Page 79 of Dance for Me
“Someone took Harper’s old laptop and replaced it with this one. And honestly, it’s a good move. Harper wouldn’t know half the programs she would be missing, at least not enough to have to ask me to install something.”
“Hey!” I protest. Sadie looks up and pats my cheek.
“I love you sister but let’s not pretend you knew what was on your laptop, I think this is the first time you’ve ever tried to access any of the security apps on your laptop since we opened. And even that is only because you were forced to. But it’s notyour fault, you never had any reason to need to look at any of it, and you have a team who does it for you, so why would you?”
My shoulders deflate, because we both know she’s right.
“But even if they have her laptop, they wouldn’t know the passwords to any of the programs, right? So, they still wouldn’t be able to access anything,” asks Wade, and I can feel my face drain of color.
“Yeah, about that, Imayhave saved the passwords on the laptop…like on a little sticky note taped to the corner.” I barely get the words out before Sadie has fully turned towards me, arms flailing as she lashes out towards me.
Wade reaches over and holds her wrists while she breathes through her nose, eyes squeezed shut. I committed a cardinal sin of tech, which is exactly why I didn’t ask her to give me back my sticky note when she swapped the laptops. Was kind of hoping she forgot to yell at me for it.
“We can use this, right? We can figure out who stole my computer?” I ask, hope in my voice that Sadie takes the win instead of focusing on how badly I offended her trade. It’s also a nice distraction from the fact that I let this happen. I gave someone the literal keys to the castle. I trusted the people who worked here to come and go into my office as needed. To leave me notes or invoices on my desk or chair to take care of when I returned to the office.
My fault, my fault, my fault.
“Yes, we can. But not on this piece of shit,” she complains, pointing at the replacement laptop that she didn’t approve, as if it kicked the puppy she doesn’t have. She’s halfway across the office before she looks over her shoulder to holler at Wade and me. “Move your asses!”
“Okay,so how does this work? What are we looking for?” asks Wade, standing in the center of the security bullpen. He looks almost too small in the narrow hall, like if he moves too far to one side or the other, he’ll bump a monitor and cause a domino effect of laptop and computer equipment from here to the door.
“Harper, when do you remember the laptop being switched out?”
I scan my memory, trying to remember when I last bitched about the dent in the top corner, and then I remember how I got the dent in the top corner.
“Oh my God, it was almost exactly a year ago, Tommy Ellington’s dense skull.” I tell her, finally seeing Sadie smile as she remembers the series of events that led to me asking Tommy to my back office with one of the dancers. He walked in, but was carried out.
You do not call my dancer a whore when she tells you to stop groping her in the private room and expect to walk away with the same number of brain cells as you walked in with. As it was, he started with only two to rub together, just enough to make poor choices.
Sadie goes back to typing as Wade looks at me expectantly, somehow not putting those two things together. “His head is what dented my laptop to begin with. And when it was replaced, I assumed it was Sadie who did it, because everything, or I thought everything, was copied over exactly as I had it?—”
“So, whoever switched out Harper’s laptop is the person who has been ordering all the extra shipments, and why it looks like it’s Harper doing it,” Wade finishes for me as Sadie sighs, like this is so very reasonable and she should have figured it out sooner.
“So, now I’m going through the archive’s security footage for the timeframe around when the laptop was replaced. The camera that shows the outside of Harper’s office is all we everneeded. That’s who has been fucking with our footage and why they have been a step ahead of us this whole time. I couldn’t figure out how someone was hacking into our camera system without leaving any signatures behind, and it’s because they weren’t. The call was coming from inside the house!” Sadie explains, volume rising as she scours the footage. She slows down only when we see a familiar face carrying a laptop under their arm, looking side to side before opening the door to my office and disappearing inside.
“Wade,” I whisper. “Call Colton.Now.”
40
COLTON
Coworker outing my ass, this is a date. Plain and simple. A date I don’t want to be on, a date that isn’t with the person I actuallywantto take to a fancy restaurant.
Tessa has been fine. She’s been perfectly lovely, even. A little dull, a little plain, but that’s perfectly fine. She’sfine.
She spent appetizers talking about her family and her animals—she hasa lotof animals. The evening is finally winding down, and I can’t wait to report back that this was a colossal waste of time. She hasn’t mentionedCirqueonce. I know the names of all her cats, but not a single new piece of information about the other employees.
My phone chirpsagain from my pocket, the fourth one in a row, causing me to look down. This could be one of two things: James is anxious for an update, or Emma stole her mother’s phone again and is sending me every emoji she can find.
I take out my phone without looking at the notification and switch it to vibrate before shoving it back into my pocket, along with my wallet, since this dinner isfinallyover.
“Oh, is that Harper?” Tessa asks, her tone losing a bit of its warmth even as she holds her jovial expression.
“I didn’t look, just muted it, didn’t want to be rude since it keeps going off during our…dinner,” I say, giving her what I hope is a placating smile.
“I’m glad you two are done with whatever that lapse in judgement was,” she laughs, waving off the entire relationship as a light-hearted mistake. I can’t tell if I should be insulted for myself or on Harper’s behalf.
I’m not going to try to play it off like we weren’t together—there would be no point. While no one outright called us out, I also made no effort to hide my attention and adoration for the love of my life. And while she was more discreet than I was, I’m not surprised to hear that the staff knows we were an item.
