Chapter 12

Alicia

I put the key in the ignition, but I didn’t turn it. Instead, I glanced into the rearview mirror at Noah’s stormy face.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were failing language arts?”

He shrugged. His neon-green cast flopped in his lap.

Noah wasn’t going to make it to his teen years if he didn’t stop shrugging at me.

“Did you know and fail to tell me, or did you not know?”

“I thought maybe I wasn’t doing so good.”

“And why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged again.

“Is it because you were afraid I’d be angry? Because, after sitting in front of a panel of your teachers like some kind of inquisition, I’m pretty angry.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Sorry’s a good start. How about, ‘Alicia, I promise I’ll never hide my grades from you again.’”

He stared down into his lap and mumbled.

“What’s that?” I snapped.

“I promise.”

“Okay. Good. And I promise, if you tell me you’re in trouble, I won’t yell at you. I’ll get you help. Does that work?”

He didn’t raise his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” I turned the key in the ignition and let Beyoncé fill the car.

Five minutes later, when we pulled into the driveway, he spoke again. “Are you going to tell Grandma Diane and Grandma Esmy?”

I turned off the car and rotated in my seat to face him. “I was planning to. I think this is an all-hands-on-deck, emergency-type situation. I think we can use all the help we can get, don’t you?”

He shrugged for about the seventy-fifth time. “I guess.”

“Don’t be embarrassed about it. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help. Understand?”

He made a face. He was a Weber, all right.

I pushed open the door and waited for him to clamber out of the back seat with his backpack that weighed more than he did. We went in through the back door, where I toed out of my heels and set my satchel and purse in the cubby I’d used for my own backpack when I was his age. While Noah took care of his shoes and bag, I walked through into the kitchen, where I took a deep sniff of Mom’s cooking.

“Spaghetti and meatballs?” I leaned over the bubbling saucepot.

“They’re vegan,” she whispered. “Don’t tell.”

I eyed a kernel of corn that floated to the surface of the tomato sauce. “I think they’ll figure it out. Maybe next time, try that fake meat stuff.”

Spaghetti and vegan balls didn’t fool anyone, but with enough cheese and garlic bread, they were a hit. Mom’s favorite joke was that her homemade pasta sauce could save anything—except her marriage. That night, I thought she might be right.

Mom waited until Noah reached for a second slice of garlic bread to ask, “So, what was the conference about?”

I nodded at Noah, who gulped and took a deep breath. “’Mfailinglangauagearts,” he said in a rush.

Like the meatless meatballs, it didn’t fly. “You’re failing language arts?” Esmy asked, setting down her napkin. Noah’s dislike of reading offended her school-librarian sensibilities.

He nodded. At least he didn’t shrug at her.

“What happened?” Esmy looked at me.

Now I shrugged. “The papers were all wadded up in the bottom of the bag. I was supposed to have signed them, but I never saw them. His teacher said I need to find him a special folder for work that needs to be reviewed and signed at home.”

“That sounds like a good system.”

“We’ve got extra folders in the desk drawer.” Mom nodded toward the corner of the kitchen where she, Esmy, and I took turns doing the household finances.

“I think we need to consider”—I took a deep breath—“cutting down on extracurriculars.”

“Extracurriculars?” Esmy said. “You already cut back on that. All he does now is…” Her eyes went wide.

“Soccer?” Noah set down his piece of garlic bread. “No. I love soccer.”

“It’s his only chance to get outside, run around,” Esmy said. “Kids these days hardly get any time to play.”

Mom remained silent.

“I don’t even get to go out for recess most days,” Noah grumbled. “My teacher makes me stay inside to finish my work.”

“You’re missing recess?” My voice was too high, too loud. I reached for my water and gulped it down.

“Yeah.”

I shook my head. “Then I think—”

“I’ll tutor him,” Esmy interrupted me. “After school, I’ll work with him on his homework.”

“Esmy—” Mom began.

“No, Diane. I want to do this. So he can keep playing soccer.”

Mom stood and picked up Esmy’s plate, then hers.

“Noah,” I said, “if Grandma Esmy does this for you, you need to take it seriously. We’ll give it a few weeks, and if we’re not seeing improvement, we’ll talk again about soccer. Understand?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Grandma Esmy.”

She patted his hand. “Put your plate in the dishwasher, and then we can start.”

I got out a container for the leftover veggie balls and started scooping them in. Mom ran water in the sink. Even the rushing water sounded angry. “I’ll take care of it, Mom. You cooked, I’ll clean.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen table, where Noah had opened a workbook. She said in a low voice, “I don’t normally like to get involved in your parenting. You’re his guardian, after all.”

“You still can’t let that go. After six years.”

“Nope.”

Mom and Esmy helped us a lot, even welcoming us both into their home. But Melissa had made Noah my responsibility, not Mom’s. Thanks, sis. I set the container on the counter, more forcefully than I’d intended. “But what, Mom?”

“I agree with Esmy. Noah needs to run and play. He’s only ten.”

“Mom, I—” I stopped myself. What was I going to tell her? That maybe if she’d been sitting in the too-small chair at that inquisition, she’d have threatened to pull him out of soccer, too? That I agreed he should run and play like other kids, but that other kids weren’t failing language arts and in danger of being held back? That the last thing poor Noah needed was another reason to be the object of ridicule at school?

In the end, I said something that was more honest than I’d intended. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

She gave me a sad smile. “Sweetie, no matter what anyone says, none of us knows what we’re doing. You have to take it a day at a time and do the best you can. I sure as hell didn’t know what I was doing, pregnant at seventeen and married to someone I didn’t love. But Melissa turned out okay. You did, too.”

We’d never been hugging types, so I patted her arm as I walked to the refrigerator.

“Alicia, I think your phone’s dinging,” Esmy called out.

“Dinging or buzzing?” I asked.

“Definitely dinging. Oh. You know what? It sounds like that song, ‘You’re So Vain.’ Who sang that, querida?”

“Carly Simon,” Mom hollered back.

“Oh, boy,” was the G-rated interjection I used as I passed by Noah.

“Shit,” was what I muttered when I dug my phone out of my satchel and confirmed it was a text from Jackson. Had he found another bug? I knew we should have kept up the pair programming, but I couldn’t take another one of his condescending corrections. He was usually kind about it, but did he always have to be right?

I leaned against the dryer and read his text.

Jackson: Hey

Me: What

I was too irritated to bother with punctuation.

Jackson: Just wanted to check on you. You don’t normally leave early on Fridays.

I almost dropped the phone. Jackson Jones was worried about me?

Jackson: I mean, did you have to rush off to your contact at Gurusoft to tell him how great our code is?

Me: Stop fishing. You have nothing to exchange for your terrible guesses.

At least, I hoped he didn’t.

Me: You didn’t find another bug, did you?

I held my breath while the dots popped up to indicate he was typing a response.

Jackson: Not in today’s code. Hoping to find something tomorrow.

Me: Sadist.

Jackson: Only if that’s what you’re into.

My breath quickened. Was he flirting with me? I’d thought he might the last time we’d texted, but when he’d seemed perfectly professional at work, I’d dismissed the suspicion, thinking I’d read too much into his texts. But this last text had taken a giant step over the line.

And the worst thing was that I didn’t hate it.

My phone sang again.

Jackson: Sorry. Don’t know what got into my thumbs.

I blinked. Okay, then.

Me: Don’t worry about it. See you tomorrow.

As a woman in technology—a woman, period—I’d received plenty of drink invitations, sexual innuendo, and unsolicited dick pics, though, thankfully, never a coworker’s cock. But Jackson’s joke didn’t make me feel like I’d been slimed, or ashamed like I’d let him think I was interested when I wasn’t.

No, it felt like a couple of coworkers joking around, poking a little fun. Like my texts with Tiannah.

Or…that my coworker was checking on me. Like he cared.

And that was worse.

Because when the project ended, I’d go on to the next gig, and Jackson would go back to San Francisco. We weren’t coworkers. He was a client, and I was a temporary consultant.

Jokes—friendship—caring—had no place in our relationship.

Get in. Get out. Get back to focusing on my responsibilities at home until Noah was straightened out. Go on to the next gig.

No time to lose focus now. I deleted the texts.

The image on the video screen was so clear I could see the red creeping up Cooper Fallon’s throat and hitting his sharp cheekbones. That chiseled jaw twitched.

Last week, Tiannah had sent me a link to a post on a thirst blog: “Thirty Sexy Nerds Who’ll Give You a Brain Boner.” She’d helpfully pointed out that Cooper and Jackson were numbers twelve and thirteen on the list, respectively.

Clearly, the blogger had never had their ass handed to them by Cooper Fallon. Twice. Because I could tell them from experience, there was nothing boner-inducing about it. My ovaries had to have shriveled up to the size of peas because he was making me feel too stupid to live, much less reproduce. And the curl of his lip said I was so far beneath him I wasn’t worthy of having a lady boner in his video presence.

“This is the second code review. How do you have nothing to show? Again?” Cooper leaned his elbows on the dark wood desk in his office at headquarters. Behind him were shelves of books, interspersed with large conch shells and a few glass awards. It was much more opulent than the office he’d reamed me out in last time he was here. He rubbed his temples.

Tyler made a desperate sound, grabbed the wastebasket, and ran out, leaving Jackson and me alone in the conference room.

“Unfortunately—” I began.

Jackson interrupted me. “It was my fault. I was trying to do what you told me—”

“And what was that, exactly? Because I sure as hell didn’t tell you to fuck up again. I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.”

I winced, and so did Jackson. But he said, “You told me to earn the respect of the team. So I thought I’d do something nice for them. We were working late, and I brought in dinner.”

“I said earn their respect, not buy it. But how did dinner result in utter failure?”

“I ordered sushi. We have a vegetarian in the group, but he eats fish.”

“Sushi? In Austin, Texas?” Cooper’s eyebrows lifted toward his hairline. “Alicia, how many miles from the ocean is Austin?”

“A little over two hundred miles from the Gulf. It’s just over three hours, driving, to Galveston.” We’d taken Noah to the beach this summer and had eaten our weight in shrimp. “We can usually get decent fish—”

“Three hours from the nearest body of water. Does ordering sushi in such a place seem like a smart idea?”

That hardly seemed like a respectful way to speak to a colleague, much less his business partner and friend. I stared hard into the camera beside the video screen. “Just a—”

“It’s okay, Alicia.” Jackson set a hand on mine, where I’d curled it over the chair arm. Warm and steady, his touch calmed me like a weighted blanket. Had I been about to stand up and get in Cooper’s virtual face? No. At least I hoped not.

“Let’s take it down a notch, Coop.” Jackson’s voice took on a low rumble that soothed my nerves.

“Take it down?” Cooper’s voice rose. “I don’t need to take it down. You need to take it up. Stop fucking around there in Austin and build fucking code. Have you forgotten the vital importance of this project, Jackson? Because I sure as hell haven’t.”

I gripped the arm of the chair. How could Jackson take this kind of abuse so calmly?

Jackson pressed my hand briefly and then lifted it when he shrugged. “Look, I didn’t think about it, okay? I did what I would’ve done at home. I didn’t know the sushi was going to make everyone sick.”

He’d done it last Thursday, after I’d gone for the day. Everyone who’d eaten the sushi, including Jackson, had spent Friday and the weekend puking. After I’d read Jackson’s pathetic text, I’d finished our module, but even though I’d put in hours on Saturday and Sunday, I hadn’t been able to finish everyone’s work. At least this time I’d emailed Cooper and told him not to come out to Austin. Half the team were still out today.

“Four weeks of our schedule have passed. We have only six weeks left. How are you going to finish on time if you keep falling behind?”

Jackson and I spoke at the same time. I said, “We’ll take a look at the features, see what we can remove, and work hard to deliver the minimum viable product on time.” Which was the correct response. The one Cooper wanted to hear. Jackson, on the other hand, said, “Software’s an art. You can’t put a schedule on it. It’ll be done when it’s done.”

We looked at each other in shock. How the heck were we going to work together when we had diametrically opposing philosophies on software project management?

Cooper must have had the same thought. “How have you two not even talked about this? What the hell have you been doing all this time?”

Besides carefully avoiding coding with Jackson, mentoring Tyler, and managing the rest of the team? Worrying about Noah, obsessively checking his backpack every night, and keeping up a daily correspondence with his language arts teacher. But I wasn’t about to say that. Cooper wanted to think of me as an automaton who shut down at the end of the workday, ready to power back up at eight a.m. the next day.

Cooper’s eyes flared. “Jackson, you wouldn’t. Not after what happened in May.”

Wouldn’t what? I looked between Jackson’s pale face next to me and Cooper’s red face on the video screen.

“Now just a minute, Cooper.”

Finally, he was going to stand up for himself.

Color crept up Jackson’s cheeks, and his eyes flashed. “You’re out of line. What happened in May isn’t relevant to our consultant.”

He’d made consultant sound like a dirty word. Where the hell was all this coming from? Why was I suddenly the target of both men’s derision?

“I can’t believe you’d seduce our consultant. Fuck, now I have to find somewhere else to send you.” He rubbed his temple. “Our office in Delhi, maybe.”

I stopped breathing. Had Cooper Fallon accused me of sleeping with my client?

Jackson stood, fire in his eyes. “Now just a goddamned minute. I am not sleeping with Alicia. We are coworkers. That’s all. You know I’d never lie to you, Coop.”

The men stared at each other, Jackson’s anger slowly melting Cooper’s ice like a blowtorch. Silent words passed between them, the way Melissa and I used to speak without words, to know what the other was thinking. Though we’d never done it two thousand miles apart over videoconference gear.

I stood, too. “Absolutely not. We don’t even like each other.”

When Jackson looked at me, his eyes had lost their flash.

“I mean, we’re strictly professional. I—I don’t need to like you.” I closed my eyes. Shit, I kept digging myself in deeper. One of them was going to fire me, for sure, and then I wouldn’t be able to pay the life insurance premium that was due by the end of the month.

And the worst thing was that it was a lie. I liked Jackson. Or at least respected him. Although it drove me nuts to code with him, he was brilliant. And funny. He acted like he cared about the team. He’d thought to buy them dinner, even if he’d gotten unlucky with a batch of bad sushi. He’d checked on me the day I’d had to leave early for Noah’s conference.

Did he act like a prima donna? Yes. Did he think he knew more about coding than I did? Absolutely yes, and, as much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Did he look down on me because I was a woman? Did he act like I threatened his ego because I had coding skills and wore skirts? No, and that set him apart from most of the men I’d worked with.

But what the hell had he done in May? That would’ve been right before he’d come out to Austin. It must’ve been pretty terrible to result in exile. I stole a glance at him, but he was staring at Cooper on the screen, the tops of his cheekbones stained red.

I shook my head. Regardless of our opinions about each other, we needed to work together to finish this project.

“Look, Mr. Fallon—”

“Cooper,” they growled at the same time.

“—we’ve had a couple of setbacks. But I know with the talent on the team, we can turn it around and finish on time. Give us two more weeks. I promise, we won’t let you down.”

Cooper’s gaze flicked over to Jackson, who dipped his chin a fraction of an inch.

“Fine. But I want a daily progress report, Alicia. Don’t try to hide anything.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. And I—we won’t let you down.”

He settled a long stare on me, and although my eyes burned, I didn’t blink until he looked back at Jackson. “You stay,” he said. “Alicia, I’ll see you in two weeks.”

On my way to our work area, I stopped at the refrigerator and grabbed as many cans of ginger ale as I could carry. We weren’t stopping for anything until we had something great to show Cooper.

And as for Jackson Jones, there would be no more after-hours texts. I wasn’t about to let even the whiff of fraternization near me. Nothing would prevent Weber Technology Consulting from earning Cooper Fallon’s testimonial.