Page 9 of Ride the Lightning
“I’m sure you heard how badly the meetings went yesterday,” Jonah said. “I doubt anyone excludes me from the morning gossip.”
“Definitely not,” Avery admitted. “People go back and tell their assistants and interns how poorly Butch Trexler treats you, and they can’t wait to fill me in. There’s an office pool on how long you’ll last at this job.”
“How long I’ll last?” He’d already worked for the bureau for three years. “Before I do what? Harm him or quit?”
Avery tipped his head to the side. “I’m not sure what ‘Hulk out’ entails.”
“Did you bet against me?”
“What do you think?” Avery punctuated his question with an exaggerated eye roll.
Jonah wasn’t sure he wanted to know. As his intern, Avery should be on his side. As Jonah goes, so does Avery, or something like that. He didn’t like thinking Avery was rooting against him, or worse, plotting against him.
“I would never bet against you.”
“Can we get to work now?”
“You’re the boss,” Avery said.
Jonah fumbled his coffee cup and nearly dropped it. He’d lain in bed the night before, fucking his fist while fantasizing about Avery saying that very same thing after Jonah ordered him to drop to his knees and suck his cock.
“What?” Avery asked. “You’re not the boss?”
Jonah swallowed hard. “I am the boss.”
Avery set his cup down on the desk and clapped. “That’s good, Jonah. Now say it with more conviction.”
Jonah traded the coffee cup for the legal notepad on his desk. He and Avery used it often to make notes for one another when they were working simultaneously on different aspects of their projects. Both men liked to listen to music while working, and constantly hitting pause to chat about different coding variables was just annoying. Most days, the notebook was filled with computer-geek jargon that most people wouldn’t understand. In between those scribblings were messages they wrote to one another and sometimes a rousing game of tic-tac-toe. What Avery didn’t know, and Jonah would never tell him, was that he’d kept every single page of gibberish in a drawer at home. So pathetic.
Jonah picked up a pen and wrote,You’re fired.
Avery pulled another pen from the cup on Jonah’s desk and wrote,Ha! You’re a funny guy.Then Avery returned the pen to the cup and smiled impishly.
Jonah had seen that same wicked grin behind his closed eyelids in the early morning hours. Recalling it in his office made him break out in a cold sweat.
“I don’t know why you insist on goofing around when there’s work to be done,” Avery said in a mockingly severe tone. His lips quivered, ruining the effect, but he continued. “We’re so close to completing your microchip design. It will change the way people view cybersecurity, so maybe you focus on that instead of Bill and Ashley.”
Jonah grimaced. “Do I really come off sounding that douchey?”
Avery’s eyes widened. “God, no. I was trying to imitate Trexler. Seems I need to work on my skills.”
“Or, we could focus on the microchip,” Jonah suggested.
“Fine. Be a thundercloud,” Avery teased. “The storms woke me up this morning, and I started thinking about you.”
Jonah quirked a brow, and Avery’s eyes widened.
“I meant the chip. I have some ideas on how to improve it. To beat a hacker, you have to think like one. You”—Avery pointed at Jonah—“don’t think like a hacker. Do you want to hear my suggestions?”
“Of course.”
He’d be an idiot not to listen to Avery’s suggestions because Ellen had been right about his intern’s skillset. He was brilliant. Jonah just wished his admiration stopped there and didn’t wander to Avery’s lithe body, or his generous mouth, and pert ass. As fine as those attributes were, and he’d spent many hours thinking about them, Avery’s feisty spirit was the irresistible flame Jonah couldn’t ignore.
Too bad Avery’s exuberance also meant he liked to gesture with his hands, sometimes wildly. It was how Jonah’s coffee cup ended up knocked over a few hours later.
“Fuck!” Jonah said, shoving his chair back from his desk. He wasn’t fast enough.
“Oh no.” Avery’s horror-stricken voice matched his expression. “Not again.”