Page 91 of Electric Blue Love
The heat and humidity greeted us as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. Still, she wrapped her arms around herself like she was chilled.
“I’m sorry I didn’t invite you,” she said quietly. “I know family stuff is hard for you and I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
I nodded in understanding. “You know, incredibly, I wasn’t. Your family is really great. Don’t ever apologize for that or feel like you need to keep that part of yourself from me.”
I wrapped my arms around her and she skirted hers around me and hugged me tightly. “Thank you for coming.”
Istretched andyawned as I shut off my alarm. It was still dark outside, but I needed to get to work early to test my code one more time and then hopefully turn it in before the rest of the office got in. After taking off early Wednesday for my dad’s birthday celebration, I’d had to work late last night to catch up. It had been worth the long night, but it’d meant I hadn’t seen Court since Wednesday night. Fortunately, tonight was Leika’s engagement party and the start of the weekend. I planned to steal as much of Court’s time as he was willing to give me for the next three days.
His good morning text was already waiting for me, as it had been all week.
Court: Good morning beautiful girl. Knock’em dead at work today!
Pleased he’d remembered and had thought to mention it, I jumped out of bed and showered. With Court still on my mind as I looked for something to wear, I dug through the stack of clean laundry on the top of my dresser and pulled on a pair of lacy, black underwear and matching bra. I bit the inside of my cheek as his words came back to me.
Throw out the rules.
With a silent prayer I wouldn’t regret it later, I snapped a picture of me in the frilly lingerie, face included, and sent it to Court.
His response was almost immediate and made me laugh out loud.
Court: I nearly choked on my oatmeal, 8B. That is seriously hot. Can I pick you up for Leika’s engagement party?
Me: I’ll be waiting xoxo
With our big assignments turned in, Robert, Jared, and I sat around mid-morning talking about our weekend plans while the boys tossed the nerf basketball back and forth. They’d stopped bothering to try and get me to play and I’d given up the pretense of joining in. Maybe there were some things at work I would never be able to fit in with the guys.
“Bianca,” Mr. Ross’s deep voice bellowed behind our pod and all three sets of eyes turned. As the director of engineering he had that sort of effect. Even if he wasn’t speaking directly to you, you wanted to acknowledge him.
“Hi, Mr. Ross.”
My podmates looked from him to me and back to him. He stood there holding a NYU coffee mug in hand looking crisp in his black dress pants and light blue button-down shirt. No tie, but he stood out among the sea of jeans and t-shirts.
“Great work on the intelligence library project.”
“Thank you,” I managed to respond without cowering or jumping up and down. He’d shocked me and both seemed like reasonable reactions.
He nodded to me and then briefly to Robert and Jared before disappearing as silently as he’d appeared.
When he was out of ear shot, Jared smirked and tossed the mini basketball in my direction. By some luck, I caught it gracefully.
I decided not to push my luck today and instead of taking the shot, passed it on to Robert. “You guys know of a good place to grab lunch nearby?”
“Just stick with us, Winters,” Robert winked.
Score for the girly girl engineer.
The afternoon had been too crazy to think about the night ahead, but as soon as my bags were packed and I was headed home, the nerves and excitement started to build.
My phone buzzed.
Court: Be at your place in 15
Me: Gah! I’m not even there yet. I need time to get ready.
Court: You can entertain me with a fashion show… a naked one.
Me: No time for that. I have to get ready. Wait 15 and then leave.
