Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            I burst into laughter. “There is no way.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I’m currently on step four of my program, and still unable to run more than half a mile without collapsing. Running a 5K sounds about as pleasant as bloodletting. By leeches.”

            “I’ll run with you.”

            “You mean, you’ll walk next to me with your seventy-mile-long legs?”

            “I’ll train you.”

            “Oh, Levi. Levi. You sweet summer child.” I point at myself. Tonight I’m wearing a nose stud, galaxy leggings, and a white tank top. My purple hair is loose on my shoulders. I’m pretty sure one of my back tattoos is visible. Everything about me screams Levi’s kryptonite. “You see this scrawny, stunted, unmuscled body? It’s built to live in parasitic symbiosis with a couch. It resists training with the force of many million ohms.”

            Levi does stare at my body for a considerable amount of time, but then he looks away, flushed. Poor guy. Must be a tough sight for him. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Since you’re sure that you’ll win?”

            “True.” I shrug. “Deal. Come taste the bitterness of defeat.”

            He does come, stalking to my bench in a few strides with those ridiculous seventy-mile-long legs. However, he doesn’t stop in front of the laptop I conveniently turned for him. Instead he circles around the bench, comes to stand behind me, and then slides the computer in our direction. For me to better witness his impending massacre, I assume. “I can’t wait to sip your tears out of my new mug,” I murmur.

            “We’ll see.” He leans his left hand against the bench and grabs the mouse with the other. Even on my high stool, he’s still many inches taller than me, effectively caging me at my seat. It should feel uneasy, suffocating, but he leaves me enough room that I don’t mind. Plus, I know it doesn’t mean anything. Because he’s Levi. And I’m Bee. It’s actually almost pleasant, the heat he radiates in the blasting AC. He could have a successful second career as a weighted blanket.

            “This is weird.” I hear the frown in his voice. “The file’s missing.”

            “Can the mug be twenty ounces?”

            “It should be here.” He leans forward, and his chin brushes the crown of my hair. It’s not terrible. Sort of the opposite. “I saved it.”

            “Maybe you dreamt it? Sometimes in the mornings I think that I got up and brushed my teeth even though I’m still in bed. Though with my new mug I’ll be extra motivated to wake up early and have my coffee.”

            “Weird.” Pity he’s not paying attention to my gloating. I’m doing a pretty good bit, if I say so myself. “Look.” He types quickly, the inside of his elbows brushing against my upper arms, pulling up a log interface. “See? Someone—me—saved the file at 1:16 p.m. Then at 4:23 someone else removed it . . .”

            I know immediately where he’s going with this. I tilt my neck back to look up at him, and he’s already staring down from two inches above. God, his eyes. He invented a new color green. “It wasn’t me!” I blurt out.

            “How much do you want my cat?”

            “Considerably less now that I know about his colorectal issues.”

            “And my mug?”

            “A lot, but I swear it wasn’t me!”

            He hums skeptically. I can feel his breath against my face. Mint, with a hint of peanut butter. “I’m inclined to believe you, but only because this is not the first time.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “The frequencies list for the parietal electrodes you sent me yesterday? The one you emailed and put on the server? It wasn’t there.”

            I scowl. “But I put it there.”

            “I know. The engineers complained about missing and misplaced files, too, corrupted stuff. Lots of little things.”

            “Probably a server error.”

            “Or people screwing up.”