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He’d been thinking about me? About seeing me? “How did you think it would go?”
“I thought it wouldn’t. I tried to keep you from finding me.”
“Oh.” My step faltered and my mood did the same.
“Don’t take that the way it sounds. I hoped you’d moved on. Forgotten about me.”
The man who taught me half of what I know? Who actually cared that the nerdy quiet girl wanted his input on a project? Would didn’t dismiss me because of my awkwardness? Who starred in so many of my fantasies? “Like I could.”
“When I saw you on my doorstep, I— What have you been up to?” He glanced at me with a sad smile.
I... wanted to sandwich you between me and the doorframe and kiss you until you couldn’t breathe. I wouldn’t ask him to finish the thought because it couldn’t live up to my hopes. “Odd jobs here and there. Oz— Cole has taught me a lot about the hardware side of networking. Even if probation didn’t keep me from doing real programming, no one wants to hire the girl who hacked the world. But I’m getting by. Life is pretty good. You?”
As we walked, his arm brushed mine and his fingertips skittered across the back of my hand. It was a little thing, but the light contact set my never endings on fire.
“I do a lot of private tutoring... A little... It pays the bills.” Graham sighed.
The last time we’d spoke was at the courthouse before we entered our plea bargains. Graham was convinced his career was over.
He’d recover. I had no doubt. But from inside the struggle, I understood how it could look bleak.
“Your friend is Cole Denton.” Graham said the name with recognition. “You’ve got friends in a lot of interesting places looking out for you.”
“It’s nice.” And it wasn’t just Oz. My best friend, Violet. One of her boyfriends, Ramsey, was responsible for my reduced sentence years ago. Since Graham brought up Oz, it would be easy to gush, and I totally took that chance most of the time when it came to Oz.
Right now, I was here with Graham. A mind and man I’d looked up to for almost a decade. He wasn’t my professor anymore. Hooking up with him wouldn’t violate any ethics or honor codes. Optimism said he was as interested as me. Experience argued otherwise.
We reached the coffee shop, Graham held the door for me, and joined me in line. Did we look like a couple to the handful of other people here? Silver was peeking through around Graham’s temples—how did he feel about being thirty-nine and going gray?—and I looked young for my twenty-nine. But if I kissed him, would anyone even bat an eye?
Would he return the gesture, or freeze up? Or worst of all, push me away?
I may have a slew of fantasies about people watching while we screwed, but I didn’t know if making a move was a good idea, and I definitely didn’t want an audience if it wasn’t.
When we had a table, tucked away in the far corner of the cafe, I’d start simple. Ask if he was interested.
Or I’d chicken out completely.
We reached the cashier. “Quad shot mocha latte?” Graham asked me. “It’s on me.” He remembered what I used to drink.
Did my heart just start skipping rope? Darn straight. “Peppermint tea with sugar. I’m not young and dumb enough anymore to think I can drink espresso at night and still get any sleep.”
“You’re not even thirty, and you were never dumb.” He turned to the cashier, repeated my order, and got himself a large coffee.
I’d been joking. He was so serious sometimes. Even that was sexy.
Graham took our drinks and handed me mine. Did I fixate on that moment when his hand brushed mine? Uh, yeah. My imagination was working overtime tonight, and I either needed to shut it up, or get it what it wanted.
We found a table away from everyone. He held out my chair and pushed it in as I sat, then took the seat across from me. A table between us. Was that intentional? Him being polite?
“How have you been otherwise?” I asked.
He studied me with eyes so dark I could swim in them, his sturdy jaw set in that way that said he was thinking. “Good. Surviving. You?”
“Same.” I didn’t want to do this meaningless banter. I wanted actual answers about his actual life. “Have you been doing any modding lately?” When we started talking, way back when, that was one of the first things we realized we had in common. Graham and I both got into programming by making mods for games.
Of course, it was a totally different beast back then. I was doing it so I could play Violet’s PS1 games on my computer, since my parents didn’t believe in game consoles. He’d gotten into rewriting games so he could change character appearances and scenarios.
Graham shook his head, an almost-smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. “That would be a violation of my probation.”
