Opposites Attract (2 page)

“
My
cat just spilled coffee on my laptop. Now the screen is all blue. I
can’t log out or reboot or anything and I think the file I was
working on is gone.” She sounded close to tears now.

“
I
understand how you feel, but you have to calm down.” Brad sat
down in his chair again and leaned back with a sigh. He glanced
wistfully at the exit door. He’d been so close…

“
You
can’t possibly understand. How can you understand?” She
was nearing hysteria now.

“
I
do understand. Two years ago I was working as a programmer. I’d
just finished a big project when a worm slipped through the company’s
firewall and attacked my hard drive. It ate its way through all of my
files and the backup files on the server. It was like a rat
through cheese and I couldn’t do anything but watch it happen.
So believe me, I understand.” It was the closest Brad had ever
come to just breaking down and crying at work. It was right then and
there that he decided to take the job he had been offered by Computer
Geeks-R-Us so he could help people.

He
heard her breathe in and out loudly. Calmer now she said, “I
guess you do. So what do I do now?”

“
I
should be able to recover your files for you even if I can’t
fix the unit. Can you drop the laptop off here in the morning?”

“
No.
That’s the bigger problem. I’m leaving for the airport in
just a few hours for a six o’clock flight to Miami. I need to
email the file I was working on to my editor before I go. I’ll
be on a cruise ship for seven days. God, I’m going to lose this
book deal because of this dumb cat, I know it.”

Brad
sighed. Oh well, he was already exhausted, hungry and smelly. What
was another hour or so? He could sleep in tomorrow morning. “How
far away are you? If I wait here, can you drive it over here
tonight?”

“
I
don’t own a car. I walk to work. My apartment doesn’t
have parking facilities. You know what parking is like in this city.
I guess I could call a cab, but that will take a while to get here…”

He
sighed deeper this time. “Maybe I can stop by and pick it up on
my way home. Where are you?”

“
Oh
my God. You’re my savior. Thank you.” She told him what
part of town she lived in. It wasn’t that far out of his way
and at this time of night, there’d be no traffic, that’s
for sure. Perhaps he would still get to bed before the sun actually
rose.

“
But
what about my file? Can you fix it right here tonight so I can email
it before I leave?”

Brad
laughed at that. People who didn’t know computers just cracked
him up. Did she really think this was going to be a five-minute fix?
Even if he weren’t working on four hours sleep in the last two
days, it would still take a while.

He
had to control his urge to giggle and realized just how punchy he was
from lack of sleep. “No way. Don’t you have a backup file
somewhere?”

“
No.”

He
shook his head. “You should always keep a backup file.”

“
Yes,
I know. I already got a lecture from my roommate. Lesson learned. But
what can I do about it now?”

“
I
can recover the file tomorrow and I’ll email it to your editor
for you. Just give me her email address. Okay?”

“
But
what if the file’s all messed up?”

“
I
won't lie to you, it's a possibility. But I’ll read through it
to see if it’s corrupted before I send it. What is it anyway?
The file, I mean.”

She
hesitated. “It’s a…um…novel. An
erotic romance novel, actually…it’s my first book
and it hasn’t been professionally edited yet…so don’t
be too critical.”

Brad
laughed again. “I’m sorry, but I’ve spent the last
two days reading nothing but code. A romance novel will be a nice
change. Besides, I wouldn’t know a good romance novel from a
bad one, so don’t worry. Just give me your apartment number.
I’ll be right over.”

An
erotic romance novel. Huh. As Brad hung up the phone and slid
into his jacket, he wondered guiltily just how erotic it
would be.

Chapter 2

Alyssa
felt as if she’d crawled to work rather than drove. Had the
front door gotten heavier overnight? It took all her strength to
budge it. It had been another sleepless night. Walking into the lobby
of Computer Geeks-R-Us she had her usual morning accessories—dark
sunglasses and an extra large coffee—and today she really
needed both.

“
Good
morning, Alyssa.” Lisa the resident perky receptionist was, as
usual, much too chipper for this hour of the morning.

Lisa
was the kind of person who dotted the “i” in her name
with a little heart when she wrote you a note. On a good day, petite
perky Lisa’s cheerful a.m. greetings grated on Alyssa’s
nerves, but this morning it made her want to pummel the little
brunette.

Alyssa
mumbled a response and quickly punched the button for the elevator.
She left her sunglasses on and stared straight ahead so no one would
even think of speaking to her. She couldn’t wait to slide into
her cubical and hide herself behind her monitor. If she pretended to
be really busy, no one would bother her. And luckily the guy across
from her cube, Bradley the quintessential computer geek who should be
the poster boy for the company advertising, was always so busy
working he never even spoke to her.

She
traversed the maze of cubicles quickly and slipped into her chair.
She booted up her computer and was about to log into her email when
her phone rang.

“
Alyssa
Jones.” The effort to lift the receiver and answer it was
nearly beyond her.

“
Thank
God you’re all right. I called you all night long. Why didn’t
you answer your home phone or your cell?”

She
really didn’t need her best friend berating her right now. She
sighed and pulled back the lid of her much needed coffee. “Jake
stopped by.”

“
What?
And you let that son of a bitch in? You go to all the trouble to
change your locks, then you go and let him in anyway. What the hell
were you thinking?”

Alyssa
let out a loud breath. “He said he just wanted to talk.”

She
heard Jane spit out a bitter sounding laugh. “Yeah, I’m
sure. And? Please, please tell me you didn’t have sex with the
guy.”

“
No,
we didn’t. We just talked…all night long. He actually
cried, Jane,” she whispered.

“
Good,
he should cry. He threw away a two-year relationship with you when he
cheated on you.”

“
He
said it was only because he was drunk. He says he doesn’t even
remember it. He just remembers drinking at the bachelor party, then
these strippers show up and the next thing he knows he’s waking
up naked in bed with one of them.”

“
Oh
come on, Alyssa. A committed man doesn’t forget his girlfriend
because he’s drunk. His only regret is that he got caught.”

Alyssa
swallowed hard. Just the memory of walking into his friend’s
condo to pick him up Sunday morning and finding Jake and the stripper
in bed together made her feel like she needed to vomit. Lucky for her
she hadn’t eaten anything solid enough in the last three days
to actually throw up. She took another big gulp of coffee, her heart
beginning to race. She was starting to shake from all the coffee
she’d drunk over the past few days to stay awake at work since
she wasn’t sleeping at all at night.

“
Lys?”
Jane’s voice brought her back to the present.

“
Yeah.
I’m fine. Listen, I really have to get to work. I’ll call
you later, I swear.” She couldn’t take Jane rehashing
what a shit Jake was and how lucky she should feel to be free of him
one more time.

“
You
better call me tonight.”

“
Okay,
I will. Bye.” She sighed again and hung up the phone.

Brad
the Geek had just slipped into his own cube. He glanced over. She
wondered at the fact that he was actually getting in after her. He
was always at his desk when she arrived in the morning and still
sitting in his cubicle when she left at night.

“
You
all right?” He glanced her way as he took off his beat up brown
leather jacket and draped it over the back of his chair.

The
first time in two years this guy decides to be friendly and it
happens to be today of all days. That just figured.

“
I’m
fine. Why?” That came out a bit harsher than she intended.

He
was visibly taken aback at her tone. “You’re just sighing
a lot, that’s all. And you look really tired.”

She
knew she’d looked like shit on Monday and on Tuesday too, but
it seemed the Geek had been too busy to notice until now. How nice
for her.

“
Don’t
you have something you should be working on?” She raised a
brow.

“
Actually
I do.” Brad spun his chair back toward his desk so that only
the frizzy back of his blond head and his oversized un-tucked shirt
faced her.

~

Brad
scowled down at the sticky laptop and stewed over his conversation
with Alyssa, formerly known as Alyssa with the Sexy Voice. He would
be renaming her Alyssa the Bitch for all future reference.

Maybe
he was just being oversensitive. In spite of his resolve to sleep
late and the fact that he climbed into bed around 3:30 a.m., he still
woke up at the same time he usually did for work. He tried to go back
to sleep but it was no use. He finally just got up and dressed for
work.

As
usual, he arrived earlier than more than half of the company’s
employees, but this morning on the way to his desk, he made a detour
to his boss’s office to tell him about completing the project.
His boss was thrilled he was done with it and told him to take the
day off with pay as a bonus. But Brad decided to just stay at work
since he was there already anyway. Besides, he wanted to get right to
the laptop he’d picked up the night before. He promised he
would get that email off ASAP. But after that, maybe he would kick
off early. It would be a nice change to actually leave the office in
daylight.

In
just a few minutes the back was off the laptop and Brad watched as
the computer oozed coffee all over his desk. He should have
remembered to bring paper towels from the kitchenette. He hoisted his
tired body out of his chair. He didn’t know how surgeons
functioned on no sleep. He was having enough trouble with this little
assignment.

Brad
and his now sticky fingers made their way across the office to the
kitchen. Kathy, the woman who worked in the cube behind Alyssa, was
already inside pouring a cup of coffee. He decided he could use a
little caffeine himself. Or maybe a lot, intravenously. It was going
to take a few days for him to catch up on the sleep he’d lost.

“
Hey,
Brad. Good to see you up and about. I actually thought about poking
you before I left last night. You know, to make sure you hadn’t
died in your cube and we just didn’t notice,” Kathy
joked.

Brad
liked her. She always had a friendly smile for everyone, unlike
Alyssa this morning. “Hey, Kath. Yeah, I had a tough one, but
it’s done. My next assignment is a piece of cake. Woman spilled
coffee in her laptop.” He unrolled and tore off a good number
of paper towels to take back to his desk.

Kathy
grimaced. “Ugh. I’ve done that myself. It sucks, but that
seems awfully rinky-dink for a man of your legendary and vast
talents. You should pass something easy like that over to someone
else, like Alyssa. She could handle that while you’re off
saving the day somewhere else.”

Brad
laughed and rolled his eyes. “Thanks, but I took the call last
night. I promised the client I’d handle it. Besides, I wouldn’t
ask Alyssa for anything today.”

“
Yeah,
I heard her bite your head off before. Don’t take it to heart.
She’s had a tough time lately.”

“
Really?
I didn’t know.” Probably because he’d literally
plugged his ears for the last two days. He’d actually gone to
the corner drugstore and bought earplugs so he could concentrate
without Alyssa with the Sexy Voice distracting him. It figures that
after listening to all those conversations about that stupid bag, he
missed it when something important actually happened.

“
Yeah,
she caught her boyfriend of two years in bed with a stripper. She had
to call in a locksmith on Sunday to change the locks. I haven’t
seen her eat anything in two days and it looks like she hasn’t
slept in just as long.”