Fuck! I just realized it’s past midnight, and the buses aren’t going to be running.
I don’t even know what the bus lines are like out here.
I check my phone quickly, trying to figure it out… after all, maybe there’s a bus that runs late or something to this area.
But I can’t for the life of me figure out the San Francisco transit page. The organization doesn’t make any sense. Now I remember that it took me almost a week of planning to figure out how to get to the old office, and it still wasn’t convenient.
There’s a PDF file that I can’t download.
Well, now I can download it, but my phone won’t open it, and there’s probably no wi-fi out here for my laptop to pick up.
Here I am, supposedly a programmer, and I can’t figure out this simple tech thing.
I’m so overwhelmed, I almost feel like I’m going to cry, but I fight back the tears with all my force. If Ryan comes out here, I’m not going to let him see me crying.
The logical thing to do would be to go back inside and ask Ryan for a ride, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to do that.
The more I think about it, the more it bothers me that he just basically ignored me after that hot session in the closet. I mean, who does that?
The answer is as clear as day: the douchebag billionaire, that’s who.
Even though I don’t have a ton of money in the bank right now, since I’m still waiting for my first check, I break down and order an Uber.
My eyes are starting to well up with tears of exhaustion by the time the car arrives.
Ryan
It’s not like I’m clueless. You can’t do well in this business, after all, unless you’re highly perceptive. It’s not enough to just write a killer program. You have to be able to read people, and you have to take charge.
I know Lily’s upset, but she just doesn’t understand that this business means everything to me. It’s not just my money that’s at stake, it’s my reputation.
She should understand that.
You can’t know me without understanding that about me.
Honestly, it makes me a little angry.
And it’s not like I can go chase her down tonight, running out to the parking lot. After all, there’s code that has to be written, and she and Jerry are going to be at home sleeping while I’ll be doing all the real work.
It’s far too late in the project to call in some hired help. I’ve got plenty of good programmers for hire in my contacts list, guys who are essentially on call, and who can bang out damn good code in a short period of time. But they’re not familiar at all with what we’re doing here. I’d have to explain the whole thing to them, starting from Lily’s original hypothesis, and the three of us have come so far since then in our theory that it would take hours to explain everything to them.
I crack open another energy drink and keep my eyes on the code. I’ve got to keep my head clear.
But my cock twitches as my thoughts go back to Lily…
The night goes on, and I try not to think about her.
It’s not like she’s running away, right?
The coding is getting tricky, and now I have to incorporate Jerry and Lily’s code into mine.
Three o’clock rolls around and I hardly notice it. Four o’clock hits, and I feel a little tired, but not by too much.
I’m totally absorbed in the code.
I’m so close, but there’s something missing… The programming is getting more and more tedious now. The innovation already happened, and I just have to do the brick laying to get things up and running.
But I’m so damn close.
A light flashes in my peripheral vision. I look up for the first time in hours, my vision fuzzy from staring at the computer screen for so long, and I see that a janitor has arrived to start the morning cleaning before the workers come in.
“Hey,” he says gruffly, dragging a vacuum unenthusiastically behind him.
I nod at him and go back to coding.
About an hour later, the workers start to show up. I don’t know most of them, but I recognize Sheila.
Jerry arrives looking sleepy, and I nod at him. He sits there waiting for me to tell him what to do, since by now he’s hours behind on the project.
But there’s really not much for him to do. I’m so close to running the program, so close to hitting “compile.”
“Anything I can help with?” says Jerry, taking a sip from his coffee mug.
“Is Lily here yet?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
I go back to typing away.
“I’m hitting compile,” I suddenly say.
Jerry gets up excitedly and comes to stand behind me, anxious to see if the thing runs.
It compiles.
No errors.
“Nice,” says Jerry.
“Now we just have to feed it some data and see how the benchmark scores are.”
“I’m sure it’s going to do well,” says Jerry.
“It better,” I say.
Another hour goes by as Jerry helps me set up a test run. We’re using the same benchmark system that Simmons used. This will tell us whether my new updated algorithm is worse, as good, or better than the Simmons algorithm.
There’s still no sign of Lily, but I shrug it off.
“OK,” says Jerry. “Looks like we’re ready.”
We’ve got the program running on a remote server that I rent by the year. It’s a powerful set of computers that can really crunch data.
The algorithm isn’t something that can run well on a laptop, which is very underpowered.
“It’s running,” says Jerry, monitoring the process from his laptop.
I’m staring at my screen. My mental fingers are crossed.
I’m holding my breath.
My mind briefly flashes to Lily, and my cock stiffens again.
Even though I’m on no sleep, I’d fuck her hard and fast if she was here right now.
But she’s not.
I wonder what happened to her? She’s not one to miss running the algorithm for the first time. After all, it was her idea that led to this new development. I’m sure she’s anxious to see how well it works, since she seems to be so into programming.
“Shit,” says Jerry.
My attention snaps back to my computer screen.
The test isn’t over, but the preliminary benchmark scores are already coming in, and they’re not good.
They’re a little faster than my old algorithm, but they’re nothing compared to what Simmons has accomplished.
“Fuck,” I say.
“Maybe there’s just something that needs tweaking,” says Jerry meekly.
I shake my head. “I set up everything perfectly,” I say. “Fuck it, I’m going home.”
I leave Jerry looking worried and confused. But he doesn’t have nearly as much at stake on this as I do. After all, it’s my algorithm.
So this means that Simmons’s algorithm is still faster than mine, and everyone’s going to buy his. His will be the new enterprise business standard.
On the way home, my eyes are bleary, but I’m fine to drive.
Grabbing my phone, I give Lily a call, but she doesn’t pick up.
I don’t leave a voicemail.
Instead, I head home, but it’s always been hard for me to sleep when the sun’s up. I feel like I’m not being productive.
So instead of heading right to bed, I decide to do a lifting session.
My muscles ache with fatigue as I arrange the weights, getting ready. I do it still wearing my business clothes, so it’s time for me to change.
I switch quickly into a pair of gym shorts. I don’t bother putting on a shirt.
It’s not until I’m already wearing them that I smell it. More like I smell her.
These are the shorts I lent Lily, the first night that we fucked. I can smell her delicious scent coming up from my own shorts. It sends my cock rocketing out, swelling with blood.
I’ve got to push on through, though. I’ve got to do something strong.
I lay down on the bench press bench, arranging myself so that the bar is right above my eyes, right where it should be. I grip my hands around the cold textured steel and push, lifting the weight off the rack where it rests.
Fuck, I can’t believe the Simmons’s algorithm is better than mine.
But it just can’t be true. There’s just no fucking way. I know I’m better at algorithms than just about anyone. I’m a better coder.
There’s got to be some trick to this.
There’s got to be something strange going on.
Could Simmons possibly be manipulating his benchmark speed scores?
The weight feels heavier than usual because I’m on no sleep, and it threatens to crash down on my chest for a moment, but I push through it, using all my strength to do ten reps.
When I slam the bar back on the stand, panting from exertion, my cock is still hard and sticking straight up, making a tent in my gym shorts. My cock is straining against the thin fabric, the very spot where her sweet pussy was.
I can’t concentrate on lifting with images of her flashing in my mind… her breasts, her perfect curves, the feeling of her pressed against my soft body.
I pull my cock out of my shorts, letting the elastic waist band fall down to the thick base of my cock.
Gripping my cock in my fist, I slide my hand up and down my shaft.
I concentrate on what Lily looked like when I was entering her, making her face contort in ecstasy.
Lily
“But that’s crazy,” says Hailey. “You can’t just quit your job like that.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” I say.
My eyes feel tired and strained. It’s been a long day of self-debate and self-criticism, a ton of emotional confusion.
“Welcome to the world of the non-virgins,” says Hailey, sighing. “Sex just makes everything so much more complicated, doesn’t it?”
I nod my head.
She’s right. She’s totally right. Maybe I never should have had sex with Ryan. I’d be better off, in a way.
But then again, if I could go back and do it all over again, I’d do exactly the same thing. It was just too hot to pass up, even if I could time travel like in one of those silly movies.
I’ve spent the entire day debating about whether or not I should go in to work.
I ended up debating the whole day and not going at all. That’s why I’m sitting here with Hailey now. She’s got the day off from her job, which is good because she’s really starting to hate it with a passion. These last few days, a series of horrible things have happened to her at work. One customer even threw a bowl of cold soup in her face, while yelling at her about the temperature—“If it’s not hot enough to burn your face, it’s not hot enough to drink.” What a freak. I mean, who does that?
But also, who just stops going to work? I basically just started the job, and it’s not my dream job… but it’s becoming my dream job. I’m working on exciting new programming projects, and I’m just dying to know if my idea worked and was as good or better than the Simmons algorithm.
We’re sitting on a bench at a park near our house. There are sounds of children playing from far away, but they’re out of our field of vision.
An old man is sitting on the bench opposite us, and he keeps drifting in and out of sleep. There’s even drool hanging out of his mouth, getting tangled up in his long white beard. Even in his sleep, he’s still clutching a cup that says, “Hungry. Please help.”
I get up and put a five dollar bill in it. He doesn’t wake up.
“Why’d you do that?” hisses Hailey at me.
I shrug. “Feeling guilty, I guess.”
“Guilty? Lily, come on. What are you going to do? You don’t have time to feel guilty, and I don’t even understand that…”
“I got what I wanted,” I say. “I had the interesting job… the cool programming project, the super hot billionaire who loved fucking me…”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” says Hailey.
She says that, but she’s also been admonishing me about my decision. So that’s not a huge help.
“But what am I going to do?” I say. I’m completely overwhelmed, completely confused. My pulse feels much faster than it normally is, which I don’t think is a good sign.
“You can’t keep fucking him,” says Hailey. “I know this isn’t much help. But did you really think the douchebag billionaire was going to be emotionally available? After all the stories that I sent you? After everything you had heard about him?”
I shrug. “I just didn’t think he’d be so cold… and right after sex, too.”
“Some guys are just douchebags,” says Hailey.
“I know, I know,” I say.
“Listen,” says Hailey. “You don’t have to fuck him to work there… He didn’t even know you were his employee. Why don’t you just go back to work? Make up some excuse about how your dog was sick or something… or better yet, use me as an excuse. Tell them they can phone me and I’ll tell them I had to go to the hospital for appendicitis or something good like that…”
“I can’t just show back up,” I say.
“Sure you can. Or tell them you went to the old office or something. Just play up the airhead thing…”
I shrug. “Maybe it would work. But I just can’t work with him. I just can’t do it. Not after the way he was ignoring me. I can’t be anywhere near him.”
“So what are you going to do for work?”
“Maybe I’ll go back home and work at the furniture store.”
“You can’t do that,” says Hailey, her eyes widening. “You just can’t.”
I shrug. I’m feeling despondent and apathetic. “It’d be easy,” I say. “Trust me, I know all there is to know about furniture. I grew up with it.”
“But this is your dream,” says Hailey. “You’re a good programmer. I mean, you were the one who came up with the idea on how to imitate this other algo thingy that you’re talking about.”
“I don’t even know if it works.”
My phone beeps at me.
“This better not be Ryan calling me again.” I’ve lost interest in fiddling with the phone settings because of my depression, and for right now the text messages and calls make exactly the same sounds.
“Just pick up and tell him it’s over between you two, but you’re still going to work…”
“I’m not going back there,” I say. “I’m just not”
“Just pick it up!”
I finally grab my phone, and realize upon looking at the screen that it’s a text message rather than a phone call.
“It didn’t work,” says the text message. It’s from Ryan, of course.
“Shit,” I say.
“What is it?”
“The algorithm didn’t work.”
Hailey shrugs. “What does that mean?”
“It means Ryan’s company is screwed. No one’s going to buy something that’s not as good as the new one, which is like a thousand times better.”
“Well screw him,” says Hailey. “He’s a douchebag, remember? Remember the way he treated you?”
“Yeah… but I thought my idea would work.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re a bad programmer,” says Hailey.
“I think it does,” I say. “I hardly have any experience, and the one thing I tried on a real project didn’t work at all.”
“Doesn’t beat Simmons’s algo,” says another text message that comes from Ryan.
“He’s not even asking about me,” I say. “Why I’m not at work.”
“This algo thingy is just way more important to him,” says Hailey. “Don’t take it personally… You’re hot, trust me. You’ll find someone new in no time.”
She actually starts turning her head to look around, as if she’s trying to find someone for me.
I laugh at this.
“What?” says Hailey.
“You’re not going to find anyone for me at the park…”
“Well then, I just might find someone for myself. Hey, why don’t we find a pair of hot guys and just flirt like crazy with them. They’re bound to want to get some action. You know how guys are.”
“I don’t think I do,” I say sadly. “But I’m starting to realize…”
“You just need some more cock,” says Hailey. “You just need to see that this Ryan guy isn’t the best guy ever.”
But he is. That’s the thing. I’ve never even seen anyone as hot as he is, not in magazines, TV, or the movies. And even without experience, I know that no one’s going to fuck me like he can.
“Come on,” says Hailey, standing up and tugging on my arm.
“I’m not in the mood,” I say.
Hailey sighs and sits down again on the bench.
“What am I going to do with you?” she says.
My phone beeps again. Another text from Ryan.
“Where are you?” he writes.
I pause for a moment, hesitating.
“Either don’t write him, or tell him to fuck off,” says Hailey.
But part of me longs for him still… I don’t think I can just do it like that. I’m not like Hailey. And Hailey’s never been with anyone like Ryan Hudson. Not that there is anyone like him.
“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” I say, pointing to a little structure that houses the park bathrooms.
“Don’t write him anything stupid,” Hailey calls out after me as I walk towards it.
In the bathroom, I stand there, locking the door behind me with a deadbolt that slides roughly. The toilet is disgusting and I’m certainly not going to sit on it, let alone stand anywhere near it, so I stay by the door where the sink is.
“I’m quitting,” I write back to Ryan, in a sudden flurry of my fingers.
“OK,” says his text message. “Meet me at my place. I need your pussy.”
Despite my feelings for him, it makes me blush.
But what fucking nerve!
Who the hell writes something like that?
“You don’t even care why I’m quitting?” I write back quickly. Too quickly. I let my emotions take over without thinking clearly about what I’m writing.
Her Boss: A Billionaire and Virgin Romance Page 12