7. Candice

CHAPTER 7

CANDICE

" A nd finally, Miss Metcalf, could you please explain why you thought it wasn't necessary to change that piece of code when your colleagues disagreed?"

I take a breath to steady myself. I was expecting this question, but my palms are still sweating. All the lights in the room have dimmed except for the spotlight I'm in — the headlights I'm caught in, shone by the unwavering stares of managers and coders and colleagues, a spectrum ranging from neutral to bored to Kyle's vindictive, beady eyes.

Only Aiden is smiling at me. He nods, his head only moving a fraction, but it's an anchor. It's stopping me from being washed away altogether.

This is something I prepared for. I swallow the lump in my throat and let myself look at Aiden until he's the only person in the room. I can give a talk to him. We've discussed this hundreds of times, debated the pros and cons until there was nothing else to say. This is another late night in the office. Me and him. Alone.

"Yes, well, we spent a long time discussing it together, really. They both made good points about efficiency and bloated code, and I can see where they were coming from, but, as I argued to them, it's always better, in my view, to have too many comments and more redundancy than you think you need."

I'm kind of rambling, but I go back to the slide that shows the complicated sequence of loops and arrays at the end of our program and try to order my thoughts more coherently. The good news is, it worked really well — we barely had any glitches in our app at all, to my relief. So much could have gone wrong. Almost everyone else's did have some major bugs, and it took me digging my nails into my palms to not grin in delight on hearing Kyle's mistakes.

We took some risks, and it was worth it. Because the examiner is right — it wasn't strictly best practice to do it the way I did it. But I stand by it, and I can tell him exactly why.

When I finally finish my answer, he nods slightly, his face inscrutable. I was hoping for at least a smile, but he gives me nothing.

I think I'm going to throw up.

"Thank you very much for your patience, Miss Metcalf. Your presentation was very interesting."

As I head back to my seat, my legs are wobbling. "Interesting" could be good or bad, but he didn't say it in that way people do when they're trying to be nice. He grilled me hard, but I didn't break. I did the best I could do.

And despite my nerves, I did pretty damn good.

The lights come back up in the room, and most of the company staff get to their feet, thank us again, and leave, until it's only the six of us and Maeve still sitting. Maeve is my favorite of the senior managers because she doesn't treat us like dirt.

"Come on then, team," she says, rising and gesturing for us to do the same. "Good job today. Go rest up. It's a big day tomorrow."

None of us really look at each other as we get up. The energy in the room is as sour and low as it's ever been, all the effort we've been putting in for the last month suddenly catching up with us all and hitting us like a freight train. Suddenly, we've all realized that this is the end and that only one of us is getting out of here with what we want. This is like a gameshow, but there's more than petty cash at risk. This will make someone's career and force the rest of us to keep trying. Only one of us will be guaranteed it all.

Slowly, we all file out. I find myself at the back of the pack, which I hope isn't a metaphor. As I'm about to leave, Maeve taps me on the shoulder. "Hey," she says as I whip around in surprise. "I'm not really meant to say this, but I think your presentation was the best."

I gawp slightly more than I mean to and she smiles kindly. "Yeah, I mean it. Bob gave you a total grilling and you aced it. He's a nasty piece of work but you barely wobbled. It was pretty awesome to watch."

She excuses herself with a grin, waltzing away like she hadn't just said the kindest thing she could possibly have said to me, and I'm left frozen for a second, the adrenaline of the presentation hitting me all over again. The spark of hope inside me has been stoked into a real flame, bursting into life in a way I can't ignore anymore. I already knew my presentation was great, but hearing it from Maeve totally unprompted…

None of the others got that. I deserve this as much as any of them. And the chance of the job being mine doesn't seem too slim after all.

Once my body reengages with Earth, I dash to catch the others up. They're still walking in a pack, or flock, bumbling along together because, despite all our posturing, we're all so young and inexperienced and none of us know what we're doing. Aiden holds out his hand to me and I allow myself to take it. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I breathe, and really mean it. A grin splits across my face and I squeeze his hand. "Yeah."

"You did awesome," he says, returning the squeeze.

We all pass through the revolving door, back into the bustling reality of Olympus City. It's an average afternoon, but something irreversible has changed in all of us. The second we left Fletcher HQ, all of us became new people. Life is going to be so different with the dawn of tomorrow, and it's twisting my stomach into knots hoping and worrying about it.

"You were great, too," I say as we avoid some angry pedestrians.

He chuckles, shaking his head. "I tried."

Kyle glances back at us, shooting daggers at our entangled hands. "Hey, lover boy," he sneers, turning and holding the whole group up as if he really is the boss. "You coming out tonight? We're all going to The Anvil later, to celebrate. At least, I'll be celebrating. The rest of you are welcome to come and commiserate, though."

"Shut up, Kyle," says Aiden, rolling his eyes. "Yes, we'll be there. To celebrate."

Aiden drops my hand to take a step forward, pushing his shoulders back as he squares up to Kyle. He has this kind of wildcard personality; he seems mild on the surface, but under pressure, I have no doubt he'd prove himself the true boss of this situation. I guess Kyle must realize this too, because he bristles but then backs down, sneering his haughtiest sneer ever before turning back on his heel.

As Kyle walks off with the others, Aiden leans in to me. "We are going, right?"

"What makes you think we're going as we ?" I ask, raising an eyebrow and folding my arms. If I'm going to let him in, I'm not going to make it easy.

There's this cute face he makes when he's thinking something over, a slight narrowing of the eyes and tilt of the head. "Well, I mean… you said maybe later."

"It's not later yet," I say.

The truth is, I'm very ready to give up and fall for him, but I'm still worried about tomorrow's outcome regarding the job. I don't want either of us to get hurt because I for sure will not be modest if I win.

"But you are coming out for drinks?"

I shrug. Part of me doesn't want to because I'm so tired that all I want is to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. But the rest of me wants to let my hair down and let Aiden romance me. After all, a bar isn't work and The Anvil is a great place. They serve the best fries in town and the atmosphere is always intimate but not claustrophobic.

With a teasing glint in my eye, I say, "I guess so. I was kind of hoping some hot guys would buy me drinks."

Aiden nods knowingly. "Oh, I see. First one's on me, then?"

"Deal," I say with a grin, and when he offers me his arm, I take it without hesitation.