I close the door silently behind me, my steps muffled by the thick-pile rug that covers most of the hardwood floor as I step farther into the room. I’m able to walk all the way up behind him without so much as a flinch from him to indicate he’s noticed my presence.
I can see the irony here, that I made up a whole spooky, fictional persona around Gianmarco Russo based on a mildly weird vibe, only to turn around and stalk West like an apex predator in a nature documentary. But I continue tiptoeing closer to my prey, until I’m near enough to see what he’s up to.
West’s fingers continue their furious typing pace. His screen shows a black background covered in neat, orderly rows of text, numbers and symbols and letters in a rainbow of purple, green, red, yellow, and more. I recognize it as computer code, though I couldn’t begin to guess what he’s programming. It’s clear he’s not a novice, as fast as he’s cranking out line after line, not stopping to think or hunt and peck for characters like I still occasionally do.
After a couple minutes of this, he finally pauses, one hand moving to the trackpad and navigating to a website already open in a browser window. He slowly scrolls down before stopping at a section under the header “Accepted StudentInformation.” My gaze shifts to the top left corner of the screen, where I find a logo for some university in…Germany?
Then my attention is recaptured by West’s hands. He lifts them from the laptop while he presumably reads the words on-screen, then laces his fingers together to flex them outward. His joints snap, crackle, and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies before he lets out a sigh and falls back against the leather club chair.
On an impulse I don’t think about too hard, I decide this is my best opportunity to pounce.
“Do you think you might have carpal tunnel?”
West nearly sends his computer tumbling to the floor with his full-body convulsion of surprise.
“Jesus, Cam!” he exclaims, slamming the laptop shut and setting it aside before he turns around to lean over the back of the club chair. He pushes a shaky hand through his disheveled hair, then finger-combs it back down again. “I’m more concerned about having a heart attack. You scared the shit out of me.”
I shrug, stepping around to take a seat in the club chair opposite him and tucking my legs up underneath me. “Still, those finger joints did not sound okay.”
“My fingers are none of your concern,” West blusters on. “What are you doing here?”
“I had the same question for you,” I say, nodding toward the device he was glued to a moment earlier. “You were pretty consumed with…hacking into a German college’s computer network? Don’t let me stop you.”
“I wasn’t hacking anything,” he grumbles.
“Right,” I say with a slow, disbelieving nod. “If you told me about your mission, you’d have to kill me. I get it.”
“I feel like if either of us is more likely to kill the other, it’s you. Hands down.”
My jaw drops with genuine offense, until I see the smile playing at the corners of his mouth. I make a show of flipping my hair behind my shoulder, then holding my hand out to inspect my nails—which I forgot were still caked with dirt. Keeping up the diva act, I reply, “Well, feel free to put in a good word with your employers. Espionage is probably a good fit for a girl without her own personality.”
The words are like an anvil hitting the plush carpet underfoot. We’re silent for a few moments, until West blows out a breath.
“I didn’t mean that, Cammie,” he says, voice thick with regret. “I was just…embarrassed, and angry, and trying to hurt you for hurting me. But it was out of line, and not something I’ve ever thought about you. I’m really sorry.”
I wasn’t trying to squeeze an apology out of him, not knowingly, anyway. But it feels pretty damn good to hear. I try to let the words sink in, to quiet the part of me that believes the worst about myself. At least West doesn’t believe that.
His words also remind me that I’m the one who struck first.
“I appreciate that,” I begin. “And I’m sorry, too. What I said at dinner was petty, and didn’t need to be thrown in your face in front of people we’d just met, who will likely now avoid us both like the plague.”
West gives a sad half smile at my joke, then watches meanother moment, face hopeful, or maybe even expectant. He must not have missed the fact that I didn’t address whether I meant what I said. Whether I believe he’s a guy looking for a friends-with-benefits arrangement.
But I don’t acknowledge it, because I don’t know what I believe anymore. Instead, I return to my previous question.
“Okay, so really—what were you up to in here?”
He lets his head recline against the back of the chair and his eyes fall closed before he rubs them wearily. Without opening them, he says, “Well, I don’t know exactly how long you were lurking behind me, but first, I was working on a programming problem. Casually, just for fun, not hacking into any systems or otherwise up to shady activities. It’s what I’m studying, computer science, but it’s also a subject where you can teach yourself a lot, if you’re interested in it. Which, uh, I am. Then…”
West hesitates, blinking his eyes open but keeping them trained on the ceiling. “I was accepted to this research program for the upcoming school year at a university outside Berlin. My spot is reserved but I…I’m still deciding whether I’ll actually go. I was just checking on the deadline for withdrawing without losing my deposit.”
My brows shoot up, not knowing how to respond. A congratulations on his acceptance? An expression of sympathy or something, since he’s maybe turning it down? I decide to keep tiptoeing around the subject, see if I can suss out more information.
“So youdidneed that copy ofThe Communist Manifestothat’s still in my backpack upstairs. You’re welcome for hauling it all the way home after you ditched me yesterday, by the way.”
He gives me a flat look, one brow twitching up as if to say,You really want to go there?
I don’t, actually, so I steer us back on topic. “That sounds like it’d be a cool opportunity, though. What’s keeping you from going?”
