Cresswell: The Lunar Chronicles

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Two

Thorne watched from the kitchen Cress sitting at the coffee table setting up her new devices, a grin so big it looked almost painful stretched on her face. Every once in a while she'd stand up and walk in some kind of pattern with one of the tablets, though Thorne had no idea why. Once she even disconnected a few of the cables from the net screen mounted on the wall and plugged them into one of the tablets, then reconnected everything back.

"Hey, how about a grilled cheese sandwich break for a weary hacker?"

"'Weary'?!" Cress laughed. "How about ecstatic, thrilled, overjoyed, excited hacker?"

"That was my second choice but it takes to long to say all those words."

Cress smirked, though she made no move to stand up. "Can I finish this real quick? Cause then it has to update and that'll take a few minutes so I can eat while its doing that."

Thorne quirked an eyebrow.

"Five minutes! It'll take less than five minutes."

"Okay, I'm setting a timer."

Cress nodded, still smiling. She did a few more things on each pf her tablets before carefully setting them down and standing up, taking the plate when he handed it to her.

"So how are they? Or can you tell yet?"

"Oh, aces I love them so much! The smaller one's processor isn't as strong, but even still it can do all kinds of stuff I wasn't planning on."

"Nice."

"Thank you for everything," she added with a grin, stretching up to kiss him.

Thorne grinned right back, loving how excited and giddy she was. "You are so welcome, my love."

Cress laced her hand through his, sinking down on the sofa beside him and digging into her sandwich. "Mm, this is good."

"Thanks. They're famous."

"I'm sure."

Thorne grinned, kissing the end of her nose. Cress quickly finished and then went right back to work. While she was busy, Thorne grabbed his own tablet and started working on the next podcast episode key points his managed had sent him. He was starting to approach the end of the revolution recap and was trying to figure out what topic to start next.

"Okay, we are online and ready to hack some incredibly secure things."

Thorne looked up. "Oh goody. What'll you hack first?"

"I don't know. Hopefully when Kai gets here he'll give me something fun."

Thorne laughed. "Hopefully." He was about to suggest they go for a swim or play a game in the bonus room but Cress started toward her new computer and he knew there would be no distracting her for the rest of the day.

"Let me know if I can do anything. Where do you want to put it?"

Cress looked up from the box she was opening and shifted her lips to the side. "Maybe upstairs? Is there an office room?"

"We can turn one of the rooms down here into an office."

"But if we go back home I'll have to disconnect everything," she added thoughtfully. "Maybe I should leave it in the box until then."

"'If' we go back home?" Thorne arched his eyebrows, trying not so smile.

"Well just cause, you know, it's a nice house, and it's so pretty here and I know you love California." She shrugged, almost bashfully. "We might want to stay."

"Works for me. But if that happens, you'll need a computer here so let's pick a room to turn into an office."

"We can share it right? I can do my security stuff for Kai and you can do podcast stuff. Unless you need to record, then I can take my two new tablets out into the living room." She grinned, gesturing to the space around her.

"Ah, clever girl. Okay, which room."

"One of the downstairs ones," she murmured, starting down the hallway past the living room and into a brightly lit, though sparsely furnished, room. "This one? There's a lot of light and it's nice and big and the doors open onto the deck!"

Thorne nodded, pretending to be thoughtful about it when he really would have let her take over whatever room of the house she wanted. "We'll have to get you an actual desk. And chair."

"And a mini fridge!"

"Yeah, sure. Maybe a coffee cart over there. You sure you want me in here with you?"

Cress laughed, nodding. "Yes! Then I can swoon over you even while I'm working. It'll be just like old times. You know, only better because we're married and I'm carrying your baby."

"Ah true. And I'll get to swoon over you, too."

Cress's cheeks warmed and Thorne felt a rush of pride. He always loved it when he could make her blush. Which wasn't hard to do, he realized, but still.

"Well if you change your mind and want your own workspace that's fine," he added, nudging her waist.

"I won't. Maybe I'll wait until Iko gets here though to help with the set up and arrangement and stuff."

"Sounds like Iko's area of expertise."

Cress nodded once. "Okay, then I guess I won't start anything until then."

"You could get some ideas. You've got good ideas too, you know."

"But Iko know what actually looks good. To everybody."

Thorne smirked. "If you like something though, don't shy away from it just because Iko doesn't like it."

Cress nodded, the grin never leaving her face.