Zero Day Exploit (Bayou’s End #1.5)

by Cole McCade

  “So do I get to stay until morning?” he asked as he tucked himself away.

  “I need to sleep, Evan.”

  “You can sleep through the seminar tomorrow.” He leaned his shoulder against the wall. “What did you call the guy? A douchebucket?”

  “Something like that.” She stepped into her jeans and straightened, tossing her hair from her eyes with a rueful smile. “Look, Evan, it was fun. It’s not the kind of thing I normally do, but…you were right. I needed a pick-me-up tonight, and you were it. But we both got what we wanted, so it’s time to go home.”

  “I can respect that.”

  But he leaned down to brush his fingers under her chin, tilting her head up. Her lips parted for him as he kissed her again, tasting the swollen fullness of her mouth for a moment longer, just one more kiss to make this night a fond memory he’d look back on in the coming months. When he drew back, she looked up at him dazedly. She was so responsive, he thought. He wondered if she’d looked at every man who’d ever touched her that way, or if she was only responding like this because it was him.

  Sure. The random guy who’d picked her up in a bar and proceeded to make a complete ass of himself. He’d wanted a chance to talk. To get to know her, and see if she was as interesting as she’d seemed from across the room. Instead he’d tried to be something he wasn’t, turning on his work persona, and backed himself into being good for only one thing before she didn’t want anything else to do with him.

  That was the way life happened, sometimes. But still he thought of how she’d sounded when she’d cried out and clutched at him. He didn’t think she realized she’d said his name. Over and over again, whispering Evan—Evan—Evan until it filled him with its wild chant, consumed him, made him want to do whatever it took so that she never stopped that blissful cry.

  Her lower lip crept between her teeth, and she looked away from him with a touch of crimson in her cheeks and a small smile curving her mouth. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “It’s been a good night. Best night I’ve had in a while.” He brushed her hair back from her brow. “Just wanted another moment to remember it by.”

  “You’re trying to tell me your life’s so terrible that this is the highlight?”

  “No.” He chuckled. “But I travel a lot. I don’t get very much time to just…be with people. To stop putting on the performance and just be myself. Bad sense of humor and all. So these few minutes, here and now…they’re refreshing.”

  She tilted her head quizzically. “What do you do other than ‘suit and tie,’ that it’s such a performance?”

  “I didn’t tell you?” Of course he hadn’t. If he’d told her, she’d have walked away from him. He shrugged. “I’m in sales.”

  “I could see that.” She snorted. “Slick lines. Completely useless. You try to read people and figure out what they want.” She glanced toward the door, before her gaze returned to him. “So you’re not from New York?”

  “No. Though I fly in often enough for work that I have a reserved room at my usual hotel.”

  “Cozy life.” She flitted a glance around her apartment. “Not that mine’s much better.”

  He raised his head to take in the room. Her apartment was a typical New York studio, narrow as a hallway and not much longer, but she’d managed to make it look spacious with minimalist furniture in homey, honey-toned wood—and even turned it into a multi-leveled space with a cleverly repurposed loft bed in one corner. The space underneath the loft platform had been enclosed with varnished wooden walls to create a separate little room with the bed tucked cozily inside and light streaming in from the window, while the overhead section had been set up as a second-story work area with a lap desk and a nest of pillows. Terraced cube shelving did double duty both as storage and as steps leading up to the work area. Her sense of décor was as quirky as she was, a mix of warm tones and off-kilter grunge blending surprisingly well, knit together by the glow of string lights painting motes of light along every wall. He smiled.

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to knock your life. I can tell you put this apartment together with a lot of love. It doesn’t matter that it’s small. It’s yours.”

  “I actually like it small. I’m weird like that, I guess.” She looked at him, then laughed when he just eyed her. “No, seriously. When I was a kid, I didn’t use my bedroom. I used the walk-in closet instead. I left all my clothes on my bed and strung up icicle Christmas lights all along the closet rack, and made shelves out of egg crates and a bed out of every sleeping bag in the house.” Her voice softened, fond memory darkening her eyes. “I kept books in there, and a little TV and radio, and my video games—and the weird little mangled stuffed animals I’d make by taking normal toys and giving them a zombie makeover like The Nightmare Before Christmas. When I closed the door, it was my own little world. Just me and nobody else.” Zero faltered, lowering her eyes. “It made me feel safe, I guess. Like I had a place that was all mine and wouldn’t go away. As long as I had a closet in my room, I could make my home all over again.”

  He studied her—the tense set of her shoulders, the pensive cast to her lips—and wondered why he cared, that this woman he’d just met a few hours ago seemed to be hurting. “Did you lose your home at some point?”

  “I was always losing my home. My parents love to travel. They’re a little flighty. They blame it on the Roma blood, but…I think it’s just who they are. Though it started with my mother, I think. Both my grandparents died in a house fire when I was just a baby, and Mom just couldn’t stand to be where it happened anymore.” She shrugged. “Always looking for a new haven. Always looking for new horizons, while my brother and sister and I just wished we could keep our friends for more than a few years.”

  He smiled slightly and shifted to lean against the wall next to her, comfortably arm to arm. “So you know how it feels. Moving from pillar to post, never really having a home.”

  “Yeah. I guess that’s why I decided to pick one place and stick with it. My brother did, too. Ion. He’s in Paris. Scheherazade’s the only one who likes to travel like Mom and Dad. Drags her kids all over the world, but they seem to love it.” She smiled wistfully, then shook herself, those lovely blue eyes clearing as she looked up at him. “Anyway. You have to have a home somewhere, don’t you? Even if it’s just somewhere to keep your things?”

  “I never see it. I’m like George Clooney in Up in the Air. One suitcase is all I need.”

  She frowned, brows knitting. “Oh.”

  “It’s not a bad life,” he said. It really wasn’t. He’d never needed much else, and he’d never been good at being tied down to commitments. He wondered if that made him sound like her family, and if that was why she was looking at him with such consternation. “I make good money, and get to see new places. I never have a chance to get tired of a place before I’m gone.”

  “Speaking of gone…” She smiled and glanced at the door again. “I should let you go instead of talking your ear off.”

  “It’s fine.” He straightened his clothing and checked to make sure nothing had fallen out of the pockets of his jacket. “I wasn’t looking for sex when I approached you, you know.”

  “Right,” she said skeptically, and he laughed.

  “Seriously. I would’ve been happy just to get your number.”

  Zero’s eyes narrowed. After the way they’d crashed into each other, tearing at each other, devouring each other…he didn’t blame her for not believing him.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Really.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened the app that would summon a taxi to his GPS location, sent in a request, then glanced up at her. “But you don’t want me to call. So I won’t ask.” Even if it would be so easy, with his phone in his hand. Just give it to her and say hey, drop your digits, and next time I’m in town…

  But he didn’t. Instead he stepped closer, savoring how her eyes darkened as he leaned down and claimed her lips one more time. Just a qui
ck taste to remember her by, until time and life and a million daily concerns erased the traces of her from his everyday life. She opened for him with a sighing sweetness and leaned into him when he threaded his fingers into the liquid-cool flow of her hair. The taste of her was heady and lovely and bright, and he lingered for longer than he should before pulling away with a rueful smile.

  “Take care, Zero,” he murmured, and turned away.

  “Sure. Right. Take care.” Something in her voice made him want to turn back, but he made himself keep moving when she continued, “’bye, Evan.”

  He glanced back with one last smile before letting himself out into the hall and heading downstairs to wait for his cab in the foyer, out of the cold. With a heavy sigh, he slumped against the wall next to the door, checked his phone for the cab’s location, then closed his eyes. He was an asshole. He should go back up there and tell her, or tomorrow would be one hell of an unpleasant surprise. He should have told her to start with.

  Instead he’d kept his mouth shut. And he hadn’t said goodbye. Goodbye was too final, when he’d be seeing her again.

  He could only hope she didn’t murder him when he did.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ZERO WOKE UP FEELING LIKE the hangover from hell had dragged her into a back alley, mugged her, then spent a few hours kicking her in the head for good measure.

  With a groan, she smacked the alarm clock—and spent a few minutes staring at it without really seeing it. She always set her alarm a few minutes early so she’d have a few moments to pull herself together and wake on her own terms, without the rush of transit times and morning meetings leaving her feeling always on the verge of falling off a cliff. She should get up, make some coffee, and chase the hangover away with a gallon or two of water, but not yet. Maybe belting down drinks on a work night hadn’t been such a good idea. She’d been overreacting, anyway. Rick would fail himself out of his promotion in six months or less, and it wouldn’t kill her to wear heels.

  Though she felt sorry for whomever she stepped on until she remembered how to walk in the damned things.

  With a yawn, she rolled onto her back and watched the soft gray dawn come up through the windows, catching on flakes of falling snow and gilding their edges. She stretched with lazy contentment—then winced when the motion pulled a few muscles that weren’t particularly happy with her after last night.

  Last night. Right. Her drunken mistake she’d regret in the morning. Only she didn’t, not really. She smiled and burrowed deeper into her pillows. Evan had been just what she’d needed to get over her little pity party and move on. He’d been cute, in his own stupid trying-too-hard way. She’d liked him better once he’d dropped the smooth lines and just talked to her.

  Maybe she should have gotten his number.

  “Yeah, right.” With a laugh, she hauled herself out of bed and padded to the kitchen. While her coffee brewed she dug in her closet, flicking past her torn, ratty jeans and a million baby-doll tees printed with everything from All Your Base Are Belong to Us to the ghost dog from Nightmare Before Christmas. She’d stuffed a pair of slacks in here, she thought. She kept them for job interviews and funerals. They had to be back here somewhere—

  “Gotcha.” She snagged the slacks off the hanger, along with the matching jacket and shirt. They were frumpy and severe and probably just what the company wanted, but she definitely needed to go shopping tonight. Bargain-bin fashion on an entry-level salary, but spending a little of her hard-earned savings on a few new outfits was better than getting fired for shucking the dress code.

  She stole a quick shower, then wriggled into the itchy suit, buttoned the fitted jacket, and tucked her hair into a severe bun to hide the red tips. That was the part that would hurt the most, she thought. She could get away with wearing her hair like this to conceal the dye for a while, but sooner or later HR would insist on a “natural” hair color. She could shuck the stuffy clothes once she was off the clock, but she’d still be stuck with the plain black hair.

  She’d get over it.

  Coffee in hand, she grabbed a toaster pastry and her messenger bag before clattering down to her train. It took only one flight of stairs to figure out moving too fast was a bad idea; Evan had left her so sore her panties rubbed against her with every step, friction leaving her gasping and flushed enough to beat back the chill bite of a winter morning. She tried to measure her steps, but moving slowly in New York pedestrian traffic was an even worse idea than speed-walking while the drag of her panties punished her for her indiscretions with every step.

  Let’s have sex with a strange guy up against a brick wall. God, she must be getting so many weird looks for walking this way. She hunched into her winter coat, then tugged for the millionth time at the suit coat underneath. It wouldn’t settle, and she felt like she’d been stuffed into a three-hundred-pound linebacker’s football gear. What’s that? Rough sex? Oh, sure, what could go wrong with that? Not like I’ve got friction burns on the small of my back from slamming up against the brick. Not like I’ve got to do the walk of shame around the office all day. Brilliant idea, Zero. Pure genius.

  She made it to the office just in time to follow the stream of people toward the fifth floor; the open, barren space had been left unfinished after some contractor dispute or another, and was the only place large enough to house the entire employee population in a single room. A podium and projection screen had been erected at the front of the room. Uncomfortable-looking metal folding chairs had been arranged in rows. Zero headed for the refreshment table with a snort. Hard, painful chairs and forced inactivity. Yeah, that’d hold everyone’s attention for hours.

  This was going to be fun.

  She snagged a fresh cup of coffee and a cruller, then scanned the room for her team. She was one of many low-end developers, working on user interface design for the company’s flagship product—but teams tended to stick together, and hers was no different. She almost missed them; Alejandro’s crop of bright green hair was nowhere in sight. She looked right over them, then swerved back when she realized the artificially slick black of freshly-dyed hair belonged to none other than the man she’d been looking for. He’d taken his ear gauges out, and slumped in his chair with his shoulders drooping inside his wrinkled button-down shirt, looking completely out of place and miserable.

  It starts, she thought dryly, and wove through the blocks of seats toward them. Rick caught her eye from his seat and grinned, cocking his fingers like guns and pointing them at her. She arched a brow. He’d just done that. That had really happened. God, that man was the Peter Principle in action. Not that any of her team were stellar examples of good behavior today; Alejandro’s sulk just made her feel that much more childish for her own pouting, even if she sympathized. They’d dodged the necessities of corporate life for so long they’d gotten spoiled. Right now she was trying to look on the bright side: mandatory conformity meant the company was growing. Growth meant more jobs, higher pay…and maybe her own glass-walled office, one day.

  “Zoraya.” Ravi—the main software quality tester—stood from his aisle seat when he caught sight of her, and gripped her hand for a moment, a familiar gesture he’d started in college and never given up. His slender brown fingers comforted, and she held fast before letting go. “I saved you a seat.”

  “Thanks, Rav.”

  She edged past him and sank down into the seat at his side, and deliberately didn’t look as he tapped his foot four times, counting under his breath, before he sat again. Everyone had their quirks. Ravi’s was counting, and only being able to sit in aisle seats. Zero had learned long ago not to embarrass him by taking note of it, and just did what she could to not mess up his counts.

  Once he was done, she asked, “So have you seen the guy yet?”

  “Not yet.” Ravi’s smile was quick, shy, there and gone again, like the shadow of a fleeting cloud. “He’s probably hiding from the torches and pitchforks.”

  She snickered into her coffee and tried to be subtle abou
t slipping her hand into her suit coat to scratch her itching shoulder. “Smart man. How long do we have to be here?”

  Alejandro looked over his shoulder from the row ahead. “All day,” he said mournfully. “We get one break for lunch. Catered lunch.”

  Zero grinned. “It won’t kill you to miss those nasty taquitos for one day.”

  “It might. My metabolism is uniquely adapted to the mix of chili peppers and processed meat. They’re crucial to my biological development.”

  “Because you’re a mutant.”

  “I’ll let you know when my powers kick in.” Alejandro twisted in his seat, eyes narrowing. “You’re awful happy. Don’t tell me the suit turned you into a pod person.”

  She hid her grin against her cup. “Nope. Still me. Got both middle fingers to prove it.”

  “Then why are you in such a good mood?”

  “Dunno. Had my tantrum last night. The whole ‘woe is me’ act got old fast. World’s still here this morning. Turns out the dress code wasn’t a harbinger of the apocalypse.”

  “Very funny.” His eyes slitted further, before widening. “You got laid!”

  Ravi wrinkled his nose. “Don’t be so crude, please.”

  Zero cleared her throat; her ears burned. Was she that damned obvious? “Pretty sure the new employee manual makes this conversation against the rules.”

  “Fuck the rules.”

  “Language,” Ravi said, looking pale.

  “Rav’s got a point. Really, Ale. Such a mouth on you.” She grinned at Alejandro’s sullen scowl, and nodded toward the podium as the lights dimmed. “You really should pay attention. Looks like the sideshow’s about to start.”

  Alejandro wrinkled his nose, but slumped forward in his chair. Zero pushed herself up so she could see over his wide shoulders. Sometimes being short sucked. She caught a glimpse of someone tall moving toward the podium, and a hint of crisp, dark gray fabric that implied a rather nice, rather expensive suit. Yep. Douchenozzle. He probably had shellacked hair and a Neanderthal jaw and a smarmy, overconfident smile full of too many teeth.