You play games all day for a living. It’s not like you’re saving lives or something.”
Dissing the job of the people whose house you’re shacking up in was not a good look. Hmm. This guy, Mike, never failed to make me like him less every time he opened his mouth.
Derek patted the dog’s head, waved good-naturedly and threw his friend a puzzling look. Kat’s brother seemed all right but man did he have his sister tenser than my shoulder muscles after an hour of sculling on my rowing machine.
The two made their way to the curb and the beat-up sedan in which they’d just driven over a thousand miles to get here. I took Kat by the arm and directed her to my car. She glanced up with a question in her eyes but didn’t ask. We had to keep up appearances after all, and not just for the two numbnuts staying in our house, but our co-workers as well.
I opened the car door for her and she wordlessly slid in. Then I moved to the back door to let Max into his usual spot, which he happily did. Going to work with me was a big adventure for him but I think my co-workers were far more bummed than he was when I didn’t bring him.
“You’re quiet this morning,” I said finally after we’d driven for a few minutes. It wasn’t a long commute to work—about fifteen minutes when we left at this time of day.
“I’m sorry about this whole surprise guest thing. Thank you for being so nice about it.”
I shrugged. “Dealing with in-laws is another one of those things you can’t avoid when you’re married.” Jeez, I felt like some great marriage-tutor, like a user’s handbook with all my stupid observations. As if my first go-around in this particular circus-tent hadn’t completely soured me on the institution, when it definitely had.
I’d vowed never do it again. And yet, here I was.
I shot a glance at her. She had her fingers laced together tightly in her lap, clearly tense. “Are you okay? You didn’t sleep much last night.”
She turned to me, fresh-faced with her gorgeous hair pulled back into a single tight braid that clung to her scalp and trailed between her shoulder blades. She was also pale, wearing only the barest hint of makeup. But as always, she was still utterly beautiful. She’d have to put a bag over her head—and the rest of her body—to disguise that fact.
I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and reminded myself for the billionth time not to dwell on how much I was attracted to her. Following that train of thought was dangerous—and headed almost certainly to dangerous derailment.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind. Kyle is going to ask me to sign off on his Class A quest chain. Again.”
I frowned, searching my memory for those bug reports. They’d been incredibly problematic when she’d initially reported the bugs. Sloppily put together and full of glitches and typos, she’d told me, when the devs couldn’t hear us, of course.
Because to the devs, we were public enemy number one. We were the ones who told them where they’d messed up and they didn’t like that at all.
“And you don’t think they’re ready to go out with the new game update?”
She clenched her jaw, then looked down at her hands, spreading her fingers wide. “Not even close.”
“Then tell him that.” It’s not like she’d ever had a problem with that before. “Those changes can’t go live until he gets your say so, and he knows that.”
“Yeah, he’s been really pissy about it and I just don’t feel like dealing with him today.”
I frowned. This was so unlike her. Our line of work required a strong backbone. We had to stand up to developers, project managers, and even, sometimes, the company officers. When we couldn’t assure the quality of the product, we could not allow it ship. It was a big reason why she was good at it. Her backbone was shiny stainless steel. Usually.
“Remind him that none of that shit goes live until you sign off.”
She huffed a sharp laugh. “Oh he knows that. But instead of taking the kissing-my-ass approach to get me to, he’s been acting a little…”
“Like a prick?”
“Intimidating,” she concluded at the same time. Then her brows scrunched together from some unspoken concern and she stared out her window again.
“Is he being a dick to you?” My question sounded a little more forceful in my ears than