by Tiffany Snow
“I’m Jackson.” He took in Reggie’s uniform and the flat box he held. “How much do we owe you?” He reached for his wallet.
“We? Where’s China? I ain’t never seen you before, mister.”
“You deliver pizza here often?”
“Every Monday night. Like clockwork.”
“Here, Reggie,” I said, squeezing between Jackson and the open doorway and holding out money. “Thanks.”
Reggie gave me a look I couldn’t figure out—people were so hard—and handed me the box before turning around and leaving. Okay, one problem solved. The other problem was standing so close, our bodies were touching.
“Want some pizza?” I asked, taking the warm, aromatic box into the living room. I set it on my coffee table. It was almost time for Supernatural. I liked to watch it live so I could tweet about it. How long was Jackson going to stay? “Did you want a slice?” I asked.
“I don’t want to eat your dinner,” he said, which wasn’t really a Yes or a No. I was afraid it was one of those phrases that had some kind of societal propriety behind it, which meant I had no clue whether he really wanted a piece or not.
I was too tired for this. I’d already worked all day and there was a reason my primary partner was a computer. If he wanted a piece, I hoped he’d just say so.
“Okay,” I said with a shrug. Grabbing a slice and my wine, I sat cross-legged on my couch and took a bite, my gaze on Jackson who was likewise watching me. He looked good, really good, and my gaze was drawn to the patch of skin revealed by the undone buttons. The pizza was suddenly hard to swallow and I had to wash it down with a chug of my wine.
Jackson took a drink as well and sat down next to me on the couch.
Seven minutes until Supernatural.
“As I was saying, I apologize for arriving unannounced like this,” he said. “There were a couple of things I needed to discuss with you before we move forward on this project.”
“And it couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?” I took another nervous bite of pizza. Jackson Cooper was in my apartment. Jackson Cooper was sitting on my couch. Jackson Cooper was drinking my wine. Jackson Cooper was close enough for me to smell his cologne . . . I shut those thoughts down right there and shoved in more pizza.
“It’s not something I wanted to talk about there.” His gaze dropped.
Oh my god, was he checking me out? No. No way. But what if he was? Should I do something? Let him know I was interested? Was I interested? I was a twenty-three-year-old virgin whose only kiss had been a very awkward and wet experiment with my lab partner at MIT who hadn’t known how to kiss at all.
I bet Jackson Cooper knew how to kiss—really knew.
He turned away and set his glass on the table. I momentarily panicked. Would he ask before he kissed me? Or would he just do it? Should I do something alluring? Like toss my hair? Girls did that, right?
Without thinking it through, I did this weird little thing with my head that was supposed to make my ponytail drape over my shoulder. Instead, a sharp pain went right through my neck.
“Ow ow ow ow owowowow!” I dropped my pizza on the table with a splat, my hand going for the crick in my neck.
“Are you all right?”
“Um, yeah, I’m fine,” I managed to get through my gritted teeth. This is what I got for trying to act like a girl. “Just got a crick in my neck.”
“Here, let me.”
I had no time to reply before he’d moved my hand out of the way and was massaging my neck. His hands were much larger than mine and felt way better. Like waaay better. Wow . . .
“Still hurt?” Jackson asked after a minute or two, and I desperately wanted to say yes, but I was a terrible liar.
“No, it’s much better, thank you.”
“And you have some sauce . . .” He gestured and I looked down. I had a streak of bright red pizza sauce on my chest, right above the top edge of my tank.
And my mortification was complete.
I grabbed a napkin and wiped off the sauce. No, he hadn’t been checking me out. He’d been staring at what an absolute pig I was, wearing my dinner. Talk about misinterpreting signals. Epic fail. Who was I kidding anyway? The idea of Jackson Cooper checking me out, much less kissing me, was so ludicrous as to be laughable. Except I didn’t feel like laughing.
“So what did you need to tell me?” I asked, jerking my thoughts back into work. Work was the reason he was here, not some only-just-now realization of how he’d been struck with an overwhelming attraction for me. I really needed to quit reading my grandma’s Harlequins.
My slice of pizza looked forlorn, sitting half-eaten on the coffee table, but no way was I going to try to eat again in front of him.
“This project we’re working on is highly classified,” Jackson said.
I shrugged. “So is ninety-nine percent of everything we do.”
“It’s not just that,” he continued. “The people who hired us aren’t exactly trusting.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that coding, writing the software that runs the world, can sometimes be dangerous. I want to make sure you are fully aware that it’s highly probable you’ll be monitored and/or followed.”
“There’s a clause in all Cysnet employees’ contracts that absolves the company of any indemnity ‘should the employee be hurt or deceased due to or as a direct result of any customer involvement.’” It had been an eye-opening and gulp-worthy clause, but I’d signed it, choosing not to think too deeply about the reasons why that was in there.
“Yes, but words on paper and actually seeing the paranoia and lengths some clients go to in order to protect their investment and intellectual property are two different things. I wanted to remind you of that as well as the confidentiality and non-compete in your contract.”
“I’m not looking for another job,” I said.
“Good.”
“And I know my contract, but thanks for the warning.” I wondered just who was the customer for this particular project. It hadn’t been listed anywhere in the materials Jackson had e-mailed me.
“All electronic communication between us will remain encrypted,” he said. “And if you write anything down, shred it before you leave the office.”
“Understood.” So weird, that he was telling me all this, which prompted my next question. “So . . . who’s the client?”
Jackson took his time replying, opting for another swallow of wine first. “Wyndemere,” he finally answered.
Oh. Oh wow. No wonder he’d shown up tonight. “The defense contractor?” I asked, hoping I’d misheard.
“The one and the same.”
Wyndemere was the premiere software contractor for the government. You had to have a security clearance to know 90 percent of what they did, and top-secret clearance to know the remaining 10 percent.
“So the project we’re working on is really . . . for the government,” I said, feeling slightly lightheaded.
Jackson glanced at me, his mouth set in a grim line. “Most likely.”
No wonder his warning earlier. I’d been involved with that kind of work once before at MIT’s government laboratory. We’d worked on technology that could identify someone in total darkness based upon their infrared thermal signature.
The whole time we’d been working on the project, I’d been monitored. They hadn’t known I’d found their wiretaps or saw the car that kept tabs on my comings and goings, but none of it escaped my notice. It had been unnerving and I’d been glad to finish that particular project.
The military implications of what we’d done and how the technology could be used by people with less than altruistic purposes still kept me awake some nights, but that was the thing with advancement in technology. It wasn’t as though you could put the genie back in the bottle. Once something was achieved, there would always be people who could turn even the most innocuous thing into a way to kill people.
He drank the rest of his wine in one long swallow and I tried not
to watch the movement of his throat. Then he was on his feet and I was scrambling to keep up.
“Did you have a chance to go over everything?” he asked as he headed for the door.
“Yeah. I should be ready to start tomorrow.”
“Good. Let’s meet first thing in my office to go over the schematic and database structure.”
“Okay.”
He opened the door, then paused. “You’ve been with Cysnet for four years, China, and from your performance reviews, I can see you’ve been doing an excellent job. I’m looking forward to working with you on this.”
My face grew warm again, but for once it was from pleasure rather than embarrassment.
“Me, too, sir.”
“Call me Jackson.”
“Yes, sir. I mean, Jackson.” First-name basis with the boss? Um, yes, please.
“Have a good night, China.” He glanced at his watch. “I think Supernatural should be on in about sixty seconds.”
I looked over my shoulder at the clock. Hot damn, he was right. That warm fuzzy feeling of being back on my schedule curled inside my tummy. When I looked back, Jackson was already sliding into his silver Mercedes. I would’ve stuck around to watch him pull out of my driveway, but my fictional boyfriends Jensen and Jared wouldn’t wait.
It was only after the first commercial break that I wondered how he’d known what I watched on Monday nights.
The phone was buzzing. The phone shouldn’t be ringing. It was . . . I glanced at the clock by my bed . . . nearly midnight. I’d gone to bed at ten-thirty, like always. And now my cell phone was buzzing.
Only my Favorites could make my phone buzz when it was in Do Not Disturb mode, so I grabbed it. The caller ID said “Big Bro Oslo.”
“Yeah?” There was never a good reason for a call at this hour and my thoughts immediately went to my dad, who lived alone on our farm.
“Hey, Chi, sorry to wake you,” Oslo said, “but we have a problem.”
I sat up. “What’s wrong? Is Dad okay?”
“Yeah, Dad’s fine. It’s Mia.”
Mia was Oslo’s oldest daughter. He’d had her with his first wife, who’d up and left him so he’d filed for divorce. He’d remarried several years later and had two more kids, a girl and a boy, but Mia was sixteen whereas the next oldest was only seven.
“What’s wrong with Mia?”
“She’s decided she’s running away from home. We had a big argument about her grades and not applying herself to her studies. Next thing I know, she’s packed and gone.”
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, grimacing. “Did she leave a note or anything?”
“Yes, thank God, which is why I’m calling you. Apparently, she bought a plane ticket to Raleigh. She said she was going to go live with you.”
My eyes shot open. “Me?” I squeaked. Mia and I had always gotten along all right—after all, there were only a few years between us. But she wanted to come live with me? “Why me?”
“I don’t know, but she talks about you all the time. How you’re the only who understands her and there’s no other women in the family for her to talk to—”
“What about Heather?” Heather was Mia’s stepmom.
He sighed. “They haven’t been getting along lately either. I know it’s probably just a teenager stage, but I need you to go get her from the airport. Her flight lands in thirty minutes.”
“She flew here? Tonight?” I scrambled out of bed. The Raleigh-Durham airport wasn’t big, but I didn’t want Mia to be wandering around it alone at this hour.
“I know. Teenage spontaneity, i.e., stupidity.” Oslo sighed.
“All right. I’ll text you when I have her. What airline?”
He told me and I ended the call, shucking my pajamas in favor of jeans and my Hooray Sports! Do the Thing, Win the Points T-shirt. I grabbed my jacket, keys, and cell, and was out the door.
I lived halfway between the airport and downtown so it didn’t take long before I was pulling into short-term parking. Ten minutes later I was standing by baggage claim when Mia came around the corner.
“Aunt Chi!” she exclaimed, her face breaking into a wide smile as she hurried forward and flung her arms around me.
Mia was as different from me in looks as night and day. Whereas I had dark hair and pale skin that made a snowbank my best camouflage in the event of the zombie apocalypse, she was taller than me by two inches with pure golden-blonde hair that hung to her waist. Perfect white teeth and baby-blue eyes meant that she turned heads even at the young age of sixteen, though she was blissfully unaware of her own stunning beauty.
I hugged her back, her light cloud of perfume enveloping me. Mia was as girly as they came. From her carefully manicured nails to the collection of fashion magazines she adored. Smart as a whip, she aced her classes with ease then grew bored at the lack of anything to challenge her. Whereas I was into computers, her area of obsession was math.
“I’m so excited to come visit you,” she said, stepping back and flipping her hair easily over her shoulder using the move that had nearly sent me to the chiropractor earlier tonight.
“A little more warning would’ve been nice,” I said dryly. Mia also had a habit of ignoring unpleasant things. Perpetually cheerful, she simply refused to acknowledge anything that upset her. Even to the point of “running away,” apparently.
She frowned. “Dad called you.”
“How else would I have known you were coming?”
“I just need a little vacation,” she said. “Please don’t send me back. They just don’t get me.” Her eyes begged me, and I sighed. I’d always had a weak spot for Mia. Kids and I didn’t generally get along, but she and I had clicked from the first moment I’d laid eyes on her little swaddled newborn body. To my seven-year-old eyes, she’d seemed like the most amazing and perfect thing I’d ever seen.
“All right,” I said. “But you’re calling your parents in the morning and we’ll discuss it.”
Her face lit up and she squeezed me again. “Thank you! I knew you’d understand.”
I texted Oslo as we waited for her suitcases—a duo of pink-and-white Hello Kitty–themed pieces—then led her to my car.
“No way! This is your car?”
That’s right. Mia hadn’t seen my Mustang, though I’d posted pics of it on Facebook.
“Your parents still won’t let you have a Facebook account?” I asked, unlocking the trunk for her suitcases.
“No. They said that ‘teenagers don’t appreciate the permanence of what’s posted on the Internet.’” I could tell by the way she said it that she was quoting, and it did sound like Oslo. Mia rolled her eyes. “I mean, like, whatever. I understand social media better than Dad or Heather.”
I silently agreed with her. Oslo had always been a reluctant tech user, and Heather still thought MySpace was cutting-edge.
Mia talked nonstop all the way to my place.
“. . . and this stupid football player asked to copy my homework. As if! Like some hulking hot guy who smiles at me is worth getting a zero for cheating. Then he got all pissy with me. Not surprised . . .”
She chattered as we parked, unloaded her luggage, and went inside. Only one thing interrupted her.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the floor in front of my fish tank.
I glanced down, then gasped. “Oh no! The Doctor!”
The little goldfish was lying on the hardwood, not moving. I scooped him up and dumped him back in the tank, hoping we hadn’t been too late. He did nothing for a moment, just began to sink, then twitched and flipped over. He wasn’t moving fast, but he was moving. I let out a sigh of relief.
“That was weird,” Mia said. “How’d he get out of the tank?”
“I have no idea. Maybe word has spread and he was trying to commit suicide before I kill him.”
She looked at me oddly. “You kill your goldfish?”
“Not intentionally. It just . . . happens.” I gave a helpless sort of shrug.
&n
bsp; “Okay then.” She looked around. “So where do I sleep?”
“Umm.” I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I mean, I guess there’s the couch?”
Mia snorted. “I am not sleeping on a couch when I know you have three bedrooms.” She brushed past me and headed for the stairs. I hurried to catch up.
“But one of those is my bedroom, one is my office, and one is for storage.” Though storage probably wasn’t the right term . . .
“Then I’ll just make room in your office,” she said. “Don’t you have a futon in there or something?”
“It’s really not set up for sleeping,” I protested, nearly tripping on the top step. Mia could move fast when she wanted to.
“You’re being all OCD again, Aunt Chi.” She opened the door to my office. “See? I could set up an air mattress in here, no problem. Though that would probably give me nightmares.” Mia headed for the life-size Iron Man Mark 42 suit that stood in the corner. “Is it real?” She reached out—
“Don’t touch it!” I slid between her outstretched hand and the suit. “It cost me eight grand,” I said. “And it’s a limited edition.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “If that’s in here, then I’m afraid to ask what you have in storage.”
“No, wait—” But I was too late to stop her. She was out the door and had thrown open the storage room by the time I skidded to a halt behind her.
“Wow.”
I winced. Yes, I kept the Mark 42 in my office, but the masks for the Mark 17 and Mark 41 were in here . . . along with my life-size Boba Fett and my TARDIS. And that didn’t encompass the bookshelves lining the walls filled with other memorabilia.
“This is . . . amazing,” Mia breathed. “How long have you been collecting?”
“Since forever.” Which was true. I still had the metal Star Wars: A New Hope lunch box I’d bought when I was seven. I hadn’t used it, of course, because then it would no longer be New In Box. I’d taken my lunch to school in brown paper bags.
She headed for one particular corner as if drawn there by a magnet. I should’ve known she’d go there first.
“I have never seen a Harry Potter collection this good.” She stood on her toes to get a closer look at the Sorting Hat replica. “So what House are you?”