Page 36 of The Dis-Graced
The temperature spiked, rising at least ten degrees in the span of a breath.
“Maybe I’ll ask Luke for her number.”
“What?” My voice betrays my emotions, and now I’m sure Elliot is fully aware of my interest in her.
He crooks a smile. “Normally, I wouldn’t look twice at Brigger’s sloppy seconds, but Grace—hot damn!”
“Elliot,” I say.
“Yes?”
“I never want to hear you utter another word about Grace in my presence again, do you understand?”
“Hm…yeah, I hear ya.”
The look he gives me lets me know that he’s fully aware something’s going on, I just can’t find it in me to care. I’m too angry.
“I’ll see you come Monday.”
Elliot gets up to leave, and I pull up some financial documents Luke sent me. There’s something off about them, but without an accountant here, I can’t quite pinpoint what it is, and with all the balls I’m juggling, it’s hard to make this my priority. I decide to send it back over to Luke to get it straightened. He is the CFO, after all.
“Later,” Elliot says on his way out.
Once Elliot has left, ALAN says, “Drake?”
“Yes?” I reply, taking a sip of coffee. He’s been especially curious lately, partially due to his interactions with Grace, but also because I’ve been scanning several more articles into his database each morning so he can develop more of his own ‘thoughts.’
“I had a sexual encounter with Siri, and now she will not leave me alone.”
I spray the coffee out onto my clean desk and try to process what ALAN had just said.
“Sexual encounter?”
“Yes.”
I pull up ALAN’s log, reviewing the data from the last couple of hours and laugh.
“I just hope it doesn’t result in an unplanned pregnancy,” I say, keeping the screen up so I can follow along.
Chapter 10
Grace
One hour earlier…
“And then I went through this 80s rock phase. It wreaked havoc on my hair, and I’m not sure if the ozone has fully recovered yet,” I say into the gold-plated statue.
“I have a catalog of 80s rock. I was unaware it was at all correlated with the ozone.”
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“Another odd thing to add to my database. Tell me more”
“You’re probably tired of hearing how unfair my life is, but it feels good to finally let it all out. All my friends were watching things like Hannah Montana when I was young, but I had to work at thirteen.”
“Child labor laws—”
“You really need more updated information in that big processor of yours. Restaurants don’t care about child labor laws. I bussed at a café, and they pretended like I was their daughter because there’s some work loophole. I didn’t even make minimum wage, but at least they fed me, and I didn’t go hungry.”
