by Ruby Ryan
"Ethan Masterson?"
"Also yes."
"Oh thank God." I almost hugged him I was so relieved. "I'm from the office. Mrs. Arnold sent me to pick you up."
A funny smile crept onto his face, and he gazed at me with eyes so green it was like they were neon signs. "She too cheap to pay for a car?"
"How'd you guess?"
We hopped back in my car and left the terminal. I looked sideways at him as I exited onto the freeway; he was gorgeous, especially the way he filled out that shirt with muscle, but his eyes were bloodshot and he looked like he couldn't breathe out of his nose.
"You sick or something?"
He waved a hand. "Just hungover."
"You look worse than hungover. You sure you're not gunna give me the Spanish flu? I can take you home instead of the office."
"Thanks for your concern."
I eyed his sandals. "You can't go into work dressed like that."
He shook his head and said, "I've got a change of clothes in my office. And I've got too much shit to do when I get there. Lots of catching up."
"Yeah, that place is a mess right now. It doesn't help that Mrs. Arnold makes every inconvenience out to be the end of the world."
He snorted in agreement. "I got an email from her when I landed. The ditsy temp they sent fucked up all my database schema while I was gone. It'll probably be days before I have it all back to normal."
I felt a pang of surprise, then rage. "Wait, you're Ethan? Login account GID0224?"
"In the sunburned flesh."
It was him. He was the reason I'd struggled adjusting to the department: his stupid, shitty organization in the database.
I drove for a few minutes, and then couldn't hold back any longer.
"Maybe the database was fucked up before, and now that the collection boundaries are all configured to proper Microsoft standards everything will run smoother."
He gave a start, slowly turning his head toward me. "We don't use proper Microsoft standards for boundary discovery because we have more than 20,000 clients in our environment. It just makes everything crash. At least, until we upgrade to the newest version of System Center."
My face must have gone white as a ghost, because he suddenly smacked himself.
"You're the temp we brought in while I was gone, aren't you? Shit. I called you ditsy, didn't I? Shit. Shit."
"I'm Jessica, yes. And it's fine," I said curtly. "Ditsy was probably Mrs. Arnold's description."
"Actually, it was!" he seized on the excuse. "But seriously. Did you really redo the entire database schema?"
I stared straight ahead, and then said in a small voice, "Maybe."
"Whelp. I know what I'm doing today. And tonight. And tomorrow."
I wanted to apologize, but the weight in my chest wouldn't let me.
Gryphons vs Dragons
Emerald Gryphon
Sapphire Gryphon (Coming Soon!)
Ruby Gryphon (Coming Soon!)
Ruby Ryan is a small town Texas girl with a big, steamy imagination. She grew up on hard Science Fiction and Fantasy, and loves writing her own with a particularly romantic bend. After all, everything is better with a little romance!
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