Chapter 4
A new ticket popped into the queue with a chime.
“Oh, look who it is!” Mateo peered at the notification over the rim of his IT Ninja mug. “The new girl strikes again!”
Scottie paused, fingers hovering over her keyboard. Willow had submitted another ticket, just two days after the first one?
“What is it this time?” Gordon asked without looking up from his own work.
“Keyboard issues—again,” Mateo replied. “And now her mouse is acting up too.”
Gordon let out a low whistle. “What is she doing up there? Declaring war on her peripherals?”
Mateo nodded. “I bet it’s user error.”
To be fair, everything pointed in that direction. Willow’s keyboard issues had vanished the moment Scottie had taken a seat at her desk. She’d been able to type without the tiniest hint of a lag, even before she had updated the driver.
It wouldn’t have been the first time a new employee was fumbling with an unfamiliar setup or a technophobe didn’t want to admit that it was them, not the machine, causing the problem.
But Willow hadn’t struck her as clueless. She had tried to fix the problem herself and had taken all the right steps. Even the way she had filled out the help desk form was thorough, well-organized, and intelligent.
Something wasn’t adding up.
“I’ll take this one,” Scottie said before either of her colleagues could suggest a round of rock, paper, scissors to see who had to go.
“Wow.” Mateo reached over and lightly slapped her shoulder. “I didn’t know you were into masochism.”
Scottie flashed him a grin. “What, your mom didn’t tell you?”
Mateo nearly choked on a sip of coffee.
Gordon doubled over laughing. “She didn’t just burn you; she roasted you with a flamethrower!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Glaring, Mateo mopped up the coffee stain on his shirt, then balled up the soaked tissue and threw it at Scottie. “My mother would totally top you.”
Grinning, Scottie batted the damp missile away. “I met her. No doubt she would.” She grabbed her tool kit, slid one of the loaner laptops into her bag, and shouldered it like a medic on a mission.
Of course, her volunteering to take this ticket had nothing to do with being a masochist. She was just curious and wanted to figure out what was really going on…with Willow’s devices, obviously.
~ ~ ~
This time, the Operations floor was still buzzing with activity when Scottie got out of the elevator and entered the bullpen.
Two employees were moving around color-coded magnets on a whiteboard, discussing a project timeline, and Celeste Covey sat at her desk, phone pressed to her ear.
“Frankly, I don’t care about that, Marcus,” Celeste said, her tone even but stern.
“We’ve got ten pallets of Sparkle Pups sitting in Newark when they should have been on a truck to Louisville three hours ago! ”
Scottie didn’t linger to hear more of the tense conversation.
Best to get Willow’s peripherals issues sorted out fast before she ended up in her manager’s line of fire during her first week at Kudos.
Scottie’s steps were quiet on the carpet as she crossed toward her, so Willow hadn’t noticed her yet.
This time, she was at her desk, not beneath it. She clutched her mouse and gave it a little shake. Her gaze was locked on the screen as if she was trying to will her devices into obedience.
“Good morning,” Scottie said as she reached her. She waved at Barb, who peeked over her divider, before returning her attention to Willow. “You look like you’re about three seconds away from hurling your mouse out the window.”
Willow looked up. She released the mouse and let her shoulders drop. “No—but only because the windows up here don’t open.”
Scottie chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m here to help, and I think my methods are more productive than chucking your devices out the window.”
“I’m really sorry to have to bother you again.” Willow had averted her gaze.
“Hey, it’s all good. This is what I get paid the not-so-big-bucks for.” Scottie slid her laptop bag off her shoulder and set it down next to Willow’s desk. “So what exactly is the problem? The mouse has joined the keyboard in its rebellion?”
Willow nodded. “The keyboard is up to its old tricks, either lagging or not working at all, and the cursor jumps across the screen, even when I barely move the mouse. It’s impossible to click on anything.”
“Okay. Let me take a look at your haunted mouse.”
Willow winced noticeably.
Scottie paused and studied her. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, no. It’s nothing.” Willow got up from her office chair so Scottie could take her place.
Scottie didn’t believe her, but she decided not to push it. She took a seat, reached for the mouse, and moved it to the left.
The cursor lurched across the screen like a drunk frog.
She tried to steer it toward a folder, but it overshot its mark and zipped past it.
Definitely not user error.
Scottie glanced over her shoulder at Willow, who seemed almost relieved that Scottie could reproduce the problem this time. “You weren’t kidding.”
“I tried switching it to one of the USB ports on the back, but it didn’t help,” Willow said.
Scottie gave her an appreciative nod. “Good thinking.” That would have been her next step. “Let’s see if it’ll behave on the laptop I brought.” She connected Willow’s mouse and keyboard to the laptop.
Everything worked flawlessly—no hint of a lag, no erratic behavior.
So the peripherals themselves weren’t the issue. That meant they were looking at a possible problem with the hardware.
She plugged the keyboard and mouse back in, restarted the computer, and entered the BIOS to see if the peripherals would misbehave even there.
Once the blue-and-gray interface came up, Scottie pressed the down arrow key.
The cursor hesitated for a full second, then jumped down three lines.
Ugh. She shut the computer down and turned the office chair to face Willow, who hovered nearby like a concerned parent waiting for a doctor to diagnose her child. “Well, the good news is your keyboard and mouse are not possessed. The bad news is your computer’s got hardware issues.”
“Figures,” Willow muttered so quietly Scottie almost didn’t catch it. “Do you think it could be the motherboard?”
Scottie had gone through her mental checklist of the most likely culprits and had arrived at a similar conclusion, but she hadn’t expected it from someone in admin.
“I’m impressed. You’re thinking along the right lines.
My money’s on the USB controller. That’s the part of the motherboard that handles the communication with your USB devices. ”
Willow nodded as if she understood every word of the computer lingo.
Scottie’s admiration grew. “If you get tired of working in Operations, we could use you in IT.”
Willow burst out laughing. It wasn’t a polite chuckle or a reserved little smile; it was a loud, unfiltered belly laugh that made Barb peek over the low cubicle divider to see what was so amusing about a computer issue.
Even the two employees next to the whiteboard glanced over.
Scottie scrambled not to stare too, but it was a losing battle.
Quickly, Willow reined herself in, yet her hazel eyes still twinkled as if Scottie had told the best joke ever. “God, no,” she gasped out, breathless with laughter.
“Hey, maybe try not to sound so horrified at the prospect of working with me.” Scottie aimed for an indignant tone, but she couldn’t help grinning reflexively.
A strand of hair had escaped as Willow had thrown her head back in laughter, and now she tucked it back behind her ear. “It’s not that. But trust me; you don’t want me in IT.”
Scottie wasn’t so sure. She wouldn’t mind getting to hear that carefree laugh more often. The sight of Willow so relaxed, so different from her usual guarded self, still stunned her. She had looked so warm, alive…and beautiful.
Focus. She was here to fix the computer, not to be captivated by its user.
“I’ll open up the case and see if I find anything obvious. Sometimes you get lucky and find a loose cable or something else that is a quick fix,” Scottie said. “But before I do…have you backed up all your files?”
“Yes, of course.” Willow looked at her with an expression as if Scottie had asked whether she had put on underwear.
“All my files sync automatically to the cloud, and I run hourly backups to two external drives. Plus I do a manual backup twice a day to a USB drive that I keep disconnected in case of a power surge.”
Scottie pressed a hand to her chest and swayed back and forth. Multiple backups were the sexiest thing ever! “You really know how to make an IT professional swoon!”
Willow didn’t flirt back or react at all. Her expression, which had lit up with warmth when she had laughed earlier, had become shuttered again—polite and unreadable.
Clearly, Willow wanted to keep things professional. Most likely, she was straight. Which was for the best anyway. It wasn’t as if Scottie was looking for another woman to break her heart.
“Let’s take a peek under the hood.” Scottie pushed the chair back, crouched down, and unplugged the power strip. She held the power button down for twenty seconds to let any residual charge dissipate, grounded herself with a quick touch to the metal case, and turned the tower onto its side.
Willow handed over Scottie’s tool kit without having to be asked.
“Thanks,” Scottie said with a grin. “Are you sure you don’t want a job in IT?” Maybe she said it just to see if it would elicit the same laugh again.
It didn’t, but Willow’s lips curled up into a mysterious smile. “Very sure.”
Scottie took out one of her small screwdrivers and opened up the case. The side panel came off easily, revealing a network of wires, circuit boards, and cooling fans.
Before reaching inside, Scottie touched the metal leg of the desk to ground herself again. No way would she damage one of the sensitive components with static electricity, especially not while Willow was watching.
Then she paused. Wait a minute! Was that what Willow had been doing when she had touched the desk drawer before shaking Scottie’s hand the first time they had met? But why would she do that? It wasn’t as if she’d been about to touch a delicate microchip.
This was getting more curious by the minute. Scottie had to admit she was intrigued.
But for now, she had to solve the mystery of the malfunctioning computer, not the mystery of Willow Greene.
She forced her attention away from Willow and peered inside the open case.
With calm, practiced movements, she traced the various cables and connections to a large circuit board.
When she lightly pressed against the USB connectors, they didn’t budge.
She had done this dozens of times, but Willow’s observant gaze made her oddly aware of every motion.
“Hm,” she said after a while. “No obvious smoking gun.”
Literally. There were no burn marks. No frayed or loose cables. No bulging capacitors. The power supply to the motherboard looked fine too.
“I still think it’s either the USB controller going flaky or a deeper board issue,” Scottie said. “The computer sitting on the carpet for so long might have something to do with it. Maybe dust got in and clogged the fans, or the extra static stressed some of the sensitive components.”
Barb’s head popped up over the divider. “I thought static can’t harm computer parts as long as they’re inside the case?”
“It won’t instantly fry your computer; that’s true. But in the long run, a lot of small discharges add up. Combine that with reduced airflow from the dust and the motherboard running hotter than it should, and voilà…” Scottie waved at the exposed guts of the computer. “Here’s what you end up with.”
Barb murmured something about computers being sensitive divas and ducked back behind the divider.
A long sigh came from Willow. “So, what happens now? Do we have to call Dell and wait for them to send someone?”
Scottie grinned. “No. You’re in luck. I got my Dell hardware certification a couple of years ago, so I can resolve most issues myself.
I’ll take your machine back to the IT dungeon to run a few more tests.
” With a click, Scottie slid the side panel back into place and fastened the screws before dusting her hands on her chinos.
They stood facing each other for a few seconds, neither saying anything.
Finally, Willow shifted her weight. “When do you think I’ll get it back?”
“If I have to swap out the motherboard and we don’t have a new one in stock, it could take a few days.
But I’ll leave you the laptop so you can keep working.
It has all the software you need.” Scottie plugged in the mouse and keyboard dongles and connected the laptop to Willow’s dual monitors so she wouldn’t have to squint at the thirteen-inch screen.
Then she set the laptop to back up to the cloud automatically. “There. You’re good to go.”
“Thank you, Scottie.”
A grateful Kudos employee saying her name was a totally ordinary thing. Just a polite exchange that happened every day. She shouldn’t even have noticed—and it definitely shouldn’t have sent a wave of warmth through her chest.
Willow was only one ticket in a queue of tasks that awaited her attention. A fascinating, smart ticket with a laugh that stopped the world around her, but still just a ticket, nothing more.
Determined, Scottie shouldered her laptop bag, picked up the tower, and tucked it against her side. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“Thanks,” Willow said—without using Scottie’s name again.
There was nothing else to say, so Scottie gave her one last nod, called out a quick “Bye, Barb,” and crossed the bullpen. She didn’t look back, but she could feel Willow’s gaze follow her through the glass door and all the way to the elevator.