Page 27 of Should Our Stars Collide

Sent by: Janet, HR

Nooo. Not Janet. The same Janet who once claimed her desktop ‘smelled weird’ (it was a microwaved tuna sandwich in her desk drawer).

Okay, deep breaths.

The ticket comes with a single attachment—a screenshot of her desktop. Taken with a phone. With the flash on.

Kieran squints at the contents, managing to somewhat decrypt it after a few minutes.

Janet’s desktop has about a hundred icons, all of that on a colorful rainforest background.

There’s a pop-up in the corner, the system encouraging a Windows update.

That’s it. That’s the crisis.

In the interest of resolving this quickly, despite hating phone calls, Kieran calls Janet directly. As expected, the explanation goes over her head.

“There’s a message saying it wants to restart the computer,” she tells him, sounding irritated. “I didn’t tell it to do that. Someone must be controlling it remotely. Maybe the Russians.”

Kieran pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Janet, it’s a Windows update. Your system is overdue for a patch. It needs to restart to apply security updates.”

“But what if I don’t want it to restart? What if it deletes all my files? What if it…” her voice drops into a whisper, “downloads porn?”

“Shockingly, porn isn’t part of the Windows update.” How sad is that?

“But I heard?—”

Twenty minutes and a few more conspiracy theories later, the ‘issue’ has been resolved and Kieran’s shift is officially over. As is his will to live.

What a long fucking day, and it’s only Wednesday. He can’t wait to go home and do absolutely nothing.

“Yo, Kieran, you coming?” Shane calls as he, Joe, and two other guys, whose names Kieran can’t recall, make their way to the lifts.

“To…?”

“You didn’t hear? It’s Dan’s last day, so we’re going to Harvey’s for a couple of beers.”

It would probably be helpful if he knew which one Dan is. Not that he can ask.

Despite his initial reflex to decline the invitation, Kieran ponders it. On one hand, he has an amazing bed waiting for him at home, as well as a shower with heavenly water pressure. On the other, he’s a sad sack of crap who can’t get a date for the life of him, and whose friend barely spends any time with him. Technically, he might consider Zeke and Gabe friends, but after what happened last time, he’s been avoiding going to the café for fear of bumping into acertain someone.

So that’s that. Maybe it’s time he starts socializing a little.

Suppressing the instant cringe that rises at the thought, he flashes Shane a smile and shrugs. The fact that alcohol will be involved helps him make a decision.

“Sure, why not. But I’ll head over later. Need to drop off my car first.”

“Cool. See you there.”

“See you,” he replies, already getting the feeling that he’s going to regret this later.

The pub isn’t busy, it being the middle of the week, and it takes no time for Kieran to spot his little group.

“Long time no see,” he says in lieu of a greeting as he slides into the last available chair at their table.

“You made it.” Shane grins at him, his beer more than half empty, similar to everyone else’s. “We thought you might have ditched us.”