his baseball cap. Maybe he’d shut up now and get back to work.
“Whatever. Can you stop assigning stuff so rapid-fire that we have to work through lunch and dinner? Some of us have social lives and like to hang out at work.” Yeah, of course you like people here. They’re just like you.
He snorted and put in his earbuds. I put in mine. No more talking. I tried to log in to my computer to check on all today’s tasks, but my laptop wouldn’t turn on. The power source, the docking station, and the power button all looked functional, but they weren’t. And of course my computer would die way before any of the IT guys I knew came into work. I noticed Asher looking at me with great interest. He disappeared behind his monitor as soon as we made eye contact.
With my laptop tucked under my arm, I walked over to the IT pod. Please, let someone be there. My home computer had died recently, and my work computer was all I had left. I relied on it for everything now: music streaming, online bill pay, Amazon Prime purchases. Please don’t die, laptop!
By some miracle, an IT guy was sitting at his desk, using a screwdriver to open the battery cover of a laptop that looked exactly like mine.
“Hi! I’m Melody. My laptop won’t turn on. I’m hoping you can help.” I scanned his desk for his nameplate. “Damon.” I smiled, hoping a cheery version of myself might make him care more.
Damon was maybe twenty-five years old, superskinny, with blue, slightly bugged eyes. Ghostly pale with gingerish hair. Wearing a size XL Speed Racer shirt on a size S frame.
He shrugged. “Did you submit a helpdesk ticket?”
“No, I didn’t. How do I do that?”
“Um, you send an email to helpdesk about your problem.” He rolled his eyes and went back to working on the computer battery. He shook his head and softly muttered something under his breath.
“Hmmm . . . my computer won’t even power on . . . so not sure how I’d be able to email you.” Don’t you shake your head and roll your eyes at me, mister!
He put down the screwdriver and held out his hand. I passed him my laptop. “I tried to reboot it by holding down the power button, I checked the docking station and the power cord, too. Not sure what happened. I didn’t even get the blue screen of death.”
He scoffed at the purple, oval “Grrl Powr!” glittery sticker on my laptop cover that Candace had bought me for my first day at Seventeen Studios. He flipped the machine over and tinkered with the battery. Then he took the hard drive out and put it into another machine. “It’s your hard drive. I’ll need to get you a new computer, but none of the ones here have been reimaged. I can get you set up with a loaner, though. It’s a little beat-up.”
He opened the laptop he’d been working on and typed a few things on its keyboard. Then he said, “Okay, I’ll need you to enter your password.”
I typed in the ten-character alphanumeric combo I’d been issued when I arrived. Note to self, remember to change that.
When I got a closer look at the keypad, I noticed that the space bar was missing. Damon noticed that I noticed it was missing. “Yeah, the space bar isn’t there, and it’s not something we can replace.”
“But . . . everything I type will be one giant word.”
With a halfhearted shrug, he gave me a not my fucking problem look. I glanced at the shelf behind his desk. Two new Macs in boxes! “Hey, are those employee computers?”
“Sorry, you aren’t authorized to have a Mac. One is for Ian, the other is for one of the designers.”
I sighed. “The intern has a Mac.”
“Well, he’s a special case.”
Right. Nepotism. “Okay then. You think my computer will be ready tomorrow?”
He rubbed his head of gingery hair. I fought the urge to smooth it all into one direction. “I’ll come by with your new one as soon as it’s ready.” He opened his mouth, like he wanted to say something else, but then closed it. He went back to his screwdriver and battery, so I took the loaner computer and walked back to my office.
Asher took the earbuds out of his ears and smiled at me coyly with that smug-ass face of his. “In case you were wondering, I didn’t sabotage your computer.” Actually, I