I stick my phone in my bag and hitch the bag higher on my shoulder, suddenly desperate to get the fuck out of this room and into public, where there are lots of people to remind me why climbing my professor like a tree is wrong. “So, cinnamon rolls?”
Elliot nods, a smile playing on his lips like he knows what’s in my head without me having to speak it out loud. “Cinnamon rolls. Come on, Ames, we’ve got places to be.”
His sudden shift from intense to playful and his use of my nickname gives me whiplash, and as we walk side-by-side out into the cold January day, I can’t help but think that a line was just drawn, dividing my life into what was and what will be. And I shouldn’t be looking forward to it all nearly as much as I am.
CHAPTER FIVE
AMELIA
“Fuck. Yes.” I mumble, my eyes glued to my phone, studying the lines of data.
With my attention wholly focused on the small screen, the noise of the diner fades to the background, and a fission of excitement curls through my stomach.
It’s happening.
I fucking did it.
“What’s Genesis?”
At Elliot’s voice, I slam my phone down on the table just a little too hard. “Jesus, warn a girl next time.”
He slides into the seat across from me, shrugging off his coat and draping it over the back of his chair. With his lightly stubbled jaw, messy brown hair, button down shirt with the sleeves still rolled up, and cheeks pink from the cold walk from wherever he parked after he let me off at the front of the diner like a perfect fucking gentleman, he looks like he walked off the cover ofHot Professor Weekly.
I have to resist the urge to fan myself.
He smiles, leaning back in his chair. “I didn’t realize I had to announce myself when you were literally waiting for me in a busy restaurant.”
I pick up my phone and casually inspect it for damage, relieved not to find any. “I was just checking something.”
“Genesis. I saw. What is it?”
I toy with the little dish of sugar packets. “It’s a kind of genealogy app. It lets you build a family tree and delve deep into your family history. It pulls from some databases that no other genealogy app has ever used before, so it gives you a more comprehensive look at your family than has ever been available, what area of the world you’re from, long lost cousins, old family records, birth and death records, property purchases and sales, things like that.”
His eyes sharpen and he sits up straighter. “And you’re using it?”
“Something like that,” I mumble. Using it. Created it. Same kind of thing.
Created it. Holy fuck. I want to grin like a maniac and scream into a pillow.
He pulls out his phone immediately and unlocks it, navigating to his Redwood Store.
“What are you doing?”
“Downloading it.”
My proverbial grin vanishes and now it’s my turn to sit up straight. “Wait, why?”
He shrugs in a casually uncasual way. “It sounds cool. I want to see it.”
I take a deep breath to calm my heart that’s suddenly racing at the idea of him getting a glimpse of the project that has consumed my life for the last six months. Which is stupid because, as of ten minutes ago, the beta version is literally on the Redwood Store for anyone to use. But there’s something aboutElliot seeing it that’s making me twitchy. “I think it’s just the beta version, so it could be buggy.”
He looks up at me, amused. “I teach computer science. I know what a beta version is, and I know when I’m looking at something new. I love looking at new apps. I create apps for fun when I can’t sleep at night. Most of them are buggy.”
“You create apps when you can’t sleep?”
He shrugs. “Some people read. I code.”
“Same,” I mumble. And read. Sometimes about gruesome murder. Sometimes romance—the spicier the better, but he doesn’t need to know that.
