Sebastian
Three hoursinto a marathon hacking session, and Seb and Alexandria were already starting to lose their focus. They had a few laptops set up alongside Seb’s desktop, and as always when they were working together, muted cartoons played on the big television screen.
Instead of running algorithms, though, Alexandria and Seb stood at the tall windows, watching Declan trudge back and forth in front of the house.
“No wonder you’re always distracted,” Alexandria said. “He’s like this all day?”
“In and out,” Seb answered with a nod. “He’ll come back and check on me in about thirty minutes, probably.”
Alexandria pursed her lips, which were painted bright purple. “That’s hot.”
Seb laughed. “Yeah. It is.”
Alexandria turned away from the window, then returned to the work. She had arrived that morning dressed for the city, with her hair perfectly styled up, but the more time she spent with Seb, the more they both started to unwind.
If it took another day to get the project done, Seb imagined they would both spend that day in sweatpants.
Alexandria played around with her laptop for a minute. Then the printer whirred to life. “I found a few more emails,” she said distractedly. “We’ll have to have your boyfriend look at them to see if there’s anything connected, though. I don’t think I understand the context properly.”
Seb grunted, trying out a noise like Declan always made, just to see how it felt. “Please don’t let him hear you saying that. He’s not my boyfriend”
“Don’t worry. He’s too busy wrestling bears in the backyard.”
“Really, though. I don’t want him thinking that I’m falling in love or something.”
“Okay,” Alexandria said carefully. “But…”
“No, I am not,” Seb said flatly, although his cheeks were warming just to joke about it.
“Would it be so bad if you were?”
“You tell me. You’re the one always encouraging me to date casually. Is it a smart idea to fall head over heels for the first guy to ever show me attention? And a tattooed man twenty years my senior at that?”
“Oh sweetie,” Alexandria sighed, then reached out to lay a hand on Seb’s back. “You don’t get to choose who you fall for. Usually, it just happens all on its own.”
“Trust me, I know. If I could have chosen, I would have waited until the intruders with guns had stopped regularly attacking my home.”
“Maybe not,” Alexandria said. “It could be a pretty ideal time. You get to know a person under pressure like that, way better than you could through months of dating. And you said Declan always treats you right?”
“Always,” Seb answered. “To the point where I’m worried he forgets to think about himself sometimes.”
Alexandria whistled. “Sounds serious to me.”
Seb laughed. “Whatever you say.” Part of the fun of having a best friend was having a person to dream big with, and Alexandria was an expert at getting him to admit those kinds of fantasies.
“Seriously, though,” she added, turning back to her screen. “You always think everything through and plan every little step in your life. But right now, with people breaking into your house, it might be time to veer off course.” She shrugged, then started typing on the keyboard. “Think fast, you know?”
Seb nodded, mumbled a thanks, and turned back to his own work, squinting down in silence for a while. He had set up some simple programs to run against the files, on the off chance that the owners had used a common password, and Alexandria was throwing together her own tools. Hopefully, they would find one that did the trick sooner than later.
“Do you remember the last time we did this?” he asked.
Alexandria laughed, still peering at her computer. “When we hacked into the school’s computer. We stayed up all night.”
“Totally worth it.” Both Seb and Alexandria were expected to take an advanced coding course. They knew the material forward and backward, but the only professor who taught the class was a total creep to Alexandria. “Not to mention, the perfect crime. No one would expect the two smartest students on campus had meddled with their 4.0 grades.”
“A perfect crime,” Alexandria agreed. “But a little boring. This, however? Who knows what the hell we’re going to find?”
Seb leaned back from the computer and cracked his knuckles. “I guess just about anything could be in those files. Before the ride yesterday, I had assumed Declan knew the guy he was working for. But once we got there, he seemed as frustrated as I was to see how sketchy the place was.” He frowned. “I just don’t understand how my father would end up hiring someone like that.”
