Page 83 of Chasing Headlines
“It's a FastTransfer file, let me get it for you.” I shuffled in a direction. Maybe toward my room.
“Liv dearest.” She yawned. “You grossly underestimate your friends.”
“What's that?” I looked over my shoulder.
She stood from her chair. “We're fans, you know.”
“Huh?”
“In your corner. Rooting for you. Just like when one of us needs a pick-me-up, you always find a way. Even if it's just listening and taking our side—with a vengeance.” She met my gaze. “But you really need to stop viewing the world as if you're the one on center stage, babe. It's not your best feature.”
I squinted at her. Light filtered in the room at strange angles and lit her face. It gleamed in her eyes. “I'm not sure I—? Center stage, what? Am I the one who went without sleep?”
“I'm a hacker. You say Pastebin, I say Anonpaste.” She stretched her arms above her head. “Either way, I found the files about thirty minutes after you went to bed, and have been working on it all night.” She paused then added. “Now,you owe meone.”
“I'll owe you seventeen. Well, maybe three. Three sounds reasonable. What'd you find?”
“Called in a favor for some API access rights. Temporary, of course. Setup a query and it's been running a few hours, now, against the asset database. Should finish in maybe another thirty?”
“That's time for us to grab coffee.”
She smiled, but her eyelids sagged almost completely shut. She wiped at the corner of her eye with one hand. The other gripped the back of her chair as if to keep her steady, or on her feet at all. But this was Cathy, my longtime friend since grade school. And she was a powerhouse.
Wait. “Called in a favor from who?” My brain kicked into gear at the same time my mouth did. “We've only been here three months and you try to avoid the IT team like the plague to 'stay off radars' or whatever.”
“You know what they say: keep your friends close, your enemies closer.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she sat down, again, eyes glued to her monitors.
“Enemies might be a little strong. It's not like they'd call you gutless. Or spineless. Or a snake in the grass. Some of them would probably find you admirable. Youarepretty amazing.”
“I feel pretty exhausted. It just hit me, and this Star Struck thing for all its hundred and thirty milligrams of caffeine can't seem to work fast enough.” She stopped. “Why are you mooning over that guy again?”
“I'm not mooning over him. I'm hating over him. I'm hoping he can feel the hate I'm manifesting and channeling in his direction.” I laid down on the couch. It sounded good. And maybe I would if I had the energy. The coffee maker seemed so far away, still.
My eyes closed, and the rest of me reminded my brain, in its impressionable, semi-conscious state . . .
Of those dark midnight eyes. His woodsy, masculine scent. How much I'd wanted to feel those apple-scented lips against mine.
“I can count the number of people you claimed to hate over the years, Liv—on like one finger.” Cathy's voice held a warning tone.
I groaned and sat up. “You mean . . . third grade playground bully.” We finished the sentence at the same time.
“Him! That guy. Whatever his name was. What a ginormous asshole in a pint-sized body.” I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled the rest of the way to the coffee station we set up by thedoor. Turned on the coffee-pod machine. It grumbled to life, as if it, too, was annoyed to be up before sunrise.
“Why does this guy bother you so much?” Cathy's voice called out over the sound of her rapid keyboard fire.
Because I admired him. Because I'm on his side. Because I wanted him . . . to like me.I opened the container from the pod-machine and poured water from the gallon jug we kept to fill it up. “He's bad for the team image and the team. His attitude sucks and he's—”Better than that.
“He seems determined to be pissed off at anyone, everyone. Even someone who?—”
A buzzing sound, sharp and nasally cut into my rant. I turned and looked. Cathy's head leaned against the back of her chair, her neck bent at an unfortunate angle. I let out a sigh. Hit the button to fill my mug with glorious caffeine, then headed off to my room to grab a blanket. I snagged my favorite fluffy throw and returned to the living room to wrap it around Cathy's shoulders.
I sent a text back to Rivers.
Liv: Work in progress.
He sent a thumbs up in reply.
I retrieved my cup of coffee, splashed in a healthy dose of creamer and curled up on the couch. Of all the things, freshman ECON seemed like a weird choice. Stealing the test bank questions without answers was a weird choice. Was it maybe an extortion scam? Prove the hacker could get to the database and thieve questions, but if someone wanted the answers, they'd have to pay? Was it just to cause havoc? Hackers were notorious for hacking something just to prove they could.