Big O Box Set

“Coffee shop?” he asks before I can even open my mouth to suggest it. I shoot him a grateful sideways smile and we head off toward what’s quickly becoming our spot. Somewhere along the way, he loops his hand through mine, and I squeeze his fingers tightly, enjoying the warmth of his grip, the steadiness of his support.

“So,” he starts as we step into the warm, reassuringly coffee-scented air of the corner coffee shop where we had our first date. “Tell me what happened.”

“I need caffeine first,” I protest. Like a mind-reader, he’s already in line. He orders for us both, and I notice with a little secret thrill that he remembered my order from last time. He already knows how I like my coffee. How many guys would notice that, let alone remember it?

We take a seat at the back, the same one where we sat last time, and I blow on my latte while he takes small sips of his tall black coffee.

“You made it sound like bad news,” he finally says, when the silence has stretched on too long.

“It’s not. It’s just… Complicated news,” I reply.

He lifts his eyebrows, expectant. Waiting for me to explain.

It doesn’t take more than that to get me to spill. I launch into the full story, from the moment I first told my boss everything, up to her proposal. “I don’t know how you’d feel about it; I know you wanted to warn her, give her a chance to back off, but she hacked corporate servers, Zayne…”

“I know.” He grimaces and blows on his coffee absently, before taking another long gulp. “But you’re right. She’s broken laws at this point. I can’t protect her from herself. It was her choice to hack your company, use that against you. She’d already gone way too far with taking that photo and putting it out in the world, she didn’t have to try and ruin your career along with it.” He scowls and shakes his head so hard that a lock of his blond hair falls across his forehead. I fight the urge to reach out and brush it back. That’s fast becoming a habit already.

“I’m sorry, Zayne.”

“Don’t be,” he answers fiercely, almost as soon as the words are out of my mouth. “I keep telling you this, Clove, but I mean it—you did not do anything. You don’t deserve any of this. Whatever we can do to fix this for you, we will.”

“So if I asked you for your ex’s details to send to my boss…”

He nods. “I’ll send you everything I have as soon as we get back home. Name, address, the way I think she hacked my account, in case it’s how she hacked your company’s too. All of it.”

“Thank you.” I bite my lip. “So…” His turn now. “How did your side of it go?”

He groans and drains the rest of his coffee in one swig. “She’s still living in the same apartment she had when we were dating. I’m not sure she has much of a social life, friends. It was weird.” He winces, closes his eyes. “She seems obsessed, really.”

I frown, my brows drawing together. “That bad?”

“Her whole apartment is just plastered with photos of us. Old ones, ones from years ago. And then newer photos, photos of me. Some of them she’s…” He clears his throat. I can tell that he’s badly shaken—and no wonder, given what he had to face today. “Some she’s Photoshopped me into. Others are me out on dates with other girls, people from the app who I met months ago. She’s crossed out all their faces, drawn curses on the pages. There’s one of you…” His voice breaks and he clenches his coffee cup so hard that the now-empty paper crumples in his fist. “She just sounds so normal when you speak to her. Like this is all so practical and mundane. Like she doesn’t even realize anything is weird about it.”

I reach across the table to rest my hand on top of his. “She needs help, Zayne.”

“I know. I tried to talk her into coming with me to a hospital, talking to a doctor, anything. She refused. Said it was none of my business. And I told her I’m deleting my account on that app, so she can stop bothering to hack it. She just told me that I got what I deserved.”

“But she hasn’t hacked any of your other devices or accounts, you don’t think?”

“Not that I could tell. Everything she had, all those pictures and information, it was all from the dating app. And she’s not exactly subtle. If she’d hacked other pieces of my life, I think there’d be evidence sitting around her house. Or she’d talk about it, mention it somehow. She isn’t sly, that’s one thing I have to say for her.” He laughs, a low, bitter laugh. “She always tells you the truth about exactly how fucking batshit she is.” His voice breaks on that, the bitterness too sharp for him to maintain. “I just want to see her somewhere safe. A hospital maybe, or with her family. She needs somebody to stop her from doing this.”

I can feel myself nodding in agreement. “We’ll find that for her. My company will look into it and they’ll realize that she’s not just a crazy random, that she’s… that she needs help from someone.”

“At any rate.” Zayne shrugs it off, with an almost physical effort, and smiles at me once more. “No matter what, she’s off your back. There’s no way she can access anything else we say to one another; she can’t get any more photos of you to harass you or threaten your career.”

“Thank you for talking to her. I know that must have been hard.”

He catches my hand and squeezes tightly. “Not as hard as the thought of losing you. Now that we’ve finally found each other, we finally have this chance…”

I nod, eyes locked on his. “We’re not going to miss each other again. Not this time.”

His smile widens. He turns my hand over in his and lowers his head. Plants a slow, searing kiss on my palm. It feels intimate and sexy as hell all at once, like we shouldn’t be allowed to do it in public, here in this coffee shop where anyone could look at us. I tug his hand toward me and kiss his fingers too, one at a time. By the time I reach his pinkie, he’s already standing.

“Want to go home?” I ask, one eyebrow raised. “It’s a bit early for bedtime.”

He smirks in response. “Actually, Ms. W

alker, I was thinking that it’s about time I took you out on a proper date.” He glances past me at the clock above the coffee shop door. No, not at that, I realize. At the marquis across the street. The little cinema that only plays 2 or 3 movies a week, depending on the week. Right now, it’s playing some film I don’t recognize, though to judge by the name, it’s some kind of mystery or action flick.

The next showing starts in 5 minutes.

“How would you feel about a movie?” he asks as he rises to his feet.

I stand beside him, and lean in to nudge my shoulder against his. “I could be lured into a dark theater with you,” I murmur, eyes bright with mischief.

He grins and taps under my chin lightly with one finger. “Don’t go getting too many ideas yet, dirty girl. The night is young.”

With that, we sweep out the coffee shop and beeline for the movie theater, our hands still wound tightly together. My night is looking up.

We take seats far at the back, expecting the rest of the theater to fill up. But by the time the previews end and the opening credits begin to roll, we’re only two of five people in the theater. The other three are dotted around the rows, the nearest person at least 4 rows in front of us and on the far side of the theater, sitting next to the aisle as though they’re worried they’ll need to do a few bathroom runs during this movie.

“What are we seeing?” I whisper, because the previews were a mix of comedy, horror, action and animated films, so I can’t even guess what genre this one will be.

To my amusement, Zayne shrugs. “No idea,” he whispers back. “I just liked the title.”

We settle in, the popcorn he insisted we buy balanced between us. Every now and again, our hands brush as we both reach into the popcorn at the same time. Every time they do, he insists on nudging my fingers. I lose count of how many times he makes me drop the handful of popcorn I’ve gripped, simply because I can’t help the small startled reaction that still races through me whenever our bare skin brushes. A spark of ignition that’s impossible to ignore.