Raincheck (Caldwell Brothers Book 6)

by Colleen Charles

  No. Better to just do this quietly on my own, then bring any successful results to him so he can make up his own mind about what to do with them.

  “Yeah, um...no, it’s nothing,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “Think I just zoned out for a sec. I’m fine.”

  “We’ve been working nonstop for the last thirty hours,” he observes. “That’s enough to put the zap on anyone’s head. Nap or caffeine?”

  “Caffeine,” I answer immediately. We’ve both gotten used to this multiple-choice game over the past week. “We’re too close to nailing this thing for me to sleep now.”

  He nods, goes to the mini-fridge, and tosses me a plastic bottle filled with cola. Now that my eyes are away from the screen, my blurry vision almost causes me to miss the bottle and have it hurtle to the floor in a liquid explosion. I fumble it, then carefully twist the cap, letting the hissing foam at the top lose its pressure before I remove it. As Hawk returns to his monitor, I understand that he knows I’m hiding my true thoughts from him, but he trusts me enough not to press the point further.

  I’ve never felt so...known before. So deeply and firmly understood. How many times over the years had I dreamed of being truly seen? Too many to count.

  It’s a good feeling.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hawk

  And on the seventh day, God rested. Except it’s the end of the sixth day, and I celebrate inside as I type in the final lines of code that will complete this software. I’ve had to piss for the last hour and a half, but I haven’t been willing to tear myself away from my computer. Neither of us has said a word since this morning, and there have been a few times when I’m pretty sure one or both of us even forgot to breathe. I feel the hunger, the pure drive of a race car, its engine roaring and overheated as it approaches the sweet release of the finish line.

  A certain kind of intensity always crackles at the end of a project, but it’s never felt like this before. Having someone to share the anticipation with steals my breath and hardens my cock. Even as the thought crosses my mind, I feel my face flush and my skin tingle. My heart hammers against my ribcage like a lunatic trying to escape the bars of his asylum.

  Six days since Wav and I had sex, and now we edge crazily close to a whole other kind of climax.

  I feel breath tickle the back of my neck and realize that she stands right behind me, watching me put the finishing touches on. Our energies have grown so entwined while working together that they seem to vibrate in perfect harmony. I see her in my peripheral vision, every muscle tense, every cell in her body on edge as her wide eyes flicker from side to side, taking in the new lines of code. She licks her lips and nods almost imperceptibly. What I type feels like it’s coming from both of us at once, like communicating telepathically.

  I get to the final line, and my fingers hover over the keys for just a moment, trembling. This is it. Just a few more keystrokes and the most important work I’ve ever done will be completed. If we’ve succeeded in what we set out to do, the results should make my initial plans for this software look like something designed by Fisher-Price.

  But then what?

  What I’ve shared with Waverly over the past week has been...well, nothing short of magical and that’s not a word I tend to throw around. I never knew I could integrate with another person so completely, and now that I’ve felt that, it’s like a drug that I dread quitting. It’s synergy, and that’s better than any narcotic. Every interaction with her seethes with a beauty I can’t really articulate, an intricate symphony that only we know how to play, with notes interlocking and building on each other into a mysterious crescendo that makes me feel like I can reach out and touch the moon.

  When the work ends, and all we have left is each other, will we be able to hang on to this strange sense of symbiosis? Or will it all be yanked out from under us, causing us to falter and retreat back into our separate worlds? I feel like Wile E. Coyote from the old cartoons – afraid that once I stop running and look down, I’ll realize I’ve gone off a cliff and start to plummet helplessly toward my own demise.

  Her hand hovers over my shoulder, and she holds her breath again. Somehow, without words, I know her mind races with the same thoughts and fears that I have echoing through my head.

  I shake mine. Whatever ends up happening between us, I can’t make this moment last forever, no matter how much I might want to. I inhale...lower my fingers to the keyboard...and tap out the last line of code, hitting the Enter key. When I do, her hand briefly tightens on me, a reflexive, almost orgasmic spasm. We both exhale at the same time.

  It’s done.

  Waverly removes her hand and retreats to her own computer, hitting the keys that will merge her work with mine. Before the final sequence, she looks up at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “Flip the switch, Igor,” I joke weakly.

  She favors me with a wan smile and hits Enter.

  A progress bar appears on my screen under the word “Downloading.” One-third of the way through, it stops as though it’s slammed into a brick wall, and I hear the fan in my computer panting and wheezing like a fat man climbing a steep staircase.

  Shit.

  It’s not going to work. The lines of code won’t interact properly, and we’ll end up with a screen full of gobbledygook, maybe even a corrupted drive depending on the severity of the bugs in the software. I search my mind frantically wondering about the last time we backed up our work? I feel like we were so caught up in what we were doing, we ignored the last two alarms we set. Or was it three? How far back will we have to go to rebuild this? Will anything even be salvageable?

  The progress bar remains still.

  Shit to the nth degree.

  Suddenly, my computer lets out a long, grinding, belch-like sound, and the progress bar makes three quick leaps to the end. The screen goes black for a second, and then it lights up with the colorful welcome screen: “SkyEye – Helping Casinos Keep Their Cards Close to the Vest!”

  Both of us erupt into triumphant shrieks of laughter. We grab each other and jump up and down in a circle, cackling, “It’s alive! It’s aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!”

  We chose to name it SkyEye after the series of surveillance cameras casinos generally refer to as “the eye in the sky.” These cameras are monitored by security personnel to try to catch cheaters. But thanks to our software, they’ll be able to do much more than that. On top of the mobile phone tracking feature I’d initially come up with, we developed a facial recognition program that can interface with a database of known cheaters, so security can bounce them more quickly – or even alert the authorities if there are warrants out for the person’s arrest. SkyEye also emits a low-level frequency that detects and disrupts electronics used for cheating, all without affecting people’s cell phones or other devices.

  It’ll make us millions of dollars, but more than that, it’s a gorgeous piece of software that will be utilized for years to come.

  And we did it together.

  We stop jumping up and down and look into each other’s eyes. Even without words, it’s clear we’re both having the same thoughts beginning and ending with now what?

  Then, before I know it, her lips are pressed against mine, and we clutch each other so tightly it hurts. It feels inevitable, and in that moment, I know what we’ve found with each other won’t go away just because the project ended. It feels like there’s no force on earth that could drag us apart, and I surrender to it with blind faith.

  Later, we’ll order pizza and sing along to Oingo Boingo’s “Weird Science” and talk about anything but programming and finally have a night of real, deep, restful sleep.

  But now, we tear each other’s clothes off and make love like our personal joining will bless our software baby.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Waverly

  I wake up the next morning feeling so many unfamiliar sensations that they seem to pull my mind in multiple directions at once.

  First, there’s the feeling of having gotten a full night
’s sleep. Even in the rare instances when I’m not working long hours on a project, I tend to sleep like a spasming crash test dummy, waking up every hour or so to toss and turn – and ultimately, giving up on rest entirely after three or four hours and returning to my computer.

  I generally don’t admit this even to myself, but these habits tend to keep me wound pretty tightly. They’re probably a big part of what makes me edgier, more defensive and impatient, less forgiving. I’m not used to actually feeling recharged when I wake up, and now that I do, I feel like a whole new person...calmer, more relaxed, more in control of my own thoughts and emotions. Rationality is something I could get used to.

  The feeling of having slept in an actual bed is even stranger. I have one because, well, that’s what people are supposed to get when they move into a place of their own – but I can’t remember ever using it. I always end up crashing on my couch with something mindless playing on the TV or putting my head down on my desk and waking up stiff and sore an hour later. I search my memory for the last time I spent a night in a bed, and all I can come up with are faded recollections of being a kid.

  Then there’s the ache between my legs, faint but undeniable.

  Since last night was only the second time I’ve had sex, my inexperienced pussy was still extremely tight, and its tender lips were stretched a bit in the throes of our desperate lovemaking. I wonder how many more times it will take before it stops making me sore. I don’t know, but I’m very eager to find out.

  And there’s the feeling of waking up with someone’s arm around me, their body pressed against mine. I’ve never slept with anyone as an adult, even platonically. To be honest, it always seemed like a stupid idea to me. How are we supposed to get any decent sleep with a heavy arm draped over us, or some big, hairy, clumsy, smelly body tossing and turning and snoring just inches away? Getting good sleep is hard enough without adding some other person’s weird sleep habits to our own. But now that I’ve actually done it, it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s oddly comforting to wake up nestled up against someone I...

  Love?

  Nope. Too early in the morning for thoughts like that. I tell myself the words I’m searching for are admire coupled with fierce attraction and leave it at that.

  But deep down, I know that’s the most bizarre feeling of all, the one that’s tugging on my brain the hardest. It’s the most difficult to ignore because I have no frame of reference for it. I’ve literally never felt this way about anyone before, and frankly, I’d never really considered it as something that ever could or would happen to me. I always saw fantasizing about some imaginary eventual love of my life or “the one” as a bunch of girly bullshit, a meaningless distraction, a waste of time. Now here I am in the grip of it, and it’s as sudden and surreal as finding myself riding a unicorn. How am I supposed to process these feelings when I can’t even name them?

  It feels like all the estrogen in my body has been released and is rioting within me, creating a woman where a girl once stood. And I’m not quite sure how to understand it.

  Before I can keep twisting myself in knots, Hawk stirs next to me, waking up. His arm tightens around me, and his touch fills me with warmth. He opens his eyes and smiles, and all at once I’m certain that this whole scenario is probably as crazy and unfamiliar to him as it is to me. His whole face seems to have changed since the first time I met him – it’s softer somehow, more open.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” he asks.

  Again, it feels like he’s reading my mind. “Which part?”

  He lifts his bare shoulders in a faint shrug. “All of it, I guess. Mostly, it’s strange to wake up knowing we’re not going to immediately hop back on our computers for hours on end since we finished the damn thing. Usually, the day after I complete a long and difficult project, I go out and treat myself to a massive breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, waffles, big stack of pancakes...interested?”

  I laugh. “As tempting as that carb-fest sounds, we should probably still hold off on going out together and leaving the work unprotected, at least until we turn it over to Nixon Caldwell. After that, it’ll be his problem, and we can do whatever we want.”

  “You’ve got a point.” He grins even wider as he runs a hand up my naked thigh. “Guess we’d better just stay here in bed together all day instead, huh?”

  Oh my god, does that sound tempting. But my mind keeps stubbornly returning to the idea of finding Hawk’s birth mother, like a dog that refuses to let go of a bone. I told myself I’d do it when I had time, and now that I do, I don’t feel like I can fully relax with him until I at least try. If I manage to find this information, I can offer it to him and let him make the choice himself. If I can’t, then he never needs to know I tried, and I can just let it go and concentrate on being with him.

  What does that even mean? What does being with him look like? Is it short-term? Long-term? How long until we have a real disagreement and end up hating each other. I’ve never been in a real relationship before or even had a brief fling. What am I supposed to do? Now that I’ve somehow found myself in one, how am I going to make it work? I feel like I’m about to try building a nuclear reactor with no blueprints, some leftover IKEA parts, and one hand tied behind my back.

  Well, one thing at a time. First, I’ll try to find Hawk’s mother, and then I can freak out about my lack of relationship experience. Instead of trying to control everything like I do with my work, I’ll go with the flow. Let things unfold naturally.

  Yeah, right.

  “That does sound like an amazing way to spend a day,” I admit. “Or maybe even a week. But unfortunately, I can’t do it today. I have to go out for a bit.”

  Hawk raises himself up onto his elbows, lifting an eyebrow quizzically. “Yeah? Where?”

  Shit. I should have expected that question and had a convincing answer prepared. Instead, I’ve been twisting my mind into a pretzel with all these doubts and anxieties. I scramble to come up with something, but all I can come up with is, “I, ah...just...I mean, it’s nothing serious, or anything like that...I just need to head back to my own place for a few hours. It’s been a full week, so I just feel like I should poke my head in, make sure everything’s where I left it. Maybe make a Target run on the way.” It’s a lame and half-baked excuse, and I feel like a moron for saying it.

  “Are you sure? Even God took the seventh day to rest, if you believe what you read in the papers.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. It’s a tempting offer, though. Hey, while I’m gone, you can tell Nixon we’ve finished working on it so he can arrange to pick it up. Since you two go way back and all. Like I said, once it’s out of our hands, we can go anywhere we want, whenever we want, for however long we want.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Hawk says with a wink. “Six whole months of Disneyworld, here we come!”

  I burst out laughing. I don’t have time for any frivolous princess themed shit. “Okay, almost anywhere.” With difficulty, I tear myself away from his arms and start putting my clothes back on, starting with my glasses.

  “Hey. Waverly.”

  I pause, turning back to look at him. His eyes are serious now, his smile gone.

  “Yeah?”

  He opens his mouth, closes it, blinks, then takes a deep breath and opens it again. Whatever he’s trying to say, it’s clearly difficult for him.

  “This is...I mean, this whole thing, you know, between us...it’s new for both of us, obviously. I know neither of us is very good at...being with people. Or at least, we haven’t had a lot of practice. So, I just, I want you to know...if you’re leaving because you need some space or whatever to, um, process all of this, or just take a few deep breaths...I totally understand that, and there’s no need to be mysterious about it. You can just say it, and I won’t get weird about it or be offended.”

  And the thing is, I probably should want that, shouldn’t I? That seems like something a normal person would need in a situation like this. But instead, I’m reluctant t
o go. I want to hop right back into bed with him and disappear into him completely.

  But like it or not, I don’t have the kind of mind that can just let go of an idea once I’ve had it. I have to see it through, or it’ll just keep gnawing at me, refusing to let me enjoy anything else. And that goes for my plan to find Hawk’s mother.

  His face is still solemn as he waits for me to answer. I try to ease the tension.

  “Nah, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that while you were doing all the work, I was spending a good two-thirds of my time on sex and dating sites. Yep, now that I’ve fucked, it turns out I really like it a lot and want to do it with as many other people as possible. I’ve got, like, twelve other dudes lined up outside my place right now, waiting for their turn. Unless...” I lift a shoulder and study my nails, trying hard not to smile. “Should I just have them come over here instead? Then I wouldn’t even have to go anywhere. Yeah, that makes sense. Would you mind? What am I saying, of course, you won’t mind. I’ll call them now.”

  Hawk laughs and his eyes flash fire at me. “Well, easy come, easy go. Just make sure you shower and brush your teeth before coming back over. Or, just spit a couple times and wipe yourself off with a damp rag...whatever, I’m not that particular.”

  “See? Who says romance is dead?” I zip up my jeans and lean over, kissing him. His hand finds the back of my neck, and it takes every last scrap of willpower I’ve got to finally pull away instead of surrendering. “I’ll be back soon, I promise. Should I grab anything while I’m out?”

  “Nope, we can order in when you get back. Hey, what’s your favorite movie?”