Chapter 7 #2
She wanted to sink into the hug, but forced herself to draw back. She navigated to her dashboard. “Do I take the system down if I refresh obsessively?” She forced her tone to stay light.
“No.” A hint of strain lined Tate’s response. “It’s built for that. Refresh away.”
She clicked the refresh button several times in rapid succession, just for fun, impressed when the system responded instantly each time. And then the system hung. It sat for several seconds before rendering in a jumble. “I think I broke it.” She joked.
“It’s a hiccup. Try again.”
She did. Each time, the response took longer, until nothing was returned at all. “Nope, definitely broke it.” Her teasing came out more forced than she intended.
“Can you get to other sites?”
She navigated to a couple without any issues, but still couldn’t get back into her admin panel.
“Shit.” Tate’s curse was so soft she barely heard it. “May I?”
She stood and let him have her seat, furrowing her brow. What was going on? This shouldn’t be a big deal, right? She’d been watching Tate and Jared work long enough, though, she knew something was wrong. “Do you want me to call Jared?”
Tate’s fingers flew over the keyboard, new windows opening, including one with a black background and white text, and another that looked like a different computer desktop. “He and Mikki have plans.” His voice was tight.
“You know he’ll cancel. Is it bad?” She crossed her arms, and tapped her toes.
What was going on? It was just a little glitch, right?
So why did she feel like everything was about to go sideways?
Her gaze drifted toward her phone, at the edge of her desk.
Maybe she should call Jared anyway. Tate wouldn’t let his ego get in the way of doing this right.
The high-speed clack of keys drew her attention back to what Tate was doing.
Her limited understanding of what they did at Skriddie told her he was dialed into a remote computer, switching between a performance monitor and a window with text in different colors.
“Fucking load balancing issue.” Tate muttered a string of curses, and continued working.
Guilt joined the swirl of emotions in her head. She should have remembered, Tate had the same background as her brother, he just used it differently.
Watching Tate now, he really did shine when it came down to it. At least, she assumed he was. He never paused for more than few seconds, and as the minutes ticked away, he clicked through more things she only vaguely recognized.
The light faded outside, until the primary source of light in the room was her laptop screen. A nudge at the back of her mind told her she should turn on the light, but she was too engrossed in watching Tate work.
It seemed like eons later, but according to her clock it was less than two hours, when he leaned back in her chair with a loud exhale. “So weird.” Despite his quiet tone, the sudden statement was loud in the room.
She chewed on her bottom lip, not sure what to say. “So… It’s fixed?”
He stood and gestured for her to take the chair again. “Yes. You’re back online.”
“What happened?”
“Do you want the technical details?”
She might feel smarter if she heard them and understood them. Then again, if she described the details of neutering a dog, he wouldn’t be able to keep up either. “Not really.”
He gave a light laugh. “Something was wrong with the server configuration. It wasn’t set up to handle as much internet traffic as it should have been.”
As in, none? She had to have been the only person on the site. The clench of his jaw and way he kept glancing back at the machine made her wonder what he’d found that bothered him so much.
“It’s back online now. You’re good to go,” he said after a final glance at the laptop.
She reached for the mouse, then paused. He’d said it was fixed, she was being silly.
Still, as she clicked into her admin dashboard again, her earlier enthusiasm was missing.
A whisper of disappointment mingled with the rest of her thoughts.
Of course there wouldn’t be any donations.
The site had technically only been online for a few minutes.
Still, she clicked refresh again, bracing herself for anther slowdown.
Her heart leaped, and a smile broke her face.
Was that a donation? She hit refresh again.
Yup, it was. It was several hundred dollars, from an anonymous source.
She had no idea how it had gotten there.
A voice in the back of her mind asked how that had come in so quickly.
Technically they wouldn’t be live until tomorrow.
Advertising would go out then. The social media campaign would start up.
But it was a donation. How was that bad? “Yay.” She hopped to her feet, giddiness flooding her, and spun to Tate. She tossed her arms around his neck. “It worked.”
His hands rested on her back, and he squeezed. “Congratulations.” He didn’t let go.
Heat flooded her as the seconds ticked away. His pulse hammered a beat against her cheek, and she extracted herself from his embrace, not able to meet his gaze. She really needed to get over this.
“Hey.” He placed a finger under her chin and raised her head until she was looking him in the eye. “Enough. We both had fun last night, right? I know I did.”
It was okay to admit to that. Fun had been part of the point. “I did too.” Alyssia felt a touch of relief being able to say it aloud.
“I don’t regret it. Not in any way.” His expression was soft, attention focused completely on her.
She didn’t either. She just had to say so, and things would go back to the way they were. So why couldn’t she say the words?