Page 31 of The Wrong Groom

Gabriel

Tristan was understanding enough to give me a few days off work after the wedding, but in all honesty, I don’t think that was helpful. I took the time, of course. Tried to adjust. But there’s only so much adjustment one can do in three days, and by the end of my short break, I found myself longing to go into the office.

Part of that was the awkwardness of having Alexis in the house. It wasn’t her presence that was the problem. It was her absence, the sense that she was always lingering just out of the room, avoiding me. She’s been polite, but distant, which makes everything all the more uncomfortable. I wish she could relax, treat this house like her home, but I understand why she can’t. Still, it doesn’t make things easier.

Another big part of my restlessness was the strain of being away from the office. I’m used to work. It keeps me moving. Without it, my mind feels like it’s in a fog, drifting through thoughts and worries.

I was looking forward to going back in. Today, though, I realize that not even work can help me.

I sit at my desk, my fingers tapping on the edge of my laptop. I’m in a rare state. Distracted. Frazzled. I haven’t been able to focus all day, and I’m certain that everyone can tell.

At around ten in the morning, my secretary, Jennifer, comes into my office, a cardboard cup of coffee in one hand and a memo in the other. She pauses in the doorway. “You doing okay, Mr. Thorne?”

I clear my throat, looking up. “Yeah. All good. I’m just… a little out of it today.”

She smiles, brandishing the coffee. “I thought so. You looked like you could use this.”

Jennifer crosses my office and sets the memo down on the edge of my desk, then hands me the coffee cup. I accept it with a grateful nod.

“Thanks,” I mutter, breathing in the earthy scent.

“Black, no sugar. The usual.” Her smile widens. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask. You know I’m here for you.”

“I really appreciate it, Jennifer,” I say, turning my attention to the memo. “Just… a lot on my mind.”

She leaves my office, the door closing behind her with a click. I sigh, taking a sip of the coffee. It’s scalding. It burns my tongue. Still, it’s a welcome distraction from my whirling thoughts. I place the cup down and try to refocus, flipping through my emails to find something, anything, that can pull me back into work mode.

There’s a knock at my office door. I sit back in my chair, frustrated, a headache beginning to brew behind my temples.

“What do you want?”

“Jesus, Gabriel.” Beckett’s voice drifts through the door. “You don’t have to bite my head off.”

I let out a groan and reach for the coffee cup. It’s going to be a long day, and I’ll need every precious drop of caffeine. “Come in.”

Beckett enters, his laptop tucked under one arm. He drops into the chair opposite my desk. “We need to talk about FlashUp.”

“Do we?” I reply sarcastically. “I’d rather not, to be honest.”

Ignoring me, Beckett opens his laptop and turns it around. There’s a pie chart open on the screen, displaying a colorful breakdown of user engagement metrics.

“Based on this data, it looks as though FlashUp has a bit of a bot problem,” he says. “We need to address this before it spirals out of control. Engagement is down across the board, and the number of accounts flagged for suspicious activity is rising.”

I lean forward, studying the pie chart. “Okay, but how is that our fault? Isn’t that more of an issue for the security team?”

“You’d think. But their job is fixing the problem. It’s our job to focus on why it happened in the first place.”

I stare at him blankly, uncomprehending. “So…”

“It’s an issue with the app,” he sighs. “It’s drawing bots because it’s not optimized for real user interaction.”

My brow furrows. He’s right. This isn’t a new issue with FlashUp, either. We’ve dealt with waves of bots over the past few months, and it’s been difficult to even gauge how many human users we have.

“Any ideas?” I ask him.

“None. Zero.” He scowls, turning his laptop back around. “But it’s pretty clear to me that our issue is with content, which is why I came to you. We have an authenticity problem on our hands.”

“You’re saying it needs, what—a human touch?”