He Married His Hometown Neighbor, Then Begged for a Second Chance novel · Chapter 14 of 40

Chapter 14: Thirtieth Floor

Shieldon's thirtieth floor smelled of new carpet and expensive coffee.

Evan's office was in the corner, with glass on two sides and the harbor spread out under it.

If he stood at the right window he could see the Ross tower, a grey blade on the waterfront.

He chose the other window and sat down at the desk.

There was a laptop in the drawer that he hadn't asked for, wiped clean and waiting.

There was a plant on the sill that he hadn't asked for either.

"It's a fig," said Every Red, from the doorway. "They survive neglect. I thought that suited an engineer."

"It suits me fine."

She came in, carrying two cups of tea.

She set one on the desk, no sugar, and stood a little closer than she needed to.

"Your team is waiting in the lab," she said. "Fourteen people. They're nervous. Some of them have been reading about you."

"There's nothing to read."

"That's exactly what they're nervous about."

She smiled, and rested two fingers on his shoulder for a moment, and took them away.

It was warm and kind and brief.

He noticed it anyway.

The team was eleven men and three women in a long white room with whiteboards on every wall.

Nobody asked where he'd worked before.

A tall lead engineer with a shaved head put a laptop in front of him and said, "This is the Resolve prototype. It's three years old and it doesn't do anything yet."

"What should it do?"

"Everyone has a different answer."

Evan opened the code.

It was messy and honest and full of good ideas that nobody had finished.

He looked at it for ten minutes without saying a word.

Then he picked up a marker and went to the nearest whiteboard.

"Right," he said. "Here's what it should do."

By the time he stopped writing, it was one in the afternoon, and nobody had gone to lunch.

At two, the screens in the break room went red.

ROSS GROUP SYSTEMS FAIL AGAIN. SECOND OUTAGE IN THREE DAYS.

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