Zero Day Exploit (Bayou’s End #1.5) (4 page)

He smiled slightly and shifted to lean against the wall next to her, comfortably arm to arm. “So you know how it feels. Moving from pillar to post, never really having a home.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s why I decided to pick one place and stick with it. My brother did, too. Ion. He’s in Paris. Scheherazade’s the only one who likes to travel like Mom and Dad. Drags her kids all over the world, but they seem to love it.” She smiled wistfully, then shook herself, those lovely blue eyes clearing as she looked up at him. “Anyway. You have to have a home somewhere, don’t you? Even if it’s just somewhere to keep your things?”

“I never see it. I’m like George Clooney in
Up in the Air
. One suitcase is all I need.”

She frowned, brows knitting. “Oh.”

“It’s not a bad life,” he said. It really wasn’t. He’d never needed much else, and he’d never been good at being tied down to commitments. He wondered if that made him sound like her family, and if that was why she was looking at him with such consternation. “I make good money, and get to see new places. I never have a chance to get tired of a place before I’m gone.”

“Speaking of gone…” She smiled and glanced at the door again. “I should let you go instead of talking your ear off.”

“It’s fine.” He straightened his clothing and checked to make sure nothing had fallen out of the pockets of his jacket. “I wasn’t looking for sex when I approached you, you know.”

“Right,” she said skeptically, and he laughed.

“Seriously. I would’ve been happy just to get your number.”

Zero’s eyes narrowed. After the way they’d crashed into each other, tearing at each other, devouring each other…he didn’t blame her for not believing him.

“Really?” she asked.

“Really.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened the app that would summon a taxi to his GPS location, sent in a request, then glanced up at her. “But you don’t want me to call. So I won’t ask.” Even if it would be so easy, with his phone in his hand. Just give it to her and say
hey, drop your digits, and next time I’m in town
…

But he didn’t. Instead he stepped closer, savoring how her eyes darkened as he leaned down and claimed her lips one more time. Just a quick taste to remember her by, until time and life and a million daily concerns erased the traces of her from his everyday life. She opened for him with a sighing sweetness and leaned into him when he threaded his fingers into the liquid-cool flow of her hair. The taste of her was heady and lovely and bright, and he lingered for longer than he should before pulling away with a rueful smile.

“Take care, Zero,” he murmured, and turned away.

“Sure. Right. Take care.” Something in her voice made him want to turn back, but he made himself keep moving when she continued, “’bye, Evan.”

He glanced back with one last smile before letting himself out into the hall and heading downstairs to wait for his cab in the foyer, out of the cold. With a heavy sigh, he slumped against the wall next to the door, checked his phone for the cab’s location, then closed his eyes. He was an asshole. He should go back up there and tell her, or tomorrow would be one hell of an unpleasant surprise. He should have told her to start with.

Instead he’d kept his mouth shut. And he hadn’t said goodbye. Goodbye was too final, when he’d be seeing her again.

He could only hope she didn’t murder him when he did.

Z
ERO WOKE UP FEELING LIKE
the hangover from hell had dragged her into a back alley, mugged her, then spent a few hours kicking her in the head for good measure.

With a groan, she smacked the alarm clock—and spent a few minutes staring at it without really seeing it. She always set her alarm a few minutes early so she’d have a few moments to pull herself together and wake on her own terms, without the rush of transit times and morning meetings leaving her feeling always on the verge of falling off a cliff. She should get up, make some coffee, and chase the hangover away with a gallon or two of water, but not yet. Maybe belting down drinks on a work night hadn’t been such a good idea. She’d been overreacting, anyway. Rick would fail himself out of his promotion in six months or less, and it wouldn’t kill her to wear heels.

Though she felt sorry for whomever she stepped on until she remembered how to walk in the damned things.

With a yawn, she rolled onto her back and watched the soft gray dawn come up through the windows, catching on flakes of falling snow and gilding their edges. She stretched with lazy contentment—then winced when the motion pulled a few muscles that weren’t particularly happy with her after last night.

Last night. Right. Her drunken mistake she’d regret in the morning. Only she didn’t, not really. She smiled and burrowed deeper into her pillows. Evan had been just what she’d needed to get over her little pity party and move on. He’d been cute, in his own stupid trying-too-hard way. She’d liked him better once he’d dropped the smooth lines and just
talked
to her.

Maybe she should have gotten his number.

“Yeah, right.” With a laugh, she hauled herself out of bed and padded to the kitchen. While her coffee brewed she dug in her closet, flicking past her torn, ratty jeans and a million baby-doll tees printed with everything from
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
to the ghost dog from
Nightmare Before Christmas
. She’d stuffed a pair of slacks in here, she thought. She kept them for job interviews and funerals. They had to be back here somewhere—

“Gotcha.” She snagged the slacks off the hanger, along with the matching jacket and shirt. They were frumpy and severe and probably just what the company wanted, but she definitely needed to go shopping tonight. Bargain-bin fashion on an entry-level salary, but spending a little of her hard-earned savings on a few new outfits was better than getting fired for shucking the dress code.

She stole a quick shower, then wriggled into the itchy suit, buttoned the fitted jacket, and tucked her hair into a severe bun to hide the red tips. That was the part that would hurt the most, she thought. She could get away with wearing her hair like this to conceal the dye for a while, but sooner or later HR would insist on a “natural” hair color. She could shuck the stuffy clothes once she was off the clock, but she’d still be stuck with the plain black hair.

She’d get over it.

Coffee in hand, she grabbed a toaster pastry and her messenger bag before clattering down to her train. It took only one flight of stairs to figure out moving too fast was a bad idea; Evan had left her so sore her panties rubbed against her with every step, friction leaving her gasping and flushed enough to beat back the chill bite of a winter morning. She tried to measure her steps, but moving slowly in New York pedestrian traffic was an even worse idea than speed-walking while the drag of her panties punished her for her indiscretions with every step.

Let’s have sex with a strange guy up against a brick wall
. God, she must be getting so many weird looks for walking this way. She hunched into her winter coat, then tugged for the millionth time at the suit coat underneath. It wouldn’t
settle
, and she felt like she’d been stuffed into a three-hundred-pound linebacker’s football gear.
What’s that? Rough sex? Oh, sure, what could go wrong with that? Not like I’ve got friction burns on the small of my back from slamming up against the brick. Not like I’ve got to do the walk of shame around the office all day. Brilliant idea, Zero. Pure genius
.

She made it to the office just in time to follow the stream of people toward the fifth floor; the open, barren space had been left unfinished after some contractor dispute or another, and was the only place large enough to house the entire employee population in a single room. A podium and projection screen had been erected at the front of the room. Uncomfortable-looking metal folding chairs had been arranged in rows. Zero headed for the refreshment table with a snort. Hard, painful chairs and forced inactivity. Yeah, that’d hold everyone’s attention for hours.

This was going to be
fun
.

She snagged a fresh cup of coffee and a cruller, then scanned the room for her team. She was one of many low-end developers, working on user interface design for the company’s flagship product—but teams tended to stick together, and hers was no different. She almost missed them; Alejandro’s crop of bright green hair was nowhere in sight. She looked right over them, then swerved back when she realized the artificially slick black of freshly-dyed hair belonged to none other than the man she’d been looking for. He’d taken his ear gauges out, and slumped in his chair with his shoulders drooping inside his wrinkled button-down shirt, looking completely out of place and miserable.

It starts
, she thought dryly, and wove through the blocks of seats toward them. Rick caught her eye from his seat and grinned, cocking his fingers like guns and pointing them at her. She arched a brow. He’d just done that. That had really happened. God, that man was the Peter Principle in action. Not that any of her team were stellar examples of good behavior today; Alejandro’s sulk just made her feel that much more childish for her own pouting, even if she sympathized. They’d dodged the necessities of corporate life for so long they’d gotten spoiled. Right now she was trying to look on the bright side: mandatory conformity meant the company was growing. Growth meant more jobs, higher pay…and maybe her own glass-walled office, one day.

“Zoraya.” Ravi—the main software quality tester—stood from his aisle seat when he caught sight of her, and gripped her hand for a moment, a familiar gesture he’d started in college and never given up. His slender brown fingers comforted, and she held fast before letting go. “I saved you a seat.”

“Thanks, Rav.”

She edged past him and sank down into the seat at his side, and deliberately didn’t look as he tapped his foot four times, counting under his breath, before he sat again. Everyone had their quirks. Ravi’s was counting, and only being able to sit in aisle seats. Zero had learned long ago not to embarrass him by taking note of it, and just did what she could to not mess up his counts.

Once he was done, she asked, “So have you seen the guy yet?”

“Not yet.” Ravi’s smile was quick, shy, there and gone again, like the shadow of a fleeting cloud. “He’s probably hiding from the torches and pitchforks.”

She snickered into her coffee and tried to be subtle about slipping her hand into her suit coat to scratch her itching shoulder. “Smart man. How long do we have to be here?”

Alejandro looked over his shoulder from the row ahead. “All day,” he said mournfully. “We get one break for lunch.
Catered
lunch.”

Zero grinned. “It won’t kill you to miss those nasty taquitos for one day.”

“It might. My metabolism is uniquely adapted to the mix of chili peppers and processed meat. They’re crucial to my biological development.”

“Because you’re a mutant.”

“I’ll let you know when my powers kick in.” Alejandro twisted in his seat, eyes narrowing. “You’re awful happy. Don’t tell me the suit turned you into a pod person.”

She hid her grin against her cup. “Nope. Still me. Got both middle fingers to prove it.”

“Then why are you in such a good mood?”

“Dunno. Had my tantrum last night. The whole ‘woe is me’ act got old fast. World’s still here this morning. Turns out the dress code wasn’t a harbinger of the apocalypse.”

“Very funny.” His eyes slitted further, before widening. “You got laid!”

Ravi wrinkled his nose. “Don’t be so crude, please.”

Zero cleared her throat; her ears burned. Was she that damned obvious? “Pretty sure the new employee manual makes this conversation against the rules.”

“Fuck the rules.”

“
Language
,” Ravi said, looking pale.

“Rav’s got a point. Really, Ale. Such a mouth on you.” She grinned at Alejandro’s sullen scowl, and nodded toward the podium as the lights dimmed. “You really should pay attention. Looks like the sideshow’s about to start.”

Alejandro wrinkled his nose, but slumped forward in his chair. Zero pushed herself up so she could see over his wide shoulders. Sometimes being short sucked. She caught a glimpse of someone tall moving toward the podium, and a hint of crisp, dark gray fabric that implied a rather nice, rather expensive suit. Yep. Douchenozzle. He probably had shellacked hair and a Neanderthal jaw and a smarmy, overconfident smile full of too many teeth.

She craned to see past Alejandro’s big stupid head, but it was hopeless. Muttering, she sank back down in her seat and nipped her cruller. She’d need the sugar to stay awake, after the way Evan had worn her out last night. She couldn’t help a small, secretive smile. She really
should
have gotten his number. He’d definitely earned a repeat performance.

As she took another sip of coffee, the speaker’s voice rang out—and she spat the sip back into her cup as strident words echoed from the microphone to fill the room, washing over her with sickening familiarity and leaving her gut hollowed.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice rolling and rough. The same voice that had snarled
Fuck, Zero
last night; that had growled and panted over her while she clung and cried out his name. A name she was currently cursing as he continued, “Welcome to the Expanding Horizons seminar.”

Evan.

The man responsible for this clusterfuck was none other than Evan mother
fucking
James.

*     *     *

The moment he saw Zero’s face, Evan knew he was a dead man.

So he should really try a little harder not to laugh.

Maybe.

It was hard when, past the rather impressive bulk of one of the other employees, she glared at him with fire snapping in her eyes and her face twisted into a comical mix of shock, horror, fury, and mortification.

He’d been aware of her from the moment she’d walked in, small and sassy yet larger than life—and half asleep, he’d noted with a near-vengeful satisfaction after he’d barely slept for thinking of her, remembering her, struggling
not
to remember her. For all her grumping about the dress code, she looked good. Albeit uncomfortable, with how she kept tugging at her clothes. She still managed to make the cheap, ratty pants suit look charming and cute.