Page 131 of Filthy Little Fix

I sigh. I turn to him, sliding my hands up his chest. "That's a shame," I whisper back. "The night would have been much more fun if I hadn't behaved."

"Then try not to behave now."

He leans in and kisses me, deep, slow, possessive. A kiss from someone who no longer has any doubts. A kiss from someone who is exactly where they want to be.

One hand slides up my back, his fingers tangling in my hair, pulling my head back, deepening the kiss. I melt against him, my entire being responding to a command that didn't need to be spoken.

When we pull apart, he keeps his forehead pressed against mine. His breath is hot on my skin. His eyes, dark and infinite, stare into me.

He's still fighting. I can feel it. The beast inside the cage, scratching at the bars, impatient.

But now, the cage has a keeper.

And the beast knows the way back to silence.

A path that goes through me.

CHAD.

Chad is reinventing himself.At least, that's what his new career coach, discovered via an Instagram ad, told him to do. He adjusts his LinkedIn profile for the seventeenth time, sitting in his home office—a corner of the living room with a wobbly desk and a yellowed monitor.

"Digital Synergy Strategic Architect,"he types, savoring the words. It sounds important. It sounds like someone who wasn't fired, but rather "transitioned to new exponential growth opportunities."

He sips his instant coffee. His mug has an old, faded tint, "#1 Boss," but it's an artifact from a lost civilization. He misses having employees to solve his life's technical problems. His new printer, for instance, sometimes disconnects from the Wi-Fi for no apparent reason. Probably a virus. Everything is always a virus.

An electronic hum and a mechanical click. He frowns. The printer in the corner, which had been dormant for days, wakes up. The small green lights blink.

"Huh?"

He pokes his laptop's touchpad. He hadn't sent anything to print.

With a whirring of gears, the machine's rollers begin to turn, pulling a single sheet of paper from the tray. Chad watches as the sheet slides through the internal mechanism. What is this? A random test page? A system error?

The sheet emerges, warm and pristine, landing softly in the output tray.

Silence.

Chad stands up, shuffling his feet on the carpet. He'd have to unplug it again. He leans over the machine, expecting just an ink smudge or an error code.

He peeks at the sheet.

In the exact center of the page, in a simple, tiny font, as if typed by a bored ghost, there's a message. Just three words.

Chad blinks. He picks up the paper, feeling the cheap texture between his fingers. He reads it again. The message has no sender, no context, no explanation. It's just there, in a sea of white.

He looks at the printer. The machine stares back, a green light blinking innocently. He looks around his empty apartment. The windows were closed.

"What the fuck...?" he whispers into the silence.

Who did this? A Russian hacker? Those marketing people he fired? Could it be... Leo?

He reconsiders. No. Leo's a good guy. Always helped him out.

He slaps the table—he knows who it was.

Nicole, it was definitely her, always with that look like she knew more than she was saying.

He mutters an expletive and leaves the sheet on the kitchen table. He keeps it there, displaying its tiny printed letters, and it, in all its glory, sits with its elegant writing:

fuck u chad