The Buyout

Chapter 3: Elena

Jason, my desk mate, gave me the stink eye as I tapped and reorganized my stack of orientation papers yet again. I couldn't help myself, I needed to do something with my hands after nearly crashing into William Garrett on my way out of the elevator. Through all my careful planning, the possibility of running into him, the fact that maybe he worked here at his fathers' company, had never crossed my mind. Idiot. I'd been so sure that he would have graduated and moved as far as humanly possible from his ogre of a father. It's what I would have done. But then again, I had always overestimated how well I knew him. It all would have been recoverable if he hadn't recognized me so quickly. I know he did. I could feel his eyes watching me as I'd walked away, willing myself to walk normally. There was a chance he'd have talked himself out of it. I know I nearly had. 

"I think that stack is straight enough as it is." I looked up to see Marcus leaning over me. 

"She's just flustered because she ran into William Garret coming out of the elevator." I gave Jason a level glare. Prick.

"Who can blame her? That man is gorgeous." A woman I hadn't met, her strawberry blonde hair in a messy bun, interjected, stopping by my desk. "I'm Stephanie. I work with Marcus on Hardware engineering." She extended her hand out to me, and I shook it. 

"Elena." 

"You'll have to forgive Jason. He's a bit socially challenged."

"You don't say." I felt Jason's eyes bore into the side of my head. After Marcus had introduced us, I'd complimented him on his Buckaroo Bonzai figurine, and he had bombarded me with questions, making sure I had actually seen the film, and that I wasn't just pointing out something my boyfriend had shown me. I'd pointed out his shitty code organization in retaliation and apparently, in his head we'd become sworn enemies. 

"Elena's the one who developed the new open software text application that you've been raving about," said Marcus. Stephanie's eyes lit up. 

"That was all you? I thought it had been a university team. How long did it take you?"

"It was a bit of a long-term side project. I started with the basic code when I was a kid." Jason rolled his eyes, and I ignored him. Both Marcus and Stephanie seemed impressed. I'd been coding for as long as I could write. While my mom taught me letters, words, paragraphs, and stories, my dad had taught me coding syntax. I had hello worlded at the same time I was beginning to read my first chapter books. The application they were talking about was one of the first ones I had worked on. I had come back to it at some point during Uni and released an updated version a year later. People had loved it. 

"I remember my own project from that age. Nothing of this level, though," said Marcus. 

"It wasn't my idea originally. My dad was really into coding, and he taught me as much as he could." 

"Would we know him?" asked Stephanie. I realized my mistake. 

"No." 

"Really? No projects or browser games we might have heard of?" pressed Marcus. 

"No, none." I shrugged apologetically and turned back to my computer, pulling up some forms from HR. "Sorry to cut this short but I have some forms to full out." Marcus and Stephanie both looked at each other, and Marcus tapped the table awkwardly. 

"Well, we'll leave you to settle in. Let us know if you need anything." I nodded and watched them leave after a moment's hesitation. 

"Hi pot, I'm kettle."

"You're hilarious, Jason." I hadn't meant to be so cold to them, but I'd been on edge all morning. I wasn't the warmest of people to beginning with and walking into the home base of the man I detested...It was better for me to remain unattached anyway. I would try to keep the fallout contained as much as possible, but it was likely that my plan would end up affecting some of these people.

Jason typed away furiously, occasionally looking up from his computer screen to glare at me. What a fragile man. It was of no consequence to me, as long as he continued to comment his code like a semi-competent person, we wouldn't have to interact.