Violet grinned. “No, but I can infer a lot from what’s happening on the screen.”
“Jealous.” Sadie’s tone was playful. “You can hook me up, Luna? Pretty please with sugar on top?”
Pink dotted Luna’s cheeks, but she smiled. “Sure.”
“I can talk to our security guy, see if he has any referrals for you,” Anne said.
Luna’s eyes grew wide. “No. That’s okay. Taurus is... I mean, really, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
I wasn’t understanding this conversation for entirely different reasons than I didn’t understand the programming one. Rinslet’s head of network security was Zane. “What’s Taurus?”
“Never mind.” Luna ducked her head. What I thought was quiet before was practically shouting compared to her volume now. “I wasn’t sure what I was hoping you could do for me, but don’t worry about it.”
I looked between Luna and Anne. “What did I miss?”
Anne paused, burger halfway to her mouth. “Zane was an old school hacker, and he went by Taurus.”
“He’s-the-best. Probably. Definitely.” Luna’s jumbled reply sounded defensive.
Pieces clicked in my head. How didn’t I see it sooner? I loosely followed cybercrime, because I had to make sure my café was safe. A few years ago there was a huge FBI takedown that no one was talking about outside of those circles. A young woman who had supposedly written a piece of malware that brought an entire sector of the college system to its knees. “You were behind Project Fail.”
“I wasn’t behind it.” And now it looked like Luna was trying to vanish inside herself. A move I was intimately familiar with. “I didn’t mastermind it or anything. Someone paid me to do a job, it was a challenging one, and... I’d like to say I didn’t know any better, but really my ego won out in the end, and I convinced myself it would be okay, mostly because I wanted to prove to myself I could do it.”
“Oh. Wow.” Anne sounded awed. “That was you? You’ve got mad skills.”
“I’m not doing that anymore, I swear,” Luna said. “I’ve done good things since then, I promise. But now that past is linked to my name, and no one will talk to me.”
“I’ll ask around—without dropping names, and let you know what I find out, Luna,” Anne said.
We drifted into silence as everyone ate, then Sadie turned to me. “Anne said you were all smiley the other day,” she said.
Oh yeah, that. “Couple of cute guys at the bookstore were friendly and flirty. Nothing big, just the kind of attention that makes a woman smile.” I stopped short of saying when, since I’d blown Anne and Sadie off to make that trip. I’d rather not get into details anyway, since thinking about the next day summoned a jumble of emotions that made my gut churn and my food suddenly unappetizing.
Sadie looked skeptical. “Friendly and flirty? Tell us more.”
“There’s nothing else to say, really. You don’t want a play-by-play of them asking about my yaoi.” My smile looked real, but I was being devoured from the inside-out.
Sadie’s expression said I really do, but she nodded. “That’s fair.”
I might tell her and Anne later, but definitely not when anyone else could hear. It took me a long time to learn to open up to them, and even now there was a tiny nagging, every time I brought a problem to them, that said I was either being a bother, or was stupid if I couldn’t figure out the solution on my own. Did I think the same of them? Of course not. My low self-esteem loved the boost of knowing I could help someone else.
“Ooh, speaking of”—Violet was suddenly excited—“what ended up happening with those two guys the other day? The ones who came into the shop. I’m surprised they haven’t been back. Disappointed, really. They were hot.” She made a sizzling sound.
“They were assholes.” I needed to change the subject, but was drawing a blank. My brain had chosen to focus on the parts of that day that didn’t bother me—the kisses, the touches, the fun...
Sadie leaned in. “There were guys? Since when does asshole matter if you’re only looking?”
She was throwing my own logic at me, damn it. I had a counter, though. “They’re the guys who keep trying to buy my shop.”
“And they had the nerve to approach you in person?” Anne’s cheerful demeanor slipped. “You want I should hunt them down?”
It’s okay. We talked. We fucked. They’re still assholes, but I was an idiot, so it’s not their fault. I wanted to spill, so badly, but not in front of Violet and Luna. They were sweet enough, but they weren’t my inner circle. “No, but thank you. It’s one of those too-weird-for-fiction stories. There was a disaster while they were there, they helped, and at the end of the night”—they showed their true colors—“they promised to back off on the we want your business thing.” The lie tasted as bad as the memory.
“They’ve been calling you for more than a year,” Sadie said. “Why would they back off now, all the sudden?”
They wouldn’t. I shrugged, not having a better response.
The conversation shifted away from me, and kept going for a few hours. As the clock crept toward ten, my tomorrow-plans loomed like a big, daunting beacon in my thoughts. I hated to be the one to leave first, but I needed to at least try to get some sleep before tomorrow. I pushed back from the table. “I hate to do this, but I’ve got an early morning. Are you all okay if I cut out early?”
“We’ll be fine,” Sadie said.
“What she said.” Violet nodded at her.
Everyone was friends with everyone. Awesome. I looked at Sadie and Anne. “I’ll call you Monday.”
As I headed to my car, I heard footsteps running to catch up with me. “Lyn.” Anne grabbed my arm to stop me. “Early morning? What’s up?”
“Nothing. I promise.” Everything.
Anne tugged me away from the restaurant entrance, to sit on a bench around the side of the building. “Tell me,” she said.
“I slept with them.” The instant the confession slipped out, I braced myself for the judgment. Not because Anne ever had, but there was a first time for everything. “I mean, not slept, but there was sex, but first there was niceness, and they were so complimentary, and we were having fun, and then they ruined it. I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not.” Anne twisted her fingers with mine and squeezed gently.
I dragged in a deep breath. “I am. Because that’s where I’m going in the morning.”
“For more sex? I mean, if you’re gagging them first... then they can’t ruin it, right?”
A laugh slipped out without my permission. “They know the Millers. They’re going to introduce me. I’m going so they don’t know they pissed me off, and so I can make friends with people on the city council. Not for sex.”
“I can still hurt them for you, if you want.”
“I’m good, but thank you.”
Anne squeezed again. “I don’t want to see you hurt. Ever. Pretty sure you told me something similar not too long ago, and it works both ways. If you’re okay with all of this, then that’s fine. But you’re not an idiot. Do you have this under control, or do you want me to yank you out of it?”