Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Nate watched Tamara drive away, knowing they had both ended up having a good night, even though things had been a little awkward at first. Everything was so easy with her.
He’d really wanted to kiss her just now and had come so close to acting on his feelings.
But only this morning they had agreed to keep things “normal”—whatever that meant.
It was obvious that Tamara just wanted to be friends.
He’d wanted to ask her more about what had happened with her ex.
What a jerk. It was clear that it still bothered her, and why wouldn’t it?
As her friend, he was outraged. How could anyone treat Tamara like that?
Her ex might not care about hurting her, but Nate sure wasn’t going to do anything that would.
And that meant respecting her wishes. He was her good friend. Nothing more than that. And he vowed to be far better to her than her former best friend had been. If you couldn’t put your friend’s feelings ahead of your own, what kind of friend could you be?
Nate drove home, checked his messages, and then went to bed.
It was getting late, and he had a huge day tomorrow.
Yet the minute he turned out the light, his brain fired up with thoughts of the evening.
They had done their best to chill out in the face of all the romance around them in the restaurant.
But what if things had been different, and they’d just allowed themselves to enjoy a romantic evening?
They’d been less than two feet away from each other, and he’d been able to look into Tamara’s eyes time and again.
They were impossible to forget. But all that wasn’t real, and it never would be.
At least he could console himself with the fact that he would be spending plenty of time around Tamara this week.
Then this weekend they’d be going down to San Diego for the wedding.
He’d been surprised and delighted by her suggestion that she go with him.
For now, though, he just needed to get things back to normal. Or as normal as they could be when he had a massive Internet broadcast to coordinate.
Nate woke up with a familiar buzz in his brain.
For a lot of people, that would have been annoying, but for Nate it was a sensation he looked forward to.
More than that, it was what he lived for.
It was the feeling that told him the day ahead was going to be exciting, with lots of challenges that would demand his full attention.
Today would give him the chance to prove exactly how much he could add to Married in Malibu.
Nate drove into work early and went straight to his office.
Often, he’d help out around the place, building wedding sets or putting up lighting rigs.
Nate liked to be more than just the guy who sat in his office writing code, but today that was exactly what he needed to do. He shut himself away and got to work.
Zach Jarrs had been as good as his word.
The people at Jpress had sent over a beta version of the program that would offer the option of the wedding stream to all customers who used their software.
The first thing Nate did was review it. Even though the people who’d created it were top-level programmers, he didn’t want to dive in without going through it carefully.
He soon became glad he did, because a glance through the code told him that on some systems, instability would increase, maybe even producing a few crashes.
Nate didn’t want their client getting sued because of his big romantic gesture, so he rewrote that section as quickly as he could and then sent the file back over to Jpress for testing and compilation.
He allowed himself a moment to wonder if Tamara was running into any problems with sourcing the coffee for the wedding.
She’d made it sound easy last night, but there was a lot to organize.
Maybe he should go check to see if everything was okay.
At the very least, he should go get a pound or two of coffee to see him through the first stages of programming for the wedding.
But there was so much work to do, he knew he didn’t really have time for that right now. Nate had to force himself to concentrate and forget about his own caffeine requirements. He’d get a chance to see Tamara later.
Zach’s people might be coming up with the basic program, but Nate still needed to integrate it with the stream, ensure compatibility, and, of course, set up the basic recording element.
That meant keeping the HD cameras unobtrusive so they wouldn’t interfere with the small, intimate wedding they were trying to achieve for the people who would be there in person.
It also meant real-time editing of the camera and sound feeds down into a single stream.
The more Nate unpacked the details of everything involved, the more work he found he needed to do.
He kept his head down until finally he looked up and found that most of the day had disappeared to… well, wherever days went.
In something of a daze, he walked into the main hall, where Meg was working out the details of the set dressing for the wedding.
He watched as she measured distances, trying to figure out the effect that decorative screens would have on the light in the venue.
It said a lot about just how long Nate had been hidden away in his office.
Already, screens and artwork were going up.
All of this impacted him if he was going to work out the best camera positions.
He’d talk with Travis and Daniel, of course, but for now, Nate wanted to get an idea of just how much coverage they would need.
Security would be one issue to focus on.
Nate didn’t mind people hacking in to gain access to the wedding, because that was what they were giving away anyway, but he needed to be sure it wouldn’t spill over into accessing Married in Malibu’s computers.
And, given some of the people who were likely to be fans of Zach Jarrs, that wasn’t something to be taken lightly.
“Nate, there you are,” Liz said. She was carrying a clipboard, which probably meant she was handling far too many things at once.
That one meeting Nate had taken with Zach Jarrs had given him new insight into just how many things Liz had to manage to make sure every wedding went smoothly. “Can I ask a favor?” she asked.
“Sure,” Nate said.
Liz looked around as though checking for eavesdroppers, which didn’t seem very likely, given how tight a ship Travis ran when it came to security.
“It’s about Kate.”
“Kate? Is something wrong?” Nate asked, though he couldn’t imagine what that could be. As far as Nate knew, Kate’s life mostly revolved around her flowers. How much could go wrong there?
“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Liz said, keeping her voice low. “Did you know that it’s her birthday tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “No, she managed to keep that pretty quiet.”
“She manages to keep everything quiet,” Liz said with a frown that indicated she wasn’t entirely happy about that. “But I thought it might be nice to throw her a surprise birthday party, just to show her that we appreciate her here.”
That sounded like a great idea. Kate worked as hard as anyone, but she was so often in the background, it was easy to miss her. She worked away quietly, and even when she did her job brilliantly, other elements always seemed to take center stage.
“What do you need from me?” Nate asked.
“We talked about holding it in Tamara’s café after work,” Liz said.
“It’s the best way to get Kate over there without her realizing what’s happening.
Jenn was going to work out the details with Tamara this evening, but she remembered Kayla has a spelling bee at school, so you know she and Daniel aren’t going to miss that. ”
“Of course not,” Nate said. When it came to the kids, Jenn and Daniel were there for every sporting practice and school event. As far as he could tell, they were awesome parents.
“And I can’t make it either,” Liz said. “Would you have time to figure it out with Tamara this evening? She was going to come over here when she closes the café, and I figured you’d probably still be here working.”
Nate could have come up with lots of excuses; there were plenty of them to be found.
He could have cited his workload or said that he had plans that evening.
But he didn’t, for a couple of reasons. One was that Kate was his friend, and Nate wanted to ensure she had a great birthday.
The other was that it was the excuse he’d been looking for all day.
He’d loved having dinner with Tamara yesterday, and spending time with her, and he wanted to do it again, even if it was for “party planning” and even if he knew they were both trying to stay in the friend zone.
“Sure,” Nate said, and just like that, he was committed. “Let me know what you have in mind and when she’s coming over.”
Liz thanked him, and Nate went back to his office.
He tried to throw himself into coding, which would ensure compatibility between the stream they would produce and the program that would get it out into the world.
But his thoughts kept returning to Tamara and the excitement he was feeling knowing he’d get to see her again that evening…
The sound of the door buzzer made Nate jump, and he checked the time. Was Tamara early? No, the time had just slipped away. He looked at the door camera feed and saw Tamara waiting outside. He rushed down to let her in.
“Nate?” Tamara said, clearly surprised as the door opened. “I thought I was meeting with Jenn.”