Page 5 of The Comeback Road (Leaving #2)

Lexie

I made my way into the office, trying my best to tamp down the anxiety that was gnawing in my gut.

Briefly lost in my thoughts about not answering and what it could possibly be about, I didn’t realize that Jace was sitting at my desk, waiting for me.

A smile involuntarily crossed my face when I took him in, leaning back with his arms above his head and eyes closed. He looked very at peace.

Almost as if Jace sensed my presence, he slowly opened his eyes, his gaze taking me in from head to toe.

I couldn’t help but feel my entire body heating.

I almost choked on my tongue at the look he was giving me when his eyes met mine.

I couldn’t help myself when I started to close the distance between us, and he matched my strides, meeting me halfway.

“You’re late.”

“Lunch ends at one.” My breathy voice sounded foreign to my ears.

“It’s 1:02.” Jace’s intense gaze had me one hundred percent focused on him. I’d thought he had been joking about me being late, but I suddenly realized I was wrong. I raised my eyebrow at him in question.

“Don’t do that. I was worried.”

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped, even though I knew he was deadly serious. “It was two minutes, Jace.”

He’d been extremely overprotective after what had happened with Magnolia, and I had a feeling it was only going to become more intense now that we were doing whatever this was .

“You didn’t answer my phone call or my text,” he ground out.

“I turned it to vibrate over lunch.”

“Don’t do that. I need to be able to get a hold of you. I need to know you’re safe.” The fierce expression on his face made my knees weak. Instead of arguing, I found myself nodding in agreement.

“Good.” He reached for me. I leaned in, but before his hands could reach my hips, a voice rang out from somewhere within hearing distance. I was so caught up in Jace, I didn’t even try to decipher who or what it was they were saying.

“Hey, you two! Make eyes at each other some other time. We have that meeting you requested, Lexie.”

It’s Dexter. That is Dexter’s voice.

Pulling myself out of the bubble I constantly found myself in with Jace, I focused on my brain making sense of what Dexter was saying.

“What meeting?”

He shrugged his shoulders in exasperation. “I have no idea. You brought it up a week ago? Said you had something you wanted to talk to us about, and made sure we made time and put it on the schedule.” His expression was one of almost exasperation.

Oh, yeah!

His words brought me out of my Jace-induced haze, and I smiled and clapped my hands together. “Let’s go to the meeting room. Grab your laptops, please, and meet me there in five minutes.”

Dexter gave Jace a what gives? look, and Jace looked just as confused as him. But in no way was I going to ruin the surprise by giving anything away.

They knew I had worked in some sort of technical field, but hadn’t asked many questions, and for that, I was thankful.

Magnolia had mentioned I worked for myself.

It wasn’t a lie, per se . I did work for myself.

However, I also did contracts for the government—more specifically, the FBI—when the need called for it.

For a few years, there were a lot of contracts until I told them no more.

But it wasn’t like I couldn’t tell people about my job.

While I could tell them that I worked for the FBI—it wasn’t against the rules—I couldn’t go into specifics.

I’d seen the way the lies and evasiveness had ruined all the relationships my coworkers had.

So, I kept it to myself. Plus, I figured it kept those I loved the most as safe as possible.

I figured the less anyone knew, the better.

It was hard enough keeping it to myself when it was just Magnolia and me before we got there.

But it would be nearly impossible to disappear for weeks at a time without notice.

Magnolia was always busy with school or work and never pried much about my work trips.

While I was a damn good hacker, I also had a way with coding to build whatever software was needed. Hence , my meeting.

The boys met me in the meeting room with puzzled looks still marring their features.

“Power up your laptops, please. Are you both connected to the internet?”

“Yes,” they answered together.

It only took me a few seconds to take control of their screens from my laptop.

“Woah, what the hell?” Dexter murmured as the program I’d spent a few weeks on took over their screens. I couldn’t help how excited I was about it. It was a relatively easy program, but I was able to get all our inventory uploaded.

“What is this?” Jace asked.

“Just give me a second. So impatient.” I shot him a mocking glare before continuing.

“I realized when I first started that, most of the time, coming up with a presentation to your clients and sorting through inventory you needed was taking you away from the project itself. It costs you guys time when it comes to starting on the project.”

Dexter leaned back in his chair, studying me, very clearly trying his best to read me. Jace was still just staring at the computer screen, trying to make sense of what I was saying.

“So, I reached out to a few people I know, and voila! Welcome to your new software! It’s actually very easy to use.”

For the next forty-five minutes, I went over how it worked, how it pulled from our inventory and listed the prices, gave accurate estimates on how long it would take to get supplies in based on where our supplies were located, and the algorithm that worked on the back end to calculate estimated delivery dates based on location, weather for that time of the year, and previous shipping dates.

If I was being honest, it was easy enough to create.

It only took a few weeks to get the coding right and flush out any bugs.

Plus, the time to file for a patent—the last of my surprises.

I took out the patent in their names. It was software only they would have access to.

“This is incredible, Lexie, really. Where’d you find this?” Dexter asked while clicking through, building a mock house to test out all its different capabilities.

“Oh, you know”—I waved my hand around—“just some people I used to work with.” Which wasn’t a lie, exactly.

I had to reach out to a few contacts to get the patent so quickly.

A fleeting thought had me wondering if that was why Luke had reached out.

That maybe he had heard I was reaching out to some contacts and was coming out of my retirement.

Focusing back on the matter at hand, I put my attention back on Dexter and Jace and clapped my hands together. “Last part of the surprise!” I shoved the paperwork over, showing that the software was theirs alone.

“How did you manage to do this?” Jace looked at me in awe, and I couldn’t help the way that my insides melted.

“It’s really no big deal.” I shrugged.

“Dinner now seems inadequate.” He stood up, pushing his chair in and stalking over to me.

“On that note, great meeting. We will speak more about this later.” Dexter packed up his laptop and all but ran out of the meeting room.

“Do you think we scared him off?” I jokingly whispered to Jace, but he just kept looking with this intense stare that wavered between awe and lust. I found myself tilting my head at him in invitation, and he started to advance toward me before his lips met mine.

Both of our phones went off with alerts, signaling it was time for Jace to head over to a house they were putting a bid on outside of town. He growled at the sound.

“Until tonight, Lexie. Then, you’re all mine.”

I felt his words from my head to my toes.