Page 133 of Ember

She was right, of course. “All right.”

I signed into the work portal and located my projects. When I pulled it up, I swore a blue streak.

Alejandro wormed his way to my other side. “That doesn’t sound good, mi amor.”

“It’s not. Half of my code is broken. Mr. Arnold has to know I didn’t write it like that.” It would take hours, but Ember was right. We could compare the work I did to the broken code in the final project I submitted this morning.

We kept the nature channel on, and Alejandro fed us snacks while Ben stayed for moral support. Rian wandered out of his studio nest long enough to cuddle against Ben and watch me work.

Ember and I worked side by side, comparing code to code. At one point Rian stage-whispered, “Is it weird that I find the two of them being computer nerds is really hot?”

Alejandro laughed. “Not weird, or at least, we’re all weird.”

“Yes, we’re sexy.” Ember didn’t look up from her laptop. “Give us twenty minutes and then you can rail us until we forget our names.”

Desire flared. I liked the sound of that. I finished my work, and we took our lust into Ember’s tunnel nest. It was nice, having people I could spend time with without having to make sure I stepped around their feelings.

We had amazing sex, with more orgasms than I could count. The next morning, I woke up feeling good about my work meeting.

It sucked, but I would show him the lines of code and clear up the misunderstanding. Rian and Ben offered to carpool because they had a light day, but they never knew when they were getting off, so I drove myself.

When I got to work, Mr. Arnold glared at me and gestured to his office.

Greg mouthed a question, but I shook my head.

Mr. Arnold gestured for me to sit down. His office was cold and sterile, the apex of boring middle-level management with a heavy wooden desk and two uncomfortable chairs.

I sat down. “I can explain.”

The balding alpha held up his hand. “Let me speak. Your work has been unacceptable for the last few months. I realize that you are an…omega.”

He paused, and my blood ran hot. He always made it sound like I was a sex addict, but he also made sure to stand too close whenever looking over my shoulder.

“You have hormone fluctuations and all that.” He waved his hand. “But that’s no excuse.”

“You’re right,” I said, opening my laptop. “A home invasion and our nest being destroyed made Ember go into heat early and took me with her. But that has nothing to do with this.”

He got a pinched look on his face, like I wasn’t following his script. “I’m sorry to hear about the home invasion.”

I turned the laptop around. “These are screenshots of my project on my computer. Before I uploaded it into the server. I also emailed it to your work email.”

Mr. Arnold sighed. “Mr. Sullivan…”

“I don’t know what happened, but my project was intact before I uploaded it.” I pointed at the screenshots, showing him the before and after. “I completely agree. The project that was uploaded is a bad job. But that’s not what happened.”

Squinting, he leaned forward, looking at the two images. “I don’t understand your point.”

“Something is corrupting my files on the portal we submit our projects.” It seemed obvious to me.

Mr. Arnold shook his head. “Only yours? If this was a company-wide problem, then we would have many other projects with the same issue.”

“Let me dig into it.”

“You’re suspended.” Mr. Arnold frowned. “My hands are tied. This is the third project you’ve submitted that wasn’t usable.”

My body went hot and cold and hot again. “You can’t.”

He glared at that. “I can and I have. I’ll look into your claims, but the decision has already been made.”

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