Page 27 of Meet Cute Reboot

And that’s that. No more funny business. No jokes. No trying to manipulate me into letting him stay. He simply leaves.

And I lock the door behind him.

I can’t sleep. Today’s drama has my brain reeling. The DoS attack. Luke revealing that he’s a majority investor in my company. This business venture could go wrong in so many ways.

I grab my phone off the nightstand and sit up. It’s 3:25. My alarm goes off in less than three hours. Tomorrow is going to be a six-cup coffee day. Six cups is my max, otherwise, my pulse starts racing. I don’t want to give myself a caffeine heart attack.

Drew called me five hours ago to tell me the site was back up. He said it might take a bit for the web traffic to roll in, so I didn’t bother to check my stats. Now that I’ve given it some time, curiosity is killing me.

My eyes bug when I check my subscribers. I’m up to five hundred. Is the botnet creating accounts? I should have asked Drew if such a thing were possible. When I scroll through the new profiles, however, they look legit.

What’s driving the traffic?

I open Instagram and check my engagement. My regular posts aren’t garnering more attention than usual. When I hop over to my Reels, things start to click. The Reel I filmed with Luke on our blind date has over fifty thousand views, with a thousand likes and three hundred comments.

OMG, you guys are sooo cute together.

You two belong in Hollywood.

I need Cupid!!

What’s the verdict? Are you soulmates?

Keep us posted. I want to know how this ends.

After reading all the comments, my head feels like a sixteen-pound bowling ball. I catch it with my hands. Apparently, I don’t need to swing naked from the rafters to get attention, I just have to star on Instagram next to my “soulmate,” the guy who’s funding my business, who could pull the plug at any moment.

I groan. Curse Luke and his good looks and charisma, with his never-give-up attitude and his mountains of money. I mean, I’m happy that subscribers are up, but at what cost?

That’s it. I don’t have time to parse this tonight. I need to sleep or I’m going to sound like a bumbling idiot on the radio tomorrow.

I pull my little-used bottle of melatonin out of the nightstand drawer, pop one in my mouth, and text Sarah to let her know I’ll be late to work.

Chapter 8

Luke

I’m pedaling down Rutledge Avenue as fast as my tired legs will spin, willing my muscles to go a couple more miles. I think my legs will survive. Not sure my bum will. I don’t have time to stop and stretch. It’s three forty-five. My radio spot with Cassie starts in fifteen minutes.

According to Google Maps, the bike route from my house to I107 was supposed to take forty-five minutes. I don’t know if I’m just slow or what, but I’ve already been riding for an hour. Plan was, I get to the radio station early, clean up a bit in the bathroom, enough to remove the sweat and the stink, but I don’t think that’s happening.

This impromptu bike ride has almost killed me twice, first when someone tried to pass in the bike lane. I veered right, nearly hitting their behemoth SUV, and then I rang the little bell on my handlebars for my own sake, not theirs.

Two minutes ago, I almost died when I circled a pothole into the path of a box truck. The guy braked and honked at me as if to mock my littleDing! Ding!

This isn’t my bike. I wouldn’t mount a bell on my bike. If I had a bike, I’d mount an air horn. That would have given Mr. SUV the what for. This is my mom’s bike that she trucked down from Chicago. Luckily it has more than one speed, barely, but it does have a Miss Gulch kind of vibe. Hopefully, Cassie won’t notice.

I have an ulterior motive. I want Cassie to take pity on me and offer to throw the bike in the back of her car and drive me home. Yeah, it’s pathetic, but I’m running out of ideas here. Mom would tell me to give up on her, but I can’t bring myself to do it yet.

I pass Rutledge Square Apartments and part of me wants to turn in, bang on the first door I see, and beg for water. I drank the last of mine five miles ago. It’s freaking hot out here. My arms feel like bacon in a frying pan.

I blink sweat from my eyes and pump my legs harder. I need a theme song. Miss Gulch’s song fromThe Wizard of Oz, the original movie. The one my mom forced me to watch as preparation for my role as the Tin Man in my sixth-grade play.

Seven minutes later I pull into the I107 parking lot, sweat dripping from every pore, gasping from my final push to make it here in time. There’s no rack to park my bike, no place to lock it. Someone could easily steal it which would be fine. I never want to see this bike again after that ride. So, I walk my bike onto the sidewalk and into the patch of grass in front of the building, and I lean it against an overgrown dwarf palm.

When I take off my backpack, the relative coolness of the air blasts me. I can tell I’m totally soaked, but I brought a towel for this. I strip off my shirt and then wipe down my face and body. As soon as the towel passes a spot of skin, more sweat spurts through. I wasn’t anticipating that.

One fresh shirt later and I’m inside the building flashing the receptionist my best “I’m lost” face. She points me down the hall and to the left.