37. Marley

37

MARLEY

“ L adies,” Trace nods when he flies into the office, his coat flapping behind him like some sort of technological superhero. “I hear you are having website troubles.”

Fin’s girlish giggle makes it hard for me to hide my smile.

“Trace, oh my God, thank you so much for coming.”

He shrugs out of his coat. “No problem. I’m not sure if I’ll be much help, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

“Anything would be better than the two of us searching the internet for secret workarounds.” I stand and offer him my seat at my laptop.

“Have you tried magic spells?”

Fin giggles again and Trace’s little smile is all I need to know about these two. Smitten kittens.

We both watch as Trace’s fingers fly over the keyboard at lightning speed, opening things I’ve never seen before and clicking choices I don’t understand.

“You’re first problem is this shitty hosting site,” he says as he works, not stopping for even a second. “It’s not going to be powerful enough to host everything you want your newspaper to do. I think I can get it to work for this issue, but then I’ll help you transfer it to a new site, okay?”

“Sure,” I answer as Fin and I both stare at him. Me at his hands, Fin at his very symmetrical face. I can tell by the look in her eyes that she’s imagining his hands doing something very different than typing and all I can think is what a cute couple they will make when they get over being shy around each other. “Do you have any that you suggest?”

He shrugs a single shoulder. “Mine.”

“Wait. You have a hosting company?” Fin asks, her eyes finally snapping back from wherever her imagination was.

“Yeah, SUMMITCo.”

I can feel my face crumple. “That’s a pretty big name.”

He shrugs again. “We’re doing well.”

‘Well’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. I remember reading about the company not long ago, how they were breaking records and on the leading edge. You also get what you pay for, so I didn’t choose them. “It was out of our budget,” I say sheepishly.

“Bet I can get you a discount,” he says, tossing me a smile without breaking his stride.

“I don’t get it,” Fin says after a few minutes of silence. “Why do you work at Redpoint when you have a hosting company?”

“Oh, well that’s because I enjoy Redpoint. SUMMITCo was fun at first and I hold a majority share, but it isn’t really my bag. Once it was rolling without me being at the helm, I was happy to step down as active CEO.”

Fin and I are both silent as we watch him with our mouths open. I still can’t get over it. He’s likely a millionaire and doesn’t have to work at all, yet he chooses to work at a brewery because it’s fun.

“I’m an enigma,” he says, waggling his eyebrows as if he’s used to confused silence after this explanation.

A few dramatic keystrokes later, he stands up and motions toward the laptop. There, in all its glory is the webpage we thought was gone.

“Oh my God,” I sigh and slide into my chair, clicking around on everything. “How does it look even better?”

“I edited the code on the template you used. I thought it could use a little help.”

“How?” I shake my head.

“The code on this entire site is sloppy. It makes transferring large amounts of data, i.e., your newspaper, take too long to load. And when that happens, their entirely too weak mainframe froze the whole system.”

“So will it go down again?” Fin asks, biting her bottom lip.

“Nah,” he answers easily, shrugging his coat back on. “I fixed everything. They probably won’t even know I was in there.”

“How did you break into their system?” I ask even though I won’t understand it.

“A magician never reveals his secrets. Ladies, it was wonderful to see you. We’ll get started on the transfer to SUMMITCo on Tuesday after you’ve had a chance to recover from it,” he motions to the room. “This.”

“I really don’t know how to thank you,” I gush, still feeling dizzy from the whole debacle, not to mention Trace’s reveal that he’s working at Redpoint because he likes it and is probably a secret millionaire.

“No need. It was a fun puzzle. See you.”

And with that, he’s out the door, his coat swishing behind him again like a North Face superhero cape.

I look at Fin, mouth hanging open and she looks back at me with pink riding in her cheeks. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Me either,” she answers, blushing deeper when her voice comes out a little huskier than usual.

Smitten. Kittens. It’s nearly impossible to hide my excited squeal, but I manage it somehow.

“Well, I guess I better get back to work on the Paintbrush Art Show piece. I promised Helen at the souvenir shop I’d mention Peculiar Paintbrush in the first issue.”

I smile at her, knowing she’s not going to get any work done until her thoughts calm, but I let her hide behind her laptop in peace as I try to drag my mind back to what I was working on before Tornado Trace blew in.