Chapter 20 Alex
ALEX
"A scavenger hunt?" I stare at Jamie like she's just suggested I try debugging in COBOL. "That's your brilliant plan for winning back the most brilliant, stubborn woman I've ever met?"
Jamie perches on the edge of my desk, deliberately shifting my perfectly arranged stack of marketing reports just to watch me twitch. "Trust me on this one. Paige loves puzzles, loves a challenge. And what better way to show her you understand her than by speaking her language?"
I lean back in my chair, running a hand through my hair for approximately the thousandth time today. Pretty soon I'm going to look less "artfully tousled" and more "possibly electrocuted."
"Her language, huh?" The gears in my mind start turning, remembering all those late nights working on MindMeld, watching Paige's eyes light up as she explained some particularly elegant bit of code. "You mean like... actually coding something?"
"Exactly!" Jamie's eyes sparkle with that manic gleam she gets when she's onto something good. "But not just any code. Something special, something that shows you really get her."
I close my eyes, letting memories wash over me.
Paige, gesturing animatedly as she told me about her college thesis.
The way her whole face lit up when she talked about encryption algorithms and the history of cryptography.
How she'd been fascinated by the human element of it all – the code breakers who'd changed the course of history with nothing but their minds and determination.
My eyes snap open. "Enigma," I say, sitting up straight so fast I nearly topple my chair. "She did her thesis on it in college, right? The World War II cipher machine?"
Jamie's eyebrows shoot up, a slow grin spreading across her face. "You actually paid attention when she talked about that stuff? I usually zone out after the first mention of polynomial time complexity."
I feel heat creep up my neck. "I pay attention to everything about her."
"God, you're such a sap." Jamie rolls her eyes, but her smile is fond. "But yes, Enigma would be perfect. She's obsessed with it. Used to bore us all to tears with lectures about rotors and plugboards and whatever the hell a bombe is."
I'm already pulling up research on my laptop, diving deep into the complex world of World War II cryptography. "Okay, so I encode clues that lead her to different places... places that mean something to us..."
"Like that coffee shop where you first really talked," Jamie suggests. "You know, when you spent twenty minutes arguing about Python versus JavaScript until she threw a muffin at your head?"
"Best cranberry muffin I never got to eat," I say absently, making notes. "What about the park where she found Byte?"
"Mid City Park," I continue, the memory crystal clear. "He stole her block of cheese during a picnic. She was so mad, but then he looked at her with those big blue eyes and she just... melted. Said she knew right then she was taking him home."
Jamie stares at me like I've grown a second head. "Okay, seriously? How do you remember these things? I can barely remember what I had for breakfast."
I shrug, not looking up from my screen where I'm mapping out the complex mathematics behind the Enigma cipher. "Like I said, I pay attention."
But it's more than that. Every moment with Paige, every story she's told me, every laugh we've shared.
.. they're all burned into my memory like lines of perfect code.
The way she takes her coffee (triple shot espresso, extra hot, no room for cream because she's "not a heathen").
How she always has to have her monitors at exactly the same height or it drives her crazy.
The little dance she does when her code compiles correctly on the first try.
I work through the night, barely noticing as the office empties and fills again around me.
Each clue has to be perfect, each location meaningful.
The coffee shop where we first connected.
The park where she found Byte. The elevator where we first kissed.
The server room where we finally admitted there was something between us.
All leading to the final destination: my office, where she first let me see behind her walls, where she told me about her family and her fears and all the things that made her who she is.
But as I'm putting the finishing touches on the last clue, something stops me. A nagging feeling that this isn't enough, that I need to do more.
I pull out my phone, scrolling through my emails until I find them. The ones between me and Hollis, where I turned down his offer to buy CupidCode. The ones that prove I never really betrayed her at all.
"This is it," I murmur, reading through them again. My fingers hover over the keyboard as I start to encode one final message. Not a clue this time, but an apology. A confession of everything I feel for her, everything I should have said before.
"Well?" Jamie's voice from the doorway makes me jump. I look up to find her holding two cups of coffee and wearing yesterday's clothes. "How's Operation Win Back Paige going?"
"Have you been here all night too?"
She shrugs, handing me one of the coffees. "Someone had to make sure you didn't accidentally encode a marriage proposal in your sleep-deprived state."
I take a sip, grimacing at the bitter taste. It's not as good as when Paige makes it. "I think... I think it might actually work. But I need your help with one more thing."
She raises an eyebrow, perching on my desk again. "Oh?"
"Yeah." I hold up the stack of encoded messages, my heart pounding with equal parts fear and hope. "I need you to get her to the MindMeld launch party tomorrow night. And I need you to make sure she's wearing that green dress."
Jamie's eyes widen. "The one that makes her eyes look like sea glass when she's angry? The one she claims is too impractical for a programmer but secretly loves?"
I nod, my throat tight with all the things I want to say. All the things I need Paige to know.
"You really love her, don't you?" Jamie asks softly, studying my face.
"More than anything," I say simply. Because it's true. I love Paige Reynolds with every fiber of my being, every line of code in my soul. I love her brilliance and her stubbornness and the way she pretends not to find my puns funny even though I can always see her fighting back a smile.
I love her so much it terrifies me. But I'm done being scared. Done letting fear and pride and miscommunication keep us apart.
Tomorrow night, I'm going to lay it all on the line. Show her exactly who I am and how I feel, encoded in the language she understands best.
And maybe, just maybe, she'll finally see that we're a perfect match – just like her algorithm predicted all along.
"Alright, Romeo," Jamie says, pushing off my desk. "Get some sleep. You look like you've been debugging in the dark for a week."
I grin, running a hand through my disaster of a hairstyle. "That's my natural charm showing through."
She snorts. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that. And Alex?" She pauses at the door, her expression softening. "For what it's worth, I think she loves you too. She's just... scared. You know how she is with feelings."
I nod, my chest tight with hope and fear and everything in between. "Yeah, I know. That's why this has to be perfect. She deserves perfect."
"No," Jamie says quietly. "She deserves real. And that's exactly what you're giving her."
She leaves me alone with my codes and clues, with the weight of tomorrow pressing down on my shoulders. But for the first time in weeks, I feel light. Free.
Because tomorrow, one way or another, Paige will know the truth. All of it.
And maybe, just maybe, it will be enough to debug both our hearts.