How to Hack a Hacker - A.J. Sherwood Page 0,6
inane thing, and Brannigan looked steadily at her, as if he were paying attention. But his eyes also glazed over. She could be talking about how Stonehenge was in fact a giant Nintendo screen, and it would have gone right past the man.
Kyou’s phone buzzed and he picked up the call, although he kept his voice down. He was, after all, only four tables over. “Hey, princess.”
“Hey. Where are you? I want to come over.”
“Yeah, I’m out right now.”
“You’re out?” Remi asked suspiciously. “Why?”
“I’m at dinner. Well, dinner and a show.”
There was an evil cackle. “You followed Brannigan out on his date, didn’t you?”
“I did not say that,” Kyou said, feigning innocence.
“Uncle Ivan! Uncle Kyou’s stalking Brannigan on his date again!”
Kyou spluttered. Again?! He’d never stalked a date in person before. Doing it virtually didn’t count. “Anyway, I can’t play right now. I’ll be home in an hour or so. You can meet up with me later, if you still want to come.”
Something suspiciously like a giggle came out of her mouth. “Okay. Tell me how the date went.”
“Why do I like you, again?”
“It’s ’cause I’m cute.”
“Yeah, Ivan’s definitely rubbing off on you. Be good. See you later.” Shaking his head, Kyou hung up and put the phone back in his pocket. He started in on the sushi—which was quite excellent—keeping a weather eye on the other table. Supermodel was still talking, hands flapping about her head. Brannigan wasn’t even pretending to pay attention to her.
The burner phone buzzed with a text. Have you ever been on a date and thought, dying alone doesn’t sound that bad?
Kyou almost spat out the wine in his mouth. It was hard not to laugh out loud. He texted back with one hand, I can still trigger the fire alarm for you.
You know, the penalty for it actually sounds worth it right now, Brannigan texted back.
He did look pretty desperate.
Kyou debated between taking pity on him and letting him suffer. Kyou had, after all, warned him that this was a bad idea. Eventually, pity won out. He texted back, Give me 5 min. I’m going to call you screaming. Take that as your excuse and run for it.
Kyou calmly called for his bill, put a few twenties into it, then left his table. He retreated outside before clearing his throat. Brannigan answered on the first ring. Kyou did his best impression of general screaming without going into a falsetto.
He could hear Brannigan’s deeper baritone hastily telling his date, “I’m so sorry about this, something has obviously happened, I need to go. Here, use this to pay for dinner and a Lyft home, okay? Sorry, sorry.”
Kyou stopped the screaming as it was clear he was away from the table. He started walking away from the door since Brannigan would be through it any second. “See? Didn’t I tell you that it was a bad idea?”
“Oh god, was it ever. I didn’t think she’d be that shallow.” Brannigan’s voice became clearer as he exited the front door, a scurrying quality to his stride. “I mean, she’s an advocate for two different nonprofit organizations.”
“Yeah, man, that just means she’s got really good PR people. Next time, have more than a ten-minute conversation with a person before you ask them out, okay?”
There was a pause.
A little concerned, Kyou asked, “Bran? You still with me?”
“I can hear you.”
Shit. Kyou had started walking away from the door when it was clear Brannigan was away from the table. He’d assumed with all of the pedestrian traffic around him, Brannigan wouldn’t be able to hear him. Shit, shit, shit this really had been a bad idea. Why had he convinced himself it wasn’t? Kyou knew better, he really did. His control slipped that bit more every time he came in close, and clearly this time he’d crossed the line and lingered when he shouldn’t have.
“You were here tonight, weren’t you?” Brannigan demanded incredulously. “You were sitting at the same restaurant, somewhere nearby. Dammit, K. If you’re willing to come that close, then why can’t I meet you in person?”
Kyou carefully didn’t turn his head, didn’t give any indication he was more than an innocent person just walking along the sidewalk, talking on the phone. He was afraid that Brannigan was heading his direction, though. It took effort to not quicken his pace. He used all of Ivan’s tricks when it came to blending in with a crowd. “That’s not exactly safe, Brannigan.”
“The hell with that,” Brannigan shot back. “I’m the son of