The Dating Plan(14)
“Dad . . .” Daisy groaned. “Don’t do this.”
“I have to go,” he said sadly. “Maybe Priya and I can make it back to the jungle before they do the bungee jumping into the gorge. She didn’t want to try it because the elastic looked frayed, but what does it matter if my life is cut short a few extra years? My job as a father is done. You don’t need the ol’ man’s advice.”
“Okay, Dad.” She tipped her head back in frustration. “You win. I’ll meet him.”
“Salena Auntie will call you to set something up.” His voice lightened in an instant. “You will love him. I hear the roar of wedding bells already.”
“I think that’s a helicopter.”
“So it is. Time to lift off. A new adventure awaits!”
? 6 ?
TRIPLE shot latte on her right, another one of Priya’s muffin creations on her left, Daisy settled in at her workstation and turned on her computer. Tucked away at the back of the engineering floor, she could enter and exit each day with minimal human interaction. Since she was an introvert at heart, socializing with her colleagues was something she tried to avoid. It was better not to make connections when you knew you weren’t there for the long haul, and Daisy never usually stayed with any start-up longer than it took her shares to vest.
Unlike the rowdy second floor where the sales, marketing, finance, and design teams were based, the third floor was generally calm and quiet. Everyone understood the need to protect the programmers’ flow state. Programming required focused mental concentration and that meant no interruptions, no conversations, no ringing phones, no deliveries, no noise of any kind. The floor was serene and silent, and her little shadowed corner was the most peaceful of all.
As soon as her screens flickered to life, she put on her headphones, flicked to her playlist of dance music, and read over the cliff-hanger—a set of notes written in the form of code comments—she had written the night before to remind herself where she was in her thinking process when she had stopped coding for the day.
The code bug that had been frustrating her since the night before had been solved by her sleeping self—a miracle given that every crack and creak of the too-empty house had made her jolt awake. Sure enough, she was right. The test dates were causing the problem. She slid easily into her flow state, ignited by the cliff-hanger and fueled by caffeine and music. After three intense hours of coding, she joined the other project engineers for the morning stand-up to discuss the project with the team.
Josh Saldana, another senior software engineer, joined her as she refilled her Avengers mug at the coffee bar. Despite her attempts to keep to herself, Josh had latched on to her from the very first day—pulling her away from her desk at lunchtime, chatting with her over the office messaging service, and trying to drag her out for Friday night drinks. A fellow Marvel superheroes fan, he was friendly and upbeat, and now he was a permanent fixture in her otherwise impermanent life.
“No muffins today.” He looked sadly at the empty basket. “I’m going to starve. I know things are tight, but how I am supposed to work without sustenance?”
“There’s fruit.” Daisy pointed to the display.
“Fruit isn’t food.” Blessed with strong, even features, full lips, and eyes almost as dark as his thick, wavy hair, even a frown on Josh looked sexy. He was six feet of tall and lanky and a favorite with the staff on the second floor, but not so much with the other programmers. He had a tendency to roll his own code and would magically find his way off a project if he wasn’t permitted to build in his preferred language.
Daisy laughed and handed him a plastic container. “I might have brought a few of Priya’s muffins in case of a shortfall.”
“This is why I love you.” He took the container and peeked inside. “And I especially love you today because the blueberry ones are the best.”
“The stand-up was supposed to start three minutes ago.” Daisy glanced over at the door. Their project manager, Andrew Daly, was even more particular about time and schedules than her. Not once since she’d started working at Organicare had a stand-up ever started late.
“I heard a rumor something big was going on.” Josh took a healthy bite of muffin. “My guess is that Tyler either got funding, and he sent Andrew out to buy gourmet muffins, or he didn’t get funding and I should steal all the apples and sugar packets so I have something to live on when I get laid off.”
“I thought you said fruit wasn’t food.”
“It isn’t.” His nose wrinkled in disgust. “I’m going to sell the apples. I’ll tell people they’re organic, free range, grain fed, and watered with melted snow from Everest. I’ll make enough money to buy at least three months’ worth of muffins.”
“Nice.” She lifted an eyebrow. “You’re going to lie.”
“And steal.” He slipped a sugar packet into his pocket.
Daisy folded her arms. “If I’d known you were such a moral degenerate, I would have thought twice about agreeing to let you be my emotional support person.”
Josh laughed through another bite of muffin. “It’s too late now. You need me and all my moral corruption.”
“I need the stand-up to start.” She glanced down at her limited-edition Captain Marvel watch, a gift from her father when she got her first job. “I was deep into the flow and I don’t want to lose it.”