Waiting For It - Allyson Lindt Page 0,42

from my screen, and blinked to clear up my dry eyes. When I looked again, Luke was watching me.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Enjoying the view. How about you? You’re stumped on something.”

“Yes.”

He tugged my hand from where it rested near my laptop, and brushed his lips over my fingertips. “Magic kissing mojo?”

I started to laugh, but revelation stopped me short. “God, you’re incredible.”

“I know. What’s up?”

I actually had the answer. “Get me access to the deleted change logs.”

“If I had that power, I’d do it in the heartbeat. But auditors only. You know the rules.”

“Oh.” I slumped again. The rule made sense, specifically in instances like this. If someone could erase things and then erase the proof they’d done it, we’d be fucked.

Except, what good did any of that do, if I couldn’t restore things?

“I can get you screenshots or an export of the logs,” Luke said. “Just not access to the software itself.”

And if there was something to fix, we could go through the right channels to restore it. “I’ll take that. Duh.”

“Sorry. Wasn’t thinking. I was distracted.” Luke winked. “One extract from Internal Audits coming up.”

By early afternoon, I had a list of everything that had been changed—presumably all by Mike, based on a ranting email he’d sent us this morning—down to the single quote. What Mike had done was randomly tweak modules after they passed final QA. Over and over, across different nodes and projects. More than half the time, it was a female developer’s work—a neat feat, considering he only had four working for him.

The cheers from both Team Percival and Gawain, when I told them how much time we’d just saved, probably could have been heard without a conference line.

“You’re brilliant,” Luke told me when we finished the update call.

I flushed under the compliment. “I didn’t do it all myself. Magical kissing mojo, and all that.”

“No, this is all on you. Fantastic job.”

Months’ worth of stress faded away, as I started to work through my own list.

Now, if only my personal life could be as simple as restoring a few corrupted files from the past and overwriting the mistakes that came after.

Except, had hooking up with Luke and Chase been a mistake? Any of it? That little voice said it was, but I didn’t feel like that was the case.

Chapter Twenty-One

That night in the hotel room felt like the when we’d checked in. The way things always had with Chase and Luke, before everything fell apart. Dinner, laughing, and having fun. I didn’t even try to keep track of the tangents, as long as I could follow them and each hop made sense.

“Annie and I are Dance Dance Revolution champions. As in, official,” Chase said.

Luke looked impressed. “DDR? No shit. Like Scott Pilgrim level?”

Chase gave a short barking laugh. “He wishes he was as incredible as us.”

“I had no idea.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.” I wanted to keep my tone serious and somber, but I was enjoying myself too much. Funny how frequently that was a state of mind for me around these two.

“We all have a lot to learn about each other. But I’m not opposed to stripping away a single layer at a time, until I can see it all.” The way Luke dragged his gaze over me, I felt it in my core.

Chase adjusted himself on the bed. “There’s a lot of innuendo there. Does that mean we’re transitioning from learning about each other to sex?”

“That’s a real weak transition.” Not that I minded. With the hurt gone, my mind was happy to linger on our first night here. The need. The want. I swore my brain was whimpering use me.

Chase shrugged. “It comes with a strong follow-up. That’s got to count for something.”

“Are we keeping count now? Inches? Orgasms?” With each word, Luke ticked off another finger.

“I thought you two weren’t competing.”

“It’s always a competition when it comes to sex,” Chase said.

Luke leaned in closer, mouth inches from mine. “Not if my filthy baby doll doesn’t want it to be.”

The words flipped a switch, and my every nerve ending sparked to life, looking for stimulation.

“Wait. Are you competing with me about who’s right?” Chase asked. If he had any idea what was racing through my head, he was an asshole. A glorious, tempting asshole who was dancing his fingertips down my spine, and talking as if this were the most casual thing in the world.

“You two are ridiculous.” My voice was breathy,