Chapter 6
Scottie sat at her desk and scrolled through the patch deployment and vulnerability scan report, looking for any laptops or computers that hadn’t updated overnight.
Her gaze tracked the column of green check marks, but her mind wandered back to her coffee shop encounter with Willow earlier that day.
She had long since finished her latte, yet snippets of their conversation still played on a loop in Scottie’s head. I’m part of the club… I’m gay. A lesbian.
Then she cringed as she remembered her own reply: That wasn’t what I was asking, but it’s delightful to know anyway. Delightful! Really? Why the hell had she said that?
A ticket notification popped up on her left screen, pulling Scottie from her thoughts.
This time, she welcomed the distraction and clicked over to the ticket queue immediately.
Windows acting weird, the subject line said. It was from someone in Operations.
Her gaze darted to the name of the employee requesting help: Willow Greene.
Willow! Scottie sat up straighter. What was going on? She clicked into the ticket and scanned the details.
Apparently, the computer’s windows were minimizing or snapping to the side without Willow clicking anything.
Huh. That was weird. The loaner laptop had worked perfectly on Friday, and so had the external mouse and keyboard.
Mateo glanced over. “What’s with the frown? Please don’t tell me we’ve got another firmware rollback.”
“No, nothing like that,” Scottie said, her gaze still fixed on the screen. “Just a new ticket.”
“What’s so puzzling about that?” Mateo looked at the dashboard on his own monitor.
Gordon was faster. “Willow Greene again? That’s the third ticket she’s submitted in less than a week!”
“Yeah, but the other two were because of the defective motherboard. It’s not Willow’s fault the problem didn’t become clear until my second visit.” Scottie snapped her mouth shut, surprised at how quick she’d been to defend Willow.
“Still, two completely different issues back-to-back?” Gordon shook his head. “And now it’s a loaner that was working just fine before you handed it over. What are the chances of that happening to someone as tech-savvy as you say she is?”
Scottie opened her mouth, about to defend Willow again, but before she could, Mateo lifted his index finger in an “aha” gesture.
“Or,” he said, dragging out the word dramatically, “maybe there is another explanation.”
Scottie’s gaze zeroed in on him. “Go on, Sherlock.”
“Maybe she’s breaking stuff on purpose,” Mateo said.
Scottie clutched her armrests with both hands. It wouldn’t have been the first time an employee had sabotaged their computer, but she didn’t want to believe that was what was going on here. “Bullshit. Why would she do that?”
Mateo grinned. “So you have a reason to come fix it.”
“What?” Scottie and Gordon asked at the same time.
“Think about it,” Mateo said. “If she’s as clever as you seem to think she is, maybe she has figured out that this is the best way to guarantee a little one-on-one attention from her favorite IT support person. Maybe she’s working up the courage to ask you out or something.”
Just last week, Scottie would have dismissed it and told him Willow was most likely straight and not interested in her at all.
But now she knew that wasn’t true—at least about Willow being straight.
Of course, that didn’t mean Willow wanted to ask her out.
She didn’t even seem comfortable having to call Scottie for IT help.
Even if she were interested, it wouldn’t matter. Scottie had experienced firsthand how quickly a decade-long relationship could dissolve without warning, and she wasn’t up for a repeat, especially not with someone as closed-off as Willow. She was clearly emotionally unavailable.
“That’s as ridiculous as the socks you’re wearing.” She pointed at his ankles, where little T-Rexes swinging golf clubs were peeking out. “I can guarantee you that’s not it. Something else is going on.”
“Like what?” Mateo asked.
Scottie had no answer. She just knew Willow was neither the incompetent technophobe nor the smitten schemer her colleagues were making her out to be. “No idea. But she’s definitely not submitting tickets just to see me.”
“Then maybe I should go,” Mateo offered.
“No, I’ll do it,” Scottie said quickly, then added, “I’m familiar with her current setup, so it will be faster if I go.”
“Her setup.” Smirking, Mateo painted quotation marks in the air. “Right.”
“Yeah, setup. If you don’t know what that means, maybe it’s a good thing I’m the one going.” Scottie grabbed her tool kit and bag and strode to the door without waiting for a comeback.
~ ~ ~
“This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.
” Barb craned her neck to stare across the low divider between their desks and studied Willow’s screens as if a time portal had opened there.
“I’ve been working in offices since before computers were even a thing.
In all that time, I’ve never seen anything like this. ”
The Excel file on Willow’s left monitor resized itself and snapped to the top, while several other open apps on her right screen dropped to the task bar, minimizing themselves without Willow doing anything.
Willow forced a smile onto her face, despite her rising panic.
She was attracting too much attention. One of their supply chain analysts was glancing over, and she if she wasn’t careful, Celeste would notice that she had another tech problem.
Last time, she’d gotten lucky: Scottie had chalked it up to the computer sitting on the carpet, even though Willow knew her tech-killing aura was to blame. But she wouldn’t get that lucky twice.
Quickly, she dragged the Excel file away from the top until it filled the entire screen again and restored Outlook and the other minimized apps. “Maybe they gave me the glitchy equipment. Like an initiation prank for the new admin or something like that.”
“Maybe they did,” Barb replied. “I don’t know how else to explain having to summon IT three times in less than a week!”
It was a lot, even for Willow. She usually had a couple of glitches every month, but this was excessive.
Everything had been fine this morning. Her alarm had gone off on time, without her phone battery dying overnight. The microwave had worked without a single passive-aggressive beep. Even her tablet, which often needed several attempts to recognize her fingerprint, had unlocked instantly.
But then she had run into Scottie in that damn coffee shop, misunderstood what Scottie was asking, and blurted out that she was a lesbian. God, she had completely embarrassed herself.
No wonder the avalanche of her emotions had sent her computer into a tailspin.
Calm down! If she didn’t, she would risk making another nearby device glitch while Scottie—or one of her colleagues—was there.
She closed her eyes, inhaled through her nose to the count of five, then slowly released her breath through her mouth.
When she opened her eyes again, her Excel file had snapped back to the top of the screen, but at least the other apps were still where she’d left them.
Okay, that was better. She could work with that. Just as she reached for the mouse, a soft knock sounded on her cubicle wall.
Willow jumped and looked up.
Scottie stood on the other side of the divider, her toolbox in one hand, the fingers of the other casually hooked behind the strap of her laptop bag.
She smiled as if she had just walked into a party instead of being called to fix yet another one of Willow’s computer problems. “We really have to stop meeting like this.”
Her tone was gentle and teasing, but Willow couldn’t help feeling guilty.
She also couldn’t shake her embarrassment over the coffee shop incident or the feeling that she had revealed too much.
“I’m so sorry for taking up so much of your time.
I know you probably have a million more important things to do. ”
Scottie walked around the partition. “Other things? Yeah. More important? Nope. I mean, you people from Operations keep telling me your department is what keeps the company running, so if the operations coordinator can’t use her computer, that ticket should get top priority, right?”
“Right,” Barb said from her side of the divider.
“Hey, Barb,” Scottie called. “How are things?”
“Can’t complain,” Barb answered. “Everything on my end is still working, which feels like a win after witnessing Willow’s bad luck.”
Scottie set down her bag and toolbox. “So, what’s the problem this time? The ticket said your windows are misbehaving?”
Willow nodded. “They keep minimizing or snapping to the sides or the top without me clicking anything. I’ll be working on my spreadsheet or sending an email, and suddenly, the windows move when I’m not even touching the mouse.”
“I see.” Scottie scribbled something down on a clipboard. “How long has it been happening?”
“On and off all morning.”
A wrinkle formed between Scottie’s sandy-brown brows. She lowered the clipboard and looked at Willow with gentle rebuke. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
Willow glanced down at her desk. “I didn’t want to bother you again.”
Scottie took another step toward her. “It’s no bother. Really.” Her voice was sincere, all teasing gone.
Willow’s throat constricted. God, she wanted to believe her. It would be so nice to not be a bother for a change. But that kind of hope was dangerous. Sooner or later, her not-so-little quirk became a burden to everyone.
The clacking of Barb’s keyboard stopped. Her head popped up over the divider like a groundhog sticking its head out of its burrow. She studied them with a curious expression before disappearing from sight.
“All right.” Scottie cleared her throat. “Let’s take a look at what’s happening. Mind if I drive?” She pointed at Willow’s workstation.
Willow pushed her chair back and stood. “Be my guest.”