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Carson swallowed, closed his eyes, and steeled himself. Fine. It’s fine. I’m used to being discarded.

“It’s okay,” he said, voice steady, hiding the way his insides were crumbling to dust. “I understand. I’ll go pack up my stuff. I’ll even hand in my resignation so you don’t have to look like the bad guy. And I’ll be out of the company housing in a few days, as soon as I can get a storage unit and get my stuff moved. I’ll survive, I always do. I don’t need anyone. I—I’ve got enough to tide me over for a while,” he said, and his voice finally betrayed him as it broke, and his breath hitched. This is why I should have said “no” in the gym. Fuck I’m so stupid.

Before Zach could say anything else, Carson wrenched the door open and walked back to his desk, head held high.

****

Zach watched Carson go, damn near biting his tongue in half to keep himself from yelling after him.

It has to be this way. This is for the best.

Not that his heart was listening.

He took a minute to compose himself and returned to the conference room he’d stormed out of.

“Where?” Meg looked as though she were afraid to actually voice the question.

“He’s leaving the company. His decision. I apologize for that interruption. Let’s get started, shall we?”

Zach began reading off the information about the new contract, talking parameters and timelines and giving out assignments for the team to get started even as his brain refused to drop the sight of Carson’s face. He’d thought he was hiding it, but Zach had seen the heartbreak in his eyes. Two hours later Zach sent his team on their way, and he returned to his office, where he sat with his head in his hands.

“Sir?” Sharon, his assistant, knocked on his door, her voice hesitant.

“What is it?”

“Um, Mr. Carson brought this by for you. He said you were expecting it.”

Zach’s brows drew together as he extended an arm and took the envelope she held.

“Thanks. Can you cancel my afternoon meeting and reschedule it for later in the week?”

“Of course, sir. Anything else?”

“No, thank you.”

Zach turned the plain envelope over, looking at it as though he could discern the contents without opening it. An object about the size and shape of a flash drive slid around inside. With a sigh, he broke the seal and peered in. There was indeed a flash drive within the envelope, in addition to two pieces of paper. One began with “To Whom It May Concern,” and he promptly ignored that one after a cursory glance revealed the word “resignation” in the opening paragraph.

The second page was hand-written and far more interesting.

I finished my assignment first. Just in case you wanted to take a look. Thought you might be interested in what I found. I assume this was what you were doing yesterday from home for so long? (I checked the timestamps of the latest updates to the program before I added my notes.)

~C

Zach sighed. Carson had spent the entire weekend with him, filling the house with life and laughter. Then there had been a security breach on one of the accounts that had sent the ZIM Tech staff scrambling, to the point where they’d had to call Zach. He’d logged in from home and corrected the programming on the fly, stopped the digital bleeding enough that he could leave it ‘til the morning. He’d immediately assigned it to Vladislav for review when he’d arrived. Based on what Zach had seen of his work, he wanted to see what Vladislav would make of the problem that had arisen and how he’d fix it.

Whoever had broken into the system should not have been able to bypass Zach’s AI, and Zach had been livid, a walking ball of anger and stress by the time he’d finished. Carson had been there waiting, though, even after nearly three hours, with a glass of scotch and a wicked mouth, to resume Zach’s good mood.

He popped the flash drive into his computer, opened up the file, and began reading.

Zach’s jaw hit the floor.

“Holy shit!” he cried, slapping a hand over his mouth in shock.

Carson had fixed the program.

Better and more elegant than anything Zach would have come up with.

Most importantly, he’d caught a hole that Zach had missed when he’d written the original program, a spot of possible exploitation beyond what had been revealed in the attack the day before.