I Have Lost My Way(41)

The monitor ticks to 80 percent.

“I’m tired of the proper way,” she says.

93 and 100. Freya lunges for the flash drive.

He stops her and ejects the drive and replaces the cap and puts the drive back on his keychain. Freya drags the files to the trash.

“Not that way,” he says. Harun opens the file, and instead of dragging it to the trash, he deletes the contents and leaves the file name intact. He does a search for files with the same name and does the same with a version saved in the cloud. Freya sees the name of the file show up in the finder.

“I thought you deleted it,” Freya says.

“I did. This is a ghost file. I deleted the actual contents but left just the folder there.” Harun smiles. “To avoid suspicion.”

Freya is in a hurry, but she takes a few seconds to appraise Harun. “You’re kind of devious, aren’t you?”

Harun allows the smallest of smiles. “You have no idea.”



* * *



— — —

Nathaniel is still talking to Freya on the phone when she and Harun emerge from the office, laughing, victorious.

“What the . . . ?” the assistant asks.

“Oh, there you are,” Nathaniel says, hanging up his phone.

“What were you doing in there?” the assistant demands.

Freya doesn’t answer. She takes Nathaniel’s hand. “Gotta go,” she trills.

“Did you know they were in there?” the assistant asks Nathaniel. She turns to Freya. “Hayden’s not going to be happy about that.”

“Oh well,” Freya says, taking Harun’s hand and leading them all to the elevator bank.

“What should I tell Hayden?” the assistant asks.

Harun presses the elevator button. Just as the elevator yawns opens, Freya turns to the assistant. “Tell him that art is personal. Business is not.” And the door closes. The three of them descend, holding hands, each one of them experiencing something that only hours before seemed inconceivable: happiness.





5





HAPPINESS



They keep running until they’re several blocks from Hayden’s office, not because they think they’re being pursued but because even with a possible concussion and a cut-up heel, it feels ridiculously good to be sprinting down the street, holding hands, a chain of three, laughing as they send irritated pedestrians skittering out of their way like pigeons.

They cut right, through a park—if you can call a handful of benches and a baseball diamond a park—when Nathaniel suddenly skids to a halt, nose twitching like he smells the pickup softball game. The teams are warming up, he can tell. The pitcher lets loose a drop ball, and the batter pops a wide foul, the ball sailing in their direction. On instinct, Nathaniel’s left arm shoots up, his mind’s eye seeing the catch before it happens. The smack of the leather against his palm sounds like a kiss.

It’s only when he looks down that he realizes he caught a foul in someone else’s game. “Sorry,” he calls, staring at the ball in his hand in wonder, unable to believe he caught it. But he did. And the pitcher is waiting, so, sense memory taking over once again, he throws it with aim so perfect the pitcher only needs to lift his glove to complete the catch.

“Thanks,” the pitcher calls, jogging over to where the three of them stand. “You play?” he asks Nathaniel.

“Used to.”

“Cool, cool. See those guys over there?” He gestures with his chin to a group of players standing on the edge of the field. They’re older, dressed in impeccably crisp pinstripe jerseys, as opposed to the teams playing, twentysomethings wearing street clothes. “They’re from the Lawyers League. They’re vulturing us because we’re down a few and you’re not supposed to hold the field without a full roster, but we have a full roster, just a bunch of our guys are late.” He sticks out his right hand and taps his chest with his gloved hand. “I’m Finny, by the way.”

Nathaniel shakes and introduces himself, Freya, and Harun. “How many are you down?”

“Three on our side, all stuck on the same stalled subway. Fucking MTA.” Finny shakes his head. “We’re playing with a couple of guys down in the outfield, but they’re breathing down our necks.” He glances at Nathaniel, Harun, and Freya. “There are three of you. You want to step in until my players can get here?”

Nathaniel has not played ball, has not wanted to play ball, since that day, nearly four years ago, when his coach invited him for a game of catch. But today he wants to play.

“Yeah!” Nathaniel says emphatically.

“No!” Freya and Harun say equally emphatically.

Nathaniel doesn’t want to be pushy. But man, he wants in on the game. His hand is still tingling from that catch.

“And you shouldn’t be playing either,” Harun adds. “The doctor said no excessive physical activity.”

“I feel fine,” Nathaniel says. “Better than I have in ages. And you both said the doctor was incompetent.”

“So you play,” Harun says.

“Not if you don’t.”

“I don’t play softball. I play cricket,” Harun says.

“What position?” Nathaniel asks.