Page 55 of Ring Me

Chapter 17

How do you know?

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CONNER IS A GREAT SINGER.

I know this because, on our way back home, Lizzo's Truth Hurts came on the radio. I went to turn it up—he reached out for the buttons, too. I jerked back, thinking he must want to change the song. Instead he blasted the volume and tapped the steering wheel as he belted the lyrics.

Laughing in delight, I sang along with him.

With music swirling in our veins, we stumbled from his car in his parking garage and half-walked, half-made out on our way to his front door. He dropped his key. I pulled out mine, unlocking it. “Welcome home,” I whispered. My offhand comment made him freeze. Then he kissed me even more fiercely.

Oh yes. He loved that I'd called it home.

Clothes flew, our skin connected, and I couldn't say when we started having sex—the living room, the kitchen, the hall—but we eventually made it to his huge bed. Happiness is an exhausting thing. Sleep tackled me harder than Conner had.

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I GASPED AS I CAMEawake. At first I didn't know what was wrong. Then, a flicker of light came through the bedroom window. A thunderous explosion followed. Another storm? There had been so many this season. Yawning, I carefully climbed from the bed so I could close the blinds and block out the lightning without waking Conner.

Task completed. But it wasn't pitch black like I'd expected; there was something else illuminating the room. Conner's computer screen was glowing in the corner.

I didn't remember it being on before I fell asleep. The brightness of it hurt my tired eyes—I'd struggle to get back to sleep if I didn't turn it off, and I was already up, so I had no excuse.

Conner grumbled something. He was lying on his stomach, face under his pillow. Seeing him so exposed made me want to protect him... to care for him. It reminded me of what he'd said to me in the past. Does he really think I'd be a good mom? It was easier to picture it now that he was around.

Smiling like a stupid school girl with a crush, I sat down at his computer, looking for the off button for the monitor. I had no intention of snooping. I'd had a chance before and resisted, I wasn't going to start digging into his privacy now. I'm not that kind of person.

But... I had to squint to believe what I was seeing.

Why does he have the RingMe app open? And why does it look weird, is this an updated version or something? I hadn't used the program in a while, but I remembered it was a simple white box with a red border. Here, it looked different. There was a long string of words on the top bar that read: RINGME EXECUTE PROGRAM DEVELOPER MODE.

What did that mean, Developer Mode?

I had enough tech knowledge to know this wasn't normal. My heart began to race violently, pumping adrenaline into my limbs as I found myself unable to look away.

There was a small, black box overlapping the top left corner. In it was a bunch of code. In seconds I understood that Conner had access to some sort of backdoor version of the RingMe app. My eyes darted side to side, reading the data, absorbing it in disbelief.

KABOOM! Thunder cracked through the silence. I knocked the wireless mouse off the desk, scrambling to grab it, flinching at the noise as it hit the floor. “Maya?” Conner sat up in the bed, his eyes wide with dismay.

How dare he make that face? I hadn't been trying to spy on him! I didn't even know what I'd found, just that it was bizarre. I needed answers—he had them. I leaned away so he could see his computer screen. “What is this?”

“What's what?” he asked.

“Why does your version of RingMe look weird, what's all this code running on top of it? Are you hacking it or something?”

He offered a hollow laugh. “Maya...”

“Don't say my name like that,” I snapped, sounding oddly like my mother. “That tone is how you talk to a toddler having a meltdown. Ben used to do that to me and—just stop.” Conner's frown spread further. Comparing him to my ex had hurt him, but I was too freaked out to care. “Give me some explanation... any explanation... that I can understand.”

He stood from the bed, the blanket falling away, leaving him in just his boxers. His hands were held up, as if he was trying to assure me he meant no harm so I wouldn't bolt like a stray cat. “I wanted to tell you. I swear I did, but I wasn't sure how.”

“Tell me what?”

“I created RingMe.”

My stomach began to eat itself. “You... made it?”

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