Chapter 2
Gl!tch.OS: Let’s get this over with: Trek or Wars??
* * *
Two Months Later
Keys chuckled at the message waiting for him upon returning to his room at the clubhouse.
Construction across the street from the club’s property was going very well.
While lack of rain wasn’t great for agriculture and the ecosystem, it certainly helped in the construction business.
Tom and Keys were extremely pleased with the progress, and both were talking about looking into employees soon.
It was hard to believe but Master Key Security Solutions was finally going to become a reality.
Keys had been dreaming about this for as long as he could remember.
He’d started small, not wanting to put the cart before the horse.
Problem was, he could handle cyber security all day long with his eyes closed and fingers taped together.
But he wanted to help more. He wanted to help those whose problems were in the real world, too.
His club brothers were all for helping, but they weren’t business people.
Neither was Keys. So he kept his company small and around town until he met Tom, who was married to Simone, the best friend of Scar’s ol’ lady.
It seemed like such a chance encounter, but one Keys was fully prepared to take advantage of.
He had the capital but it was Tom who had the knowledge of what to do with those funds and the expertise to see this venture through. Keys had no issue bringing him on as a full partner. He wasn’t a member of the club nor was he a veteran, but that didn’t make him any less trustworthy.
Keys looked over at the chessboard he had set up on his nightstand.
She’d taken his pawn. It was the first piece lost in their newest game of Truth or Dare Chess, but the stakes were higher with this game.
New rules put challenges on each piece lost, not just the overall winner.
So far, they were tied for games, and the winner of this would be pronounced King.
In the months since Keys had helped the Non Cras stop a serial amputator, he’d kept in contact with the other tech.
He had to admit, she’d done an incredible job of hiding who she was.
Tracking her was probably easier than she hoped, but Keys also wasn’t some amateur who just bought his first keyboard.
Still, he refused to call her “MV” or “Cryptic”.
She tried to get him to call her “Enigma” but even Keys felt that was too on the nose.
But since she didn’t know him beyond “Keys”, he supposed it was only fair for her to also have a moniker.
Mostly he stuck with “Glitch”, which was short for her handle of “Gl!tch.OS”.
Regardless, he never talked about her out loud, and it even sounded wrong in his head.
He’d discover who she was eventually. The one thing he knew for sure was that there was no such thing as the perfect coverup.
There were always breadcrumbs, he just had to follow them.
They never video called, which was fine.
In a way, he loved the mystery. Their constant communication was platonic, but that didn’t stop Keys’ heart from racing every time he saw a new message from her.
White: You’re enjoying this way too much.
Black: I know. Now choose: truth or dare?
Keys made a face she couldn’t see. Pawns were worth a single truth or dare choice.
It wasn’t until minor or major pieces were taken that things got more complicated, but for now, he had a choice.
He just didn’t know which to choose. In the past games that he’d lost, he’d chosen one truth and one dare.
The truth she’d asked of him had been to reveal the most embarrassing thing that happened to him on a date.
Which had sucked. Because how pathetic was he that he’d never even been on a date.
Twenty-four years old, a virgin, and only been kissed by one woman.
Thankfully, or unthankfully based on which way he could choose to look at it, he did have one story that he could play off without revealing that it hadn’t actually been a date.
At fifteen, he’d gone to college after gaining emancipation from his parents.
It had been a very specific and special case, as most judges won’t even look at emancipation cases until the teen was at least sixteen.
But for young Keys, he’d had to prove that emancipation was in his best interest to separate from his military father and overprotective mother, which he had.
Going to MIT had been incredible. But despite his genius and proving to the courts that he had the capabilities to take care of himself, Keys had still been a kid.
A kid who needed maturing. Looking back on it, it could have been worse.
Hell, college was full of adults who needed to grow up.
That was part of the college experience.
At seventeen, Keys allowed himself to be talked into hacking into the Pentagon to impress a pretty girl.
Anura. He still dreamed of her eyes sometimes, her laugh as she played with his hair, the way her nipples poked through every shirt she wore—and the sight of her going down on her knees in front of him just before a horde of police, including the FBI, NCIS, NSA, DCIS, and CISA, came barging through the door to arrest him.
It took over an hour for her to send the seemingly endless amount of hysterical laughter GIFs, emojis, and memes before she calmed down enough to ask him some questions. But at least she never questioned whether or not Keys had been on an actual date when that occurred.
His one and only experience with a woman had ended with him in handcuffs—and not the fun kind of handcuffs.
Pathetic.
So on his next defeat, he chose a dare. She’d also chosen dares when she’d lost her two games, but Keys’ dares had been more hilarious than embarrassing.
He’d dared her to dye her hair and send him a picture of just the top of her head, and to drink only water for seventy-two hours.
Since both of them practically lived off caffeine, she’d declared revenge.
He should have taken her more seriously.
In the dead of night, when the entire club was asleep, she’d dared Keys to streak from one end of the club’s property to the other. After informing her of the terrain, she did allow him to wear sneakers.
But that was it.
Naked as the day he was born, Keys had run from the black gate that guarded the main entrance to the clubhouse all the way across grass, sidewalk, and what once had been farmland, through trees, and past houses filled with his club brothers and their families.
Thank God he was the one who controlled all the club’s security cameras and feeds. Though he still swore the next day that Steel knew. The look he’d given him had been…knowing, which freaked Keys the fuck out and made him jumpy for days.
So now he had a choice to make. Risk another embarrassing truth or an even worse dare that could land him in a spot with his brothers.
They already saw him as the kid brother, the one they had to watch out for.
But what if she asked for another truth and Keys had to confess that he had no exes, or that much life experience, or that one story he’d told her was the extent of his sexual history?
Fuck. He’d rather face scrutiny and ridicule from his brothers than have to admit to a woman he’d never met that he was a virgin.
White: Dare.
The devil face that came across his screen made Keys sweat where he sat.
* * *
WiseWave620: Are you serious? Never??
Gl!tch.OS: Never! Personally, I never understood the point.
WiseWave620: Okay. I’m seriously questioning your sanity. The Point?! The point is to be free. To feel the wind in your hair and let go!
Gl!tch.OS: Don’t you wear a helmet?
WiseWave620: Metaphorical wind in your hair.
Gl!tch.OS: Motorcyclists are 29% more likely to die in a crash PER MILE TRAVELED than motorists.
WiseWave620: I travel in the middle of the pack, so my stats are even lower than that.
Gl!tch.OS:
WiseWave620:
WiseWave620: Seriously, though, you’ve never wanted to? Even in your “rebel teen years”, which I still need evidence of. You seem way too mature and put together for that.
Gl!tch.OS: Oh, and like you were that put together as a teen?
WiseWave620: You know damn well that I wasn’t.
Gl!tch.OS: Exactly. There’s your proof.
Gl!tch.OS: & no, never wanted to, never will.
WiseWave620: You’re missing out.
WiseWave620: How are you the tech of a motorcycle club and never been on a motorcycle??
Gl!tch.OS: I’m not a member of the club! I’m like a contract employee—or a contract boss, in a way. I find them problems that need solving and point them in the right direction.
WiseWave620: Lame.
Gl!tch.OS: Says the man wearing a unicorn onesie?
WiseWave620: Hey! I only have to wear it for another 42 minutes and then I will once again have my manhood back.
Gl!tch.OS: Baby, you never had it.
…
Gl!tch.OS: Keys?
…
Gl!tch.OS: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about your manhood.
I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. To be honest, you’re probably the best man I know.
And I know that sounds lame (though not as lame as wearing a unicorn onesie) but I AM being serious.
You’re real, Keys. In a way that is hard to find.
I’ve never felt so open, so honest, with any other man. And that, for me, is manly.
WiseWave620: Oh shit! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you hanging. I had a knock at my door and I had to hide so they didn’t find me in the onesie.
Gl!tch.OS: Oh.
…
WiseWave620: But thanks. For saying that, I mean.
It’s hard being around my brothers sometimes because they’re so macho and women just fall all over them.
I’m the “little brother”, you know. If anyone pays attention to me, it’s usually because they feel bad for me or they need something from me.
Reading your message really made me feel good. So thank you.
Gl!tch.OS: You’re welcome.