11
Friday, May 30th
Blake
Fluorescent lights flicker above my head as I walk down the hall of Ferris Research Lab, a bag of Chinese takeout hanging from my right hand.
I’ve never been inside this building before, and with how deserted it is tonight, I’m starting to think no one ever has.
My footsteps echo on the tile floor as I walk the halls aimlessly, searching for the infamous computer lab in which I know I’ll find Lexi. After the shift between us at MKC earlier this week, I was na?vely hopeful that she would reach out to me if I didn’t reach out to her.
Instead, we’ve gone a full day and a half with no contact, and I’ve been properly humbled into being the pursuer again. I texted earlier to no response, but when my plans for dinner with Ace and Finn fell through, thanks to a prank-war emergency with Ace’s dad Thatch, I decided to take matters into my own hands. They asked me to come, but I excused myself, saying I had something with my football teammates I should do instead.
And while I was invited to party with the team, I figured trying my hand at making Lexi Winslow notice me was a much better plan.
Not to mention, an in-person meet-and-greet is much harder to ignore.
Turning the corner at the end of a long, dark hall, I see a light finally beckon in the distance. It’s the subtle glow of the lights of a room, shining through the glass window in the door.
An irrational pang of insecurity rears its head as I approach the door to find a keypad and a locked handle.
What if she doesn’t let me inside?
My inner psyche both laughs and cries. Because damn, that would be one hell of a sign that I need to give it the fuck up, wouldn’t it?
Carefully, I peer through the narrow window to look inside, finding Lexi sitting at one of the computer desks on the back wall, clicking away at the keyboard in front of her. I lift a hand and knock, hoping I don’t scare the shit out of her.
She jolts and turns to look, cupping her hand over her eyes and squinting to see through the window. I wave, and she jerks her head back as if struck.
She doesn’t look angry—just surprised. Thank God.
I don’t know how well she can hear me through the door, but I chance talking anyway, feeling only slightly like a goober. “Hey, Lex. Let me in. I brought dinner.”
She spins in her chair and types furiously again, clicking something that makes the screen go black before getting up and jogging over to the door.
I breathe a small sigh of relief as she turns the handle and pushes the wood obstruction toward me, letting me in.
“Did you say dinner?” she asks, and I smile, holding up the bag.
“I did.”
“It’s not dorm pizza, is it?”
“Nope,” I reply. “It’s Chinese takeout. From a restaurant with approval from the New York Department of Health and everything. I checked their certificate.”
She rolls her eyes but laughs too. “Come on. Come inside.”
I step in quickly, not about to squelch the invitation, and survey the space discreetly. There are probably fifteen computers and chairs in this room, and yet Lexi’s is the only one occupied.
“You’re here all alone?”
She shrugs. “It’s not exactly regular hours.”
“It doesn’t freak you out? Being in this dark building by yourself at night?”
She frowns. “Maybe now it does.”
I laugh. “Well, don’t worry. I’m here now. I’ll protect you.”
“My God, your masculinity is smothering,” she teases, cracking an actual grin for a change. It feels like a huge win.
It’s not that she’s not emotional—she’s just hugely reserved with showing it. The more time I spend with her, the more I’m starting to understand that.
“As long as it’s not toxic,” I say in reply, pulling up the seat next to the one she was sitting in, placing the bag on the table, and unpacking the food.
She watches closely.
“I got a little bit of everything.” I set the lo mein to the side to pull out both fried and white rice, and then I take out the chicken, beef, and shrimp. I didn’t know what she’d like the most, and I’m not picky, so whatever she doesn’t want, I’ll take. “Pick what you want.”
She considers the food carefully before reaching out and snagging the lo mein. I wait patiently, smiling when she grabs the chicken too.
“Hungry?”
“More than I realized. I’ve been here since eight a.m. and only brought coffee and a banana with me.”
“Ah, well…happy to be your knight-in-food-bearing-armor.”
“How’d you know where to find me?” she asks, grabbing one of the plastic forks from the table next to the food, sitting down in her chair, turning to face me, and cracking open her carton of lo mein.
“I made an educated guess. Though, I almost gave up halfway through the building. This place is almost as hard to find as Abrams was at the end of the tunnel challenge.”
She smiles slyly. “Good thing you got the practice that night, then.”
“How do you come up with the events?” I ask, curiosity about the mysterious Double C getting the best of me. I doubt she’ll answer, but it’s worth a shot.
She shrugs. “Different ways. If you know the history of Dickson, it makes it easier.”
“That’s the most nonanswer answer I’ve ever heard.”
“Best you’re gonna get.”
“Yeah, I figured,” I admit through a chuckle. “And what about your sidekick? What’s his name?”
“Connor?”
“Yeah, that’s him. What’s his deal?”
She tilts her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…how do you know him? Why do you trust him? Why’s he involved?”
She shakes her head, digging her teeth into her bottom lip. “I’ve…known him what feels like forever. When we both came to Dickson, we maintained a friendship, and I don’t know…the rest of it just seemed natural. He understands me better than a lot of people do.”
“I’m jealous.”
“Of what?” she asks, her brows drawing together.
“Of his knowledge,” I reply simply. “I want to know you too.”
Blushing, she turns back toward her computer and sets the lo mein on the table next to the keyboard, swapping it for chicken and popping open the top. I toss a shrimp into my mouth and then switch to the fried rice, scooping a forkful into my mouth and chewing before moving my line of conversation to something a little less scary.
“So, what have you been here working on all day? Something with your dissertation?”
She pauses briefly, her fork hovering in front of her mouth with a juicy piece of sesame chicken. I can’t explain it, but it almost seems like she’s more afraid of this question than any of the others.
“Uh…yeah. Sort of. I’m mostly finished with the official paper, but I’m still doing some related research.”
“And what’s your topic again?”
“Advancing technology with artificial-intelligence-based code.”
I snort, feigning brain cells I don’t have. “Oh. Yeah. Of course. I’ve always been really curious about that too.”
“It’s a fancy way of saying we should let the computer do the hard work for us. We input data, and the computer writes the algorithm to give us whatever answer we’re looking for.”
“But isn’t all AI essentially human-taught to start with?”
“Technically, yes.” She nods. “It gets all of its data from us, but it has way more analytical capability than we do. It can take in an abundance of information and build conclusions at a substantially quicker rate.”
“Right. Cool.”
She laughs, and I shrug. “I’m just a dumb jock.”
“Jock, yes, but dumb, no,” she disagrees. “In fact, I’d say you’re a lot more intelligent where it counts than I am.”
“What’s that mean?”
She shifts in her seat a little, sighing. “I’m not good with…social things. Interacting. Understanding emotional needs. Relationships. And trust me, those things come up in everyday life a lot more than AI coding.”
“I think you’re better at it than you think you are.”
“You do?” she asks. And before I can respond, she quietly adds in a voice that barely rises above the hum of the computers, “Because I know being neurodivergent can make me come off as quirky or even cold to other people.”
There’s a vulnerability in her admission. But it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise to me. To me, Lexi Winslow is different in the best kind of way. I mean, clearly, you don’t pursue a woman like I’ve been pursuing her without being completely enamored.
“Lex. Everyone who knows you loves you. They speak highly of you, and they want to be around you.” I lean forward, putting just one hand on her knee and watching as her eyes jerk down to look at it and then back up to meet mine, albeit a little wider. “That doesn’t just happen. If you have a weakness, you obviously have other strengths that make people want to pick up the slack.” I smile. “Take your relationship with me, for example. Your weakness is pursuing and accepting my company. I make up for that by being willing to chase you all over campus like a stalker.”
She laughs, just like I was hoping she would, and I run my hand a little higher up her thigh. She doesn’t stop me. In fact, her body sways toward me in a promising display of yearning for more.
Leaning forward slowly, I touch my lips to hers, a soft, slow kiss of promised intention. She melts into it, sighing softly when I slip my tongue past her lips and just barely touch it to the tip of hers.
But despite the fact that every cell in my body wants to continue this, wants to keep kissing her, I break it off before it can turn heated, and she chases me forward, back toward my chair, with a sway of her body.
It’s exactly what I’m hoping for, even if it’s simultaneously the worst form of torture.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it,” I tell her with a soft smile.
“W-what?” she asks, a small stutter in her normally sure speech.
“I know you’re busy, Lex. I just wanted to make sure you were fed, and now that I have, I’m going to leave you to it.”
“You’re going?”
I nod. I am. As much as I don’t fucking want to.
“But remember…I’m just a phone call or text away.”
It’s one of the hardest things I’ve done—and I’ve done a lot of difficult shit—but I stand from my chair and leave the lab, walking down the hall as the door clicks shut behind me, and I don’t look back.
If this has any chance of going anywhere at all, I have to create the opportunity for Lexi to want me.
The time is now or never, and I sure as shit hope she’s ready to play the game.