaking into the house.”
“You broke into myhouse,” I squawk.
Parker disappears through the front door without a worry about my fury. I turn to Dante with narrowed eyes, but Dante just shrugs.
“You said to keep Mason safe,” Dante points out as if my fury doesn’t matter to him one bit. “You’re here. Gotta do it some way. Now, I have class today, so be a good boy and work on your homework here. Okay?”
I flush at being called a good boy in front of Hayden, but nod anyway. I will be a good boy. Because maybe that means Dante will come home and treat me well. Maybe. When Dante disappears out the front door with his backpack slung over his shoulder, I’m left alone with a still furiously typing Hayden. Scully sits in his lap, purring, and every now and then Hayden pauses to rest his hand on her head and give hera little scratch. It’s cute. Maybe they’re both psychos and she’s his familiar.
“What are you working on?” I ask because I’m nosier than my self-preservation instincts allow.
“I’m trying to steal half a million dollars from this pharmaceutical company that stole a patent from someone for a treatment for multiple sclerosis,” Hayden explains while still typing. He chews his bottom lip and squeezes one eye shut. “Obviously you’re sworn to secrecy or I’ll kill you.”
“About what you’re doing now or… all of it.”
Hayden pauses to glare at me. “All of it.”
I shrug. “Who am I going to tell? I don’t have any friends and my brother wouldn’t believe me. Also, I’m on your side. Capitalism is evil.”
“Is that why you’re okay with all of this?”
Is it? I don’t know. I think about it for a moment while Hayden returns to typing.
“Maybe, but also maybe there’s a little part of me that just likes the chaos.”
Hayden snorts. “You are a chaos gremlin, for sure. Do you know anything about Linux?”
“What language?”
Hayden lifts his head slowly to look at me for what feels like very fresh eyes. He leans forward slightly in his chair with an assessing sort of look.
“Ruby.”
I wiggle my fingers at his computer. “Give me.”
Hayden frowns, looks down at his computer, then pushes it toward me with one finger. I squint at the screen, desperately trying to understand what he’s doing. It’s the backend of a program for sure, but it looks like he’s trying to kill it without someone being able to find the death switch.
“Are you trying to make this defunct?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were stealing money from a pharmaceutical company.”
Hayden huffs in frustration. “I can’t just hack into their bank account and steal it back. Instead, I’m crashing an app the CEO invested money into so that when the stock market opens tomorrow, it’ll open low enough to scare investors into selling in mass.”
“Devious,” I compliment with an impressed smile.
Hayden sits up straighter. “Thank you.”
Hayden and I spend the afternoon passing the laptop back and forth until we’ve dismantled the app from being able to work properly, even with the fail-safes in place. By the time we’re satisfied with the destruction, Jacob is wandering in to start cooking dinner. He takes one look at the two of us cozied up at the table together and sighs dramatically.
“Can I help?” I blurt out while Jacob’s head is buried in the fridge.
