Morgan wasn’t the jealous type. After additional reflection, he decided he was just worried she’d go for this other guy. He felt like she was the best thing that’d happened to him and— Could it be that I’ve fallen for her so quickly because she’s some kind of counterbalance to all the bad things that’ve happened to me in the past eight days? Maybe it’s like a rebound romance on steroids because of my brother’s death and the loss of Matilda?
Despite worrying that he shouldn’t pursue her, or anyone, right now, he decided he call her in the morning. He’d ask her to— He didn’t know what he’d ask her to do. He’d have to think of something.
Though it was late, Morgan knew he’d have a hard time getting to sleep. He checked his email and found that Alan had sent an email with a letter signed by the big three that repudiated the revised contract. Good, he thought, working on Matilda’ll keep my mind off Tilly. And, the routine of going through Matilda’s code’ll probably make me sleepy. He sent a copy of the repudiation to Roger so Roger could check it out with Treyvn and Associates.
Then he logged into Matilda and started trying to figure out what’d gone wrong. He already had several ideas—
***
Morgan stayed up late working out fixes for Matilda and getting them ready to upload as soon as Treyvn and Associates approved the letter from the big three. He’d found several issues. One was the kind of problem that cropped up occasionally but that he would’ve expected to be difficult to recognize for someone who wasn’t familiar with Matilda’s code. However, two were bits of malicious code Morgan thought might have been inserted by someone who worked at Matilda and was pissed off about getting screwed out of his share. Or her share, but Morgan thought he knew who’d done it. One of Morgan’s more effective coders. A guy who likely had his own backdoor into Matilda. Morgan worried for a bit about the morals of sabotaging Matilda. This made him think about how Roger’d suggested Morgan do the same thing. He wondered about the conflicting ethics of the two sides of that situation, but decided it’d probably solve itself once he was allowed to fix Matilda. That’d put an end to any ongoing sabotage, since everyone should be happy with their contract again.
Saturday morning
Despite staying up late working on Matilda and then worrying about what’d happened with Tilly anyway, Morgan was up early on Saturday morning because he couldn’t sleep.
As he’d expected, he hadn’t yet gotten any replies from Roger regarding what Treyvn thought.
It was too early to call Tilly.
He knew he couldn’t get back to sleep
He turned to getting things set up for a waffle breakfast.
Everything was ready. He was trying to think of something else to do to keep himself occupied when Kiri came down the stairs. She had on her running gear, and Morgan expected her to shoot out the door like she had on the other mornings. Instead she hesitantly stepped into the kitchen. She had on a neon pink tank top and black running shorts. When her blue eyes found his, he thought they looked electric. Morgan couldn’t help but think he could understand why Adam was crazy about her. But if it’s her looks alone, it’s probably only an infatuation, he thought.
Kiri said, “The guys are still asleep, right?”
Morgan nodded, “Think you’ll be up for some waffles when you get back from your run?”
“Sure.” Morgan thought she even looked enthusiastic about it. She said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
“Shoot.”
“It’s about our financial… issues.”
Morgan thought about saying something about how the Matilda settlement would probably solve those problems, but after all the settlement still wasn’t a bird in the hand. Besides, it’s good for someone her age to think about financial issues and look for solutions. He nodded, “Go ahead.”
“The other day, when I was up at the mine checking out the transmutation set up, I realized that Dad had been making an iridium run when he got interrupted by Norwood.”
“Ah, had he made much of it?”
“A chunk about the size of half a stick of butter. Almost 1.4 kilograms—” Morgan frowned as he tried to work out the value, but before he made any progress, she continued, “about $61,000 worth.” She shrugged, “Assuming we can find a buyer.”
Morgan almost said he’d start looking. Instead, he smiled at her and said, “Sounds like we could keep the mine for a while then, huh?”
She nodded.
He said, “You want to try to figure out who’d buy iridium?”
She nodded, “Sure. I’m a little worried that they’re going to want to know where we got it.”
Morgan grinned, “I guess we probably shouldn’t tell them we can make it until we’ve proved we can.”
Kiri glanced away, then looked back at Morgan. “I can make more,” she said simply.
Morgan felt like he should doubt her, however, the look in her eyes said she felt completely certain she could. He said, “Great. Maybe you could start another run sometime this weekend?”
“Okay. I’m not sure how much more rhenium we have though.”
“Would you feel okay showing me how to run it?”
“Yeah,” she said, sounding as if showing him would relieve her of a burden. “Later this morning though. I gotta get my run in before I explode.”
“Before you go—” Morgan said.
She turned to look at him questioningly.
“What grade are you in?”
She frowned as if she were about to ask him why he wanted to know—or why didn’t know—but then she just said, “I’m a Junior.” She turned to the door and was gone.
Morgan thought, I guess she skipped ahead at least a year. He thought about their entire conversation as he watched her lope across the clearing toward the start of one of her trails. I get the feeling her heart’s truly decided to trust me, he thought.
It felt good.
***
Lindl showed up in the kitchen before Adam did. Today’s T-shirt had a picture of a guy twisting one of several tuning pegs on the head of a fish. The caption said “Tune-a-Fish.” When Lindl saw the waffle iron sitting out on the counter, he said, “Awesome! Shall I plug it in?”
Morgan said, “Sure. By the time you’re done with your half a dozen waffles, Kiri should be back from her run. Is Adam up yet?”
“Uh-huh,” Lindl said, plugging in the waffle iron. “Well, at least he rolled over as I was leaving the room. Probably means he’s awake, but I can’t be sure.” The young man turned and looked at the counter where Morgan had set out waffle mix, milk, vegetable oil, eggs and chopped pecans. “Hey, are you gonna teach me how to make waffles with pecans in them?”
Morgan smiled, “I thought it’d be a good first lesson since they’re pretty easy and you like ‘em so much.” He showed Lindl the recipe on the back of the box, suggested a couple of small modifications, and watched Lindl get started. He said, “I thought your band sounded really good last night.”
“Really?” Though Lindl was still focused on what he was doing, Morgan saw the corners of his mouth slant upward. “From what Adam said, you were mostly worried about Kiri’s lawyer.”
“Oh geez,” Morgan almost moaned. “Teenage boys aren’t supposed to gossip.”
Lindl looked up at him with one lowered eyebrow, “Not gossiping. Just keeping track of the mental health of my guardian.” He looked back down at the bowl where he’d put his ingredients, “Now I stir it up?”
“Yeah,” Morgan said with a little laugh. “Your guardian’s mental health is just fine.”
“Not the way I heard it. Supposedly you were looking brokenhearted. Didn’t you just meet her this past weekend?”
“Um, yeah. What’s that have to do with it?”
Lindl looked over at the waffle iron, “Now I just pour in some of this batter?”
“If the little red light on the waffle iron’s gone off, yeah. I’d spray it with a little bit of that nonstick spray first. Then put your chopped pecans ont
o the iron before you pour in the batter.”
Lindl sprayed, then put on a lot of chopped pecans. He poured on batter, asking Morgan for feedback about whether he’d poured on enough. He closed the iron, then looked up at Morgan. “It just seems like you shouldn’t be so upset about woman you’d only met a few days ago.”
Morgan opened his mouth to deny being upset, then shut it. I shouldn’t try to lie to my nephew, he decided. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be upset. If I were on the outside looking in, I’d be accusing myself of acting like a love-struck teenager—” He paused as he realized he’d just insulted his audience, “Um, not that—”
Lindl waved it away, saying, “Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t take much perception to realize that people my age can display a lot of angst over failed love. I’m not quite sure yet whether older people aren’t hurt as bad, or just hide their emotions better.” He looked Morgan directly in the eye, “But it sounds like something’s really gotten to you, huh?”
“Yeah,” Morgan sighed. “If I was watching this happen to one of my friends, I’d say he was just vulnerable because he’d recently broken up with his wife. It feels different to me though. Ms. Arvind’s pretty, smart, kind, and a fun conversationalist.”
“Wow,” Lindl said. “That’s a lot of compliments for a lady you’ve only met once and still call by her last name.”
“I—” Morgan paused, a little embarrassed, “I might’ve seen her a couple of other times.”
“Seen who a couple of other times?” Adam asked as he walked into the kitchen.
Lindl turned, “We’re talking about Tilly Arvind.”
Adam shot Lindl an astonished glance, “Have you been getting my dad to talk about his feelings?” He lifted his eyebrows high as he turned to look at Morgan, “I can’t get him to do that!”
Morgan rolled his eyes.
Lindl turned back to Morgan, “So you knew her before you hired her to help Kiri?”
Morgan shook his head, feeling embarrassed, even though he thought surely he was too old for that.
Lindl said, “You’ve seen her this week? When?”
In case he was blushing, Morgan turned to look out the window, “I might’ve taken her to lunch a couple times.” Realizing he might have a way to derail the conversation, he turned back to look at the waffle iron. “You’d better get your waffle before it burns.”
Lindl got out his waffle and plated it. Adam set about pouring one for himself. As a preemptive strike to try to keep them from getting back on the subject of Tilly Arvind, Morgan said, “Seemed like there were a lot of young ladies at the Delroy. They acted like they were pretty crazy about your band.”
Lindl looked embarrassed, “Yeah. I think they’re just there to see Mack. I wish they were more interested in the music.”
“Mack?” Adam said, sounding incredulous.
“The bass player,” Lindl said, putting a big chunk of waffle in his mouth. He spoke with his mouth full, “Mack’s supposed to be quite the lady’s man.”
“I think those girls were there for you, man,” Adam said. Though he realized he was out of touch with the younger generation, Morgan thought Adam was probably right.
The back door banged shut, indicating Kiri’s return.
Lindl swallowed, “Nah, I’m just the guitarist, not the eye candy.”
Kiri came around the corner, eyes wide, “Eye candy? You? Damn right you’re not the eye candy. If it wasn’t for your stupid T-shirts, the girls might occasionally notice you but—”
Lindl broke a wide smile, “You know you love my T-shirts. Just like I love your fluorescent pink fashion statements.”
“Neon, you philistine. Neon pink.” She turned for the stairs, “Don’t eat all the waffles, I’ll be right back.”
Morgan saw Adam watching her go. “Adam, your waffle’s ready.”
Adam looked a little guilty as he turned and opened the waffle iron.
***
To distract himself, he looked at his newsfeed. The first thing he came to was an article about how the 12 Bones restaurant was going to be open on Saturdays starting this weekend. After extensive deliberation, Morgan sent Tilly a text, “Lunch at 12 Bones?”
A couple of minutes later he got a reply, “It’s closed on weekends.”
He sent her another, “It’s going to be open on Saturdays starting this weekend. Interested?”
She replied, “Sure. See you there @ 12:30?”
He felt greatly relieved. He’d felt sure she’d put him off in favor of her new guy. He replied again, saying yes, then started worrying that her replies seemed a little terse. What if she’s just meeting me to tell me she’s found this other guy?
To get his mind out of its downward spiral, he returned to his newsfeed. The next thing he noticed was an article about the degradation in the performance of Matilda. The author said, “…users everywhere are infuriated. Apparently, Matilda’s technology was appropriated by new owners in a secret corporate deal last week. Whoever purchased her apparently obtained the rights to her technology without actually taking over her corporate structure or keeping on key employees. When they ran into problems, the new owners tried to hire some Matilda employees in order to maintain her in a functioning state, but the employees refused, claiming that they had been unjustly terminated in order to keep them from sharing in the profits of the sale…” Morgan thought, That’s not exactly how I would’ve described it, but I suppose it’s accurate enough.
He thought about just how grateful he should be that those unnamed employees stood up for everyone else by stonewalling the new owners. He wondered just who was going to keep Matilda functioning. He didn’t mind fixing her this weekend, but obviously, with his one-sixth share of the sale, he’d no longer have any need to continue doing her programming. Some of the people who’ve hired on relatively recently’ll be getting a small enough share that they’ll probably be happy to keep working for the new owners, he thought.
As he pondered, he suddenly realized he should check to see if he could upload the fixes he’d come up with last night.
Treyvn and Associates had, in fact, approved the letter that’d been signed last night, so he uploaded his patches to Matilda’s software. By the time he was sure they were working, it was almost time to go to 12 Bones. He looked up the stairs, reluctantly thinking he needed to let the kids know where he was going.
He trudged his way up the stairs. Kiri’s door was open so he leaned in there first. “Hey, I’m going into town for a bit. You need anything?”
She shook her head without looking away from her computer’s screen. As he started down the hall to Lindl’s room his brain processed what he’d seen on her monitor. It’d been covered with odd symbols that he was pretty sure were used in sophisticated math. In fact, a lot of the symbols looked like the ones that’d been in that theory she’d given him to take to Satya. He decided she must be trying to learn something about that kind of math. He thought, I’ll bet she’s actually trying to understand how her dad’s transmutation technology works! He decided it was a great goal for a fifteen-year-old. As long as it isn’t so frustrating it turns her off to math…
He leaned into Lindl’s room. Adam was in there doing something on his laptop and Lindl, surprise-surprise, was playing his guitar. “Hey, I’m going into town for a bit. You need me to get you guys anything?”
Adam started getting up, “I’ll drive.”
“Um—” Morgan said brilliantly, thinking he should have foreseen the possibility that Adam would want more driving practice. I should have already come up with a reason why he wouldn’t want to go. He said, “You’d be bored,” and hoped Adam wouldn’t ask a follow-up question.
It was too much to hope for. Adam said, “What are you going to be doing?”
Morgan said, “Um—”
He didn’t have to say anything more, because Lindl shifted his chord progression and sang, “Sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
Morgan felt his face heating. Evident
ly they could see it this time. Adam said, “Oh, you’ve got it bad…”
Saturday afternoon
Morgan got to 12 Bones early. When Tilly arrived, she had on tasteful jeans, a T-shirt, and cowboy boots. He realized it was the first time he’d seen her in anything but the professional clothes she wore for work. Those were stylish and looked good, but he thought he liked her better in what she had on now. “Hi, glad you could come.”
She drew back as if startled, placing her hand on her chest, “I couldn’t possibly turn down a lunch at 12 Bones!”
Morgan laughed, “Sorry if it’s not up to par for a lady of your discrimination and taste, but I really like it.”
She grinned, “I really like it too.” She lifted a foot to display her boot, “That’s why I wore my shit kickers.”
He opened the door and ushered her in, “I like your shit kickers too.”
After they’d ordered and sat down to wait for their food, she said, “So, why didn’t you come over and say hello last night?”
I guess she saw me. Internally, Morgan laughed at himself, And here I’ve been agonizing about how I’d bring up last night. He shrugged and said, “You were with another man.” He put on a pout that he hoped wouldn’t look too ridiculous. He put his hand on his chest and said, “I was heartbroken.”
“Ah,” she said generating a broad smile. She lifted an eyebrow, “And you probably noticed he looks partially Indian, like me. Someone my family might find a more suitable marriage prospect, eh?”
His heart sinking, Morgan nodded.
She leaned closer and gently punched him on the shoulder, “He’s my brother, you doofus.”
A wave of relief washed over Morgan and he felt a silly grin forming on his face. “Oh,” he said brilliantly. “So why were two siblings out barhopping together?”
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