He does come, stalking to my bench in a few strides with those ridiculous seventy-mile-long legs. However, he doesn’t stop in front of the laptop I conveniently turned for him. Instead he circles around the bench, comes to stand behind me, and then slides the computer in our direction. For me to better witness his impending massacre, I assume. “I can’t wait to sip your tears out of my new mug,” I murmur.
“We’ll see.” He leans his left hand against the bench and grabs the mouse with the other. Even on my high stool, he’s still many inches taller than me, effectively caging me at my seat. It should feel uneasy, suffocating, but he leaves me enough room that I don’t mind. Plus, I know it doesn’t mean anything. Because he’s Levi. And I’m Bee. It’s actually almost pleasant, the heat he radiates in the blasting AC. He could have a successful second career as a weighted blanket.
“This is weird.” I hear the frown in his voice. “The file’s missing.”
“Can the mug be twenty ounces?”
“It should be here.” He leans forward, and his chin brushes the crown of my hair. It’s not terrible. Sort of the opposite. “I saved it.”
“Maybe you dreamt it? Sometimes in the mornings I think that I got up and brushed my teeth even though I’m still in bed. Though with my new mug I’ll be extra
motivated to wake up early and have my coffee.”
“Weird.” Pity he’s not paying attention to my gloating. I’m doing a pretty good bit, if I say so myself. “Look.” He types quickly, the inside of his elbows brushing against my upper arms, pulling up a log interface. “See?
Someone—me —saved the file at 1:16 p.m. Then at 4:23 someone else removed it . . .”
I know immediately where he’s going with this. I tilt my neck back to look up at him, and he’s already staring down from two inches above. God, his eyes. He invented a new color green. “It wasn’t me!” I blurt out.
“How much do you want my cat?”
“Considerably less now that I know about his colorectal issues.”
“And my mug?”
“A lot, but I swear it wasn’t me!”
He hums skeptically. I can feel his breath against my face. Mint, with a hint of peanut butter. “I’m inclined to
believe you, but only because this is not the first time.”
“What do you mean?”
“The frequencies list for the parietal electrodes you sent me yesterday?
The one you emailed and put on the server?
It wasn’t there.”
I scowl. “But I put it there.”
“I know. The engineers complained about missing and misplaced files, too, corrupted stuff. Lots of little things.”
“Probably a server error.”
“Or people screwing up.”
“Can you tell who moved the file?”
He types a few more strokes. “Not from the logs. The system isn’t coded that way. You know what it can do?” I shake my head, bumping against some spot on his chest. “It can tell me where the file was moved, and if it’s still on the server but in a different folder. Which in the case of the blueprints is”—he presses the space bar and pulls up an image—“right here.”
“Oh, perfect. That’s exactly what I was—” My teeth click as I shut my mouth. “Wait a minute.”
“What 5K should we sign up for?” He’s roaming the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “There’s usually a space-themed one in June—”
“No way.” I twist around. “The file was not where it was supposed to be.”
“The terms of the bet were that the file should be on the server.” He gives me a satisfied smile. “Bet you’re glad I didn’t agree to the anal expression.”
“You know I meant in a specific folder.”
“How unfortunate that you didn’t specify, then.” He puts a hand on my shoulder in mock reassurance—I seriously consider biting it off—and it’s ridiculous, how much every part of him dwarfs every part of me. Also ridiculous? The way those stupid intrusive thoughts of his body pressed against mine can’t seem to let up. And that having him so close reminds me of his thigh pushing up between my legs, solid and insistent against the seam of my— “What are you two doing?”
Boris is standing in the entrance of the lab, and my first instinct is to push away from Levi and scream that nothing
happened, nothing happened, we were just working. But the distance between us is perfectly appropriate. It just feels like it isn’t, because Levi is so large. And warm. Because he’s Levi.
“We were just about to sign up for a 5K,” he says. “How are you, Boris?”
“A 5K, huh?” He stays under the doorframe, studying us with his customary tired expression. “Actually, I come bearing news.”
“Bad news?”
“Not good.”
“Bad, then.”
Boris comes closer, holding a printout. “You guys planning to go to Human Brain Imaging?”
