Hard Code: A Laugh-Out-Loud Workplace Romantic Comedy

by Misha Bell

  Crap. How long have I been standing here, ignoring that hand? And how the hell did this happen? How is Vlad the Impaler Hottie McDark? All the rumors about this man skipped a critical detail: how mouthwateringly attractive he is.

  “Are you okay?” the Impaler asks, his accent thickening.

  Ugh, now I’m ogling him. And still ignoring that hand. Gathering my courage, I stick out my arm and clasp his much, much bigger palm.

  Holy estrogen.

  My heart rate spikes, and a jolt of orgasmic energy spreads through my body, electrocuting a nest of angry butterflies in my stomach before settling somewhere low in my core.

  How many hours is it socially appropriate to hold a hand like this?

  Reluctantly, I peel my fingers away from his.

  He looks down at me, his expression completely unreadable. He’s either an amazing poker player or this handshake didn’t affect him at all.

  “Take a seat.” He gestures at the chair in front of his desk, and by the time I plop into it, he’s already in his. It’s Embody by Herman Miller, the very chair I have at home, only mine is blue while his is black.

  He lowers the music volume with a small remote. “You have a great reputation at Binary Birch, Ms. Pack.”

  I do? That’s news. Even if that were true, how would he know that?

  I don’t dare ask as that might be as suicidal as reciprocating by telling him his reputation isn’t so stellar.

  “Thank you,” I stammer before the silence veers into uncomfortable territory. “I love working here.” And by love, I mean tolerate. But what’s a little white lie between a monster and his prey?

  He stares at me, and I feel like I might drown in the lapis depths of his eyes. “The project I’m trusting you with is extremely important.”

  I bob my head up and down so vigorously, I nearly give myself whiplash.

  “The client—Belka—will get a chance to demonstrate the final product to the editors of Cosmopolitan magazine in two weeks.” He peers at me as though to verify that I know what Cosmo is, so I blush and nod, just in case. “That is a huge opportunity.” His dark eyebrows furrow minutely as he finishes with, “We can’t let Belka down.”

  “Yes, sir.” I give him a crisp military salute.

  Wait, what? Why did I do that?

  There’s no hint of amusement on his face. He must be used to such gestures from back when he participated in Napoleonic wars and what-not.

  He steeples his fingers. “I realize you must have the most thorough testing plan in mind.”

  Actually, I have the desire to suck on those long, masculine fingers in mind at the moment, but I keep that to myself.

  “I hope you will let me enrich your plan with some extra test cases—which may already overlap with yours.” He reaches into his desk and takes out a couple of stapled sheets of paper.

  Only now do I realize that he’s basically telling me how to do my job—which would be like me teaching him how to properly drink blood. Control freak much?

  As I snatch the papers, our fingers brush for a second, sending another dozen joules of electricity into my lower regions.

  Flushing, I glance at what I’m holding.

  Hmm. Pink paper. A faint smell of perfume. Pretty cursive with hearts dotting the occasional “i.” A woman must’ve put this together for him, and not Sandra, whose scent is more evocative of boiled cabbage. Besides, Sandra is obsessed with electronic communication, judging by all the constant “Save a Tree” propaganda in her email signature.

  The pang of jealously I suddenly experience is as inappropriate as it is insane.

  To avoid dwelling on it, I skim the content of the paper—and as I do, I feel the flush spread to my ears and chest, turning them beet red.

  There are items like “was orgasm achieved?” and “how many times?”

  I have the former in my testing plan already, but not the latter—which, of course, isn’t the source of my discombobulation.

  It’s just that reading the word orgasm in his presence feels wrong.

  And dirty.

  And somehow hot all at the same time.

  I better get out of here with what passes for my remaining dignity.

  “I will make sure to, um… utilize this”—I fan myself with the papers—“in my testing.”

  He reaches under the desk, yanks something out, and places it on the desk between us.

  I gape at it.

  Strictly speaking, it’s a carry-on suitcase—but only in the same sense as a disco ball is a globe. It’s covered in frilly polka dots and bejeweled with so many differently colored stones, you’d think a rainbow-farting unicorn had ejaculated on it.

  As I look closer, I realize most of the designs are not polka dots but tiny multicolored penises and vaginas that someone painstakingly drew by hand.

  At least I hope it was by hand.

  My cheeks veer off the red end of the visible spectrum, radiating as much infrared as a welding torch.

  Annoyingly, Vlad’s face only shows the neutral professionalism he’s been displaying throughout this whole encounter. Maybe he’s one of Anne Rice’s vampires—her older ones become as if made of stone over time.

  “The hardware is inside,” he says.

  A hybrid between a hiccup and a giggle escapes my throat.

  He just called a collection of dildos hardware, and probably not as a joke.

  “Got it.” I leap to my feet and reach for the suitcase just as he slides it forward.

  Our fingers brush, generating enough of that electric jolt to power the toys for a week. I swallow and yank the suitcase off the desk.

  It’s heavy. There must be more than a few dildos, and who knows what else.

  I hope Dominika’s vagina can handle it all. Not to mention, shipping this “hardware” to the Czech Republic will cost a small fortune. I really hope no one at the DHL office asks me what’s inside. For that matter, I pray no one here at the office asks me “What’s with the suitcase?” as I sprint to the elevator.

  “It was good to meet you,” I tell Vlad and prepare to make the sprint.

  “Will I see you at the monthly meeting in five minutes?” he asks.

  I nearly drop my genital-inscribed luggage.

  In theory, everyone is supposed to attend the monthly meeting. Its purpose is for us to have an idea of what the rest of Binary Birch is working on, find opportunities for synergy, and other corporate speak gobbledygook. In practice, since I’ve been working from home, I typically dial into this meeting on the phone, then promptly tune most of it out as I do my actual job of testing.

  I do know one thing: the Impaler is famous for never joining this meeting in person either—and he doesn’t have the work-from-home excuse. He just dials in and never says a word, though people claim to get emails about some things discussed at the meeting, hinting that he actually listens—which is why everyone is always on their best behavior during it.

  Yet he said “see you,” not “hear you,” so tradition is about to be broken for some reason.

  Of course, now I have to attend the meeting.

  With this suitcase.

  Shoot me now.

  “Affirmative,” I reply belatedly and fight another urge to salute. “See you soon.”

  Gracelessly, I spin around and head for the door, eager to escape the lair and its vampiric occupant.

  His voice stops me as I’m reaching for the door handle. “By the way, Ms. Pack…” he says to my back, and for the first time, I detect a hint of emotion in his tone. “You should know something. I don’t impale my employees.”

  Chapter Three

  Suitcase in hand, I shoot out of the Impaler’s office to the bathroom as if the hounds of hell were on my heels. A single thought spins through my mind like a broken vinyl record.

  He heard us at Starbucks.

  At least the part about him impaling female employees.

  What else did he hear?

  How screwed am I?

  “What the
bejesus is that?” asks an attractive black-haired woman as I come out of my stall.

  I dart an awkward glance at the suitcase I left by one of the sinks. “My niece’s school bag.”

  I don’t have a niece, but if I did, and this were her school bag, she’d need serious therapy.

  The stranger looks at me like I’m some exotic cricket in a terrarium. “I’m Britney Archibald.”

  This day is getting worse and worse. Though I’ve never seen her in person or on video, we know each other—at least over instant messenger and email.

  She’s one of the five women working in the development department, and I recently tested some code she wrote.

  Unfortunately, unlike the rest of her department, she’s not a very good programmer—or at least, she’s a careless one—because I found a plethora of bugs in her app, much more than usual. She turned out to have a paper-thin skin when it came to my findings, and her correspondence with me took an adversarial turn. I’ve tried to patch things up, especially since I’m angling to be in her department, but she’s rebuffed my attempts to jump on a video call and clear the air.

  The only reason I haven’t escalated this to our managers is that I’m not a snitch. Plus, rumor has it that Britney is a much better hacker than she is a developer. Apparently, after she broke up with one guy in the sales department, she hacked into his social media accounts and made his profile images a photo of him during some sort of pony play.

  Just my luck to bump into her, of all people, with the genitalia-decorated atrocity in my possession.

  I call forth all of my professionalism and extend my hand. “I’m Fanny Pack.”

  She glares at my palm in disgust.

  Oh, shit. I haven’t washed my hands yet—and I doubt she’ll accept “urine is sterile” as an excuse.

  I also see her eyes narrow as she recalls why my name is familiar.

  “Good to put a face to a name,” I blurt, and grabbing the suitcase, I sprint for the door. Over my shoulder, I add, “See you at the monthly meeting.”

  I think she replies with something catty, but I don’t catch what it is.

  I rush to the pantry and wash my hands in the sink there. Then I down a glass of water and sneak into the large conference room where the monthly meeting is going to take place.

  Great.

  I’m the first one here.

  I take the chair in the farthest corner and stash the suitcase under the table.

  There. No one should see it now, and the comfort of my knees is a small price to pay.

  As I wait for the rest of the employees to file in, I get Precious off the company’s Wi-Fi and search the internet for information about the Impaler.

  It’s eerie how little I find.

  He’s obscenely rich—but I already knew that. He owns a successful software company—I work there, so duh.

  There are no pictures of him online. Not on the Binary Birch website, nor in the newspapers, nor anywhere else I look. If I hadn’t snapped his pic with my app, I would’ve been sure he’s the type of vampire that doesn’t reflect in mirrors or appear in photos.

  He also doesn’t have a social media profile of any kind, not even a professional one, like LinkedIn. My Starbucks idea to backward search him via that photo would’ve failed.

  Of course, I don’t need to do that now. I know who he is, and any sort of romance is out of the question. He’s my boss’s boss—or boss squared—not to mention a notorious workaholic who doesn’t have time for anything else in his life.

  Besides, I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested in someone who works for him—as that would involve impaling that someone, and he said he doesn’t do that to employees. And even if impaling were on the table, I’m sure he wouldn’t want to do it to me.

  I shouldn’t even be thinking in this direction, not at such a pivotal moment in my career.

  And yet, I create a Google alert for his name. This way, if something about him does show up online, I’ll be the first to know.

  A door slams, making my head jerk up.

  As I stash Precious in my pocket, I realize the room is now packed—and the man I was just cyberstalking is standing at the head of the table, his rich blue eyes gleaming intensely behind his glasses.

  I gulp.

  Usually, one of the project managers chairs this meeting, but right now, their whole team is cowering in the corner.

  At least the men. The women in this room appear to be spontaneously ovulating.

  Britney is practically choking on her drool, and even Sandra—who must be at least thirty years his senior—is nearly as red as I am.

  “For the last few months, I’ve been working on Project Belka,” the Impaler says without so much as a “howdy y’all.” “It’s now in the testing stage.” He glances at me for a heartbeat, and Britney’s eyes turn my way, then narrow into slits.

  I sink lower in my seat and do my best tortoise impersonation. For the love of C++, please don’t tell them about the suitcase full of sex toys. Pretty please, with a gallon of the juiciest blood on top.

  He doesn’t.

  Instead, he moves his gaze to where the accountants are sitting. “If the QA team files any expense reports tagged Belka, the paperwork is to be expedited. If you have any questions about the whys of the reports, direct those to me.”

  The expressions on the faces of the accounting team imply there will be no questions. Ever.

  This is actually great. I really wanted to expense the exuberant shipping costs I’m about to accrue, but without his executive order, I wouldn’t have bothered. The accounting team gave me a runaround when I ordered myself an ergonomic keyboard, and that’s as work-related as any expense can get.

  But how did he know? Is he a precognitive vampire, a la Alice in Twilight?

  “This goes for everything else.” His gaze sweeps the room, lingering on me for a second. “Project Belka is a priority.”

  Wow.

  No pressure or anything.

  Did Sandra just sneak a guilty glance at me? She was the one who assigned me to this project, but then again, given how important this thing is turning out to be, she’d kind of paid me the compliment of “let’s throw the most likely to survive under that bus.”

  Britney raises her hand with the excitement of a grade-schooler who knows the answer to something for the first time in her life.

  Ignoring her, the Impaler turns on his heel and strides out of the room.

  “Do you need any help?” Britney shouts at his back. “I can code review if—”

  The door slams behind him.

  The room takes a collective relieved breath—everyone except Britney, that is. She looks like someone has just shaved her beloved pet tarantula.

  The conference bridge phone beeps, notifying us that the Impaler has just rejoined the meeting as his usual ghostly presence.

  One of the project managers takes over the meeting, but I can’t follow what he or anyone says due to all the adrenaline coursing through my system.

  This project is mega important.

  I can’t mess it up.

  To soothe myself, I take out Precious.

  Pretending like I’m glancing at an important memo, I bring up my app and use it on my coworkers.

  Sandra’s cartoon doppelgänger turns out to be Dory from Finding Nemo. Britney gets Maleficent—no surprise there. Someone in sales reminds the app of Sylvester J. Pussycat, a woman in accounting is Pepe Le Pew, while two guys from the development department match Beavis and Butt-Head.

  Seeing most of my fellow employees like this makes me realize something: The ratio of women to men in the development department, and the company overall, is much higher than for the software industry at large. This is especially interesting in light of said ratio in the educational system. When I was taking computer science courses at Brooklyn College, I was often the only female in my class.

  Is the Impaler behind this, or the HR department? If it’s the Impaler, color me impressed—with his vampiric
lifespan, he might’ve grown up when the glass ceiling was two inches above the floor.

  Well, whoever’s behind it, it’s one less thing to worry about when it comes to moving to the dev department.

  Speaking of which, I feel more determined to do that now than ever. In fact, I think I should make my request ASAP. At first, I was waiting for the completion of the Belka project, but thanks to this meeting, I’ve earned some visibility and there probably won’t be a better time.

  For the rest of the meeting, I play out different versions of my “move” pitch in my mind.

  When it’s over, I wait for everyone to leave before I deal with the suitcase again.

  Sylvester J. Pussycat and Pepe Le Pew are among the last to leave, with Beavis and Butt-Head on their tails.

  Only Sandra is left now, and she’s clearly stayed back on purpose.

  Whatever her reason, I decide to seize the moment before I chicken out. “Hi, Sandra. There’s something important I wanted to talk to you about.”

  She pales. I bet she thinks I’m about to flake on the testing project.

  Before she can have a heart attack, I hit her with my real agenda, and as she listens, some color returns to her cheeks.

  “Do you have any experience coding?” she asks when I’m done making my case. “This is the first thing they’ll ask me when I bring this up.”

  I tell her about my app and offer to share a link to the source control database, so she can pass it on to whoever wants to see what I’m capable of.

  “Please,” she says. “I’ll get that over to everyone on the development team, along with a glowing recommendation from me.”

  I beam at her. “I’m sorry to leave your team. Testing isn’t—”

  She waves this off. “It will be a shame to lose you, but you have to think about your career first and foremost.” She darts a furtive glance at the door and unplugs the conference room phone. “I wanted to talk to you about something as well. I know you always do a great job, but please do your best when it comes to the Belka project. I’m worried that if something were to go wrong, both our jobs would be on the line.”

  Great.

  I’ll either get the position I want, or lose my job altogether.