Page 84 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
I zoom in on the security feed on my second monitor. Camera 4 gives me the best angle of her profile.
She is typing. Her posture is perfect—spine straight, shoulders back. She wears the “office armor” every day now: high-necked blouses, sharp blazers, severe buns. She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t laugh.
She works with a terrifying, mechanical efficiency that mirrors Ethan’s.
She is fading. The color I saw in her cheeks that night at Velvet—the heat of the club, the flush of the alcohol—is gone.
She is grayscale.
I watch her pick up her coffee cup. It’s empty.
She tips it back, realizes there is nothing left, and sets it down with a heavy, defeated sigh. She rubs her temples, her eyes squeezing shut for a moment of raw vulnerability that she thinks no one sees.
I see it.
I close my laptop.
I can’t fix this with code. I can’t patch the emotional subroutines of my brothers. And I can’t optimize Tessa remotely.
I need to reset.
I stand up, pulling my hoodie over my head. I need noise that isn’t the hum of servers. I need chaos that is contained behind glass.
I walk past Owen’s desk. He is staring at a blank email draft. His tie is undone, hanging loose around his neck.
“I’m leaving.”
Owen blinks, looking up. His eyes are bloodshot. “It’s barely eight. You usually stay until midnight.”
“My focus is degrading,” I state. “I need a reboot.”
“Must be nice,” Owen mutters, rubbing his face. “Have a drink for me. A double.”
“I don’t drink on Wednesdays.”
“Right. Schedule.” He sighs, turning back to his screen. “Go. Save yourself.”
I walk past Tessa’s desk.
She doesn’t look up. She is focused on a spreadsheet, her lips moving silently as she calculates. She looks tired. Not just sleepy—bone-deep weary. The kind of exhaustion that mere sleep doesn’t fix.
I hesitate.
I want to stop. I gave her the security logs this afternoon. I told her Ethan deleted the footage to protect her. I gave her the data, hoping it would recalibrate her system, but it hasn’t worked. She still looks shattered. I want to tell her Owen misses her laugh so much that it’s physically painful to watch him.
But my role is to watch. If I speak now, I disrupt the fragile equilibrium she has built.
I walk past her.
I drove for forty minutes. Aimless loops around the beltway. A waste of fuel, time, and tire tread.
A week ago, the inefficiency would’ve grated on me. Now, it feels like necessary maintenance. My internal processor is stuck in a loop, and the hum of the engine is the only thing drowning out the noise.
I finally pull into Pinball Wizard, a dive bar in South Austin that smells of floor wax and the electric ozone of overheating circuit boards.
It is my sanctuary.
It isn’t crowded. It is dark, lit only by the neon glow of two hundred vintage arcade cabinets. The noise is a cacophony of 8-bit chiptunes, flipper clicks, and the solenoid snap of the flippers.
