“How about you run a bath while I get it sorted.”

Val’s so lovely, she thought, as she leapt off the sofa to run a bath.

Chapter 2

Jules

Boulder, Colorado

“Well, damned if I know,” she muttered to herself. Jules let her face fall into her hands, then rubbed her temples with her thumbs. She’d been reviewing and running the code for hours now and knew there was a bug somewhere, but where?

“Still no luck?” Her colleague, Wes, propped himself against her desk and she lifted her head.

“Kill me now.”

“Nah, too much paperwork. Hey, we’re going over to Pepper’s. Wanna come?”

Jules glanced at the clock at the bottom of her screen—6:22pm. And it was Friday. Go or stay? It could be hours before she found the bug and with the size of her headache, it was unlikely she was in optimal coding mode. But if she went to Pepper’s, she’d drink too much beer and probably end up sleeping with Wes—again.

Or she could just go home.

Her condo hardly called to her. It was on the outskirts of Boulder and she’d rented it fully furnished. It was a little, “Hey, IKEA called—they want their showroom back,” but she didn’t care. She’d settled into a “just fine” routine of work-home-gym, which she broke up with visits to see her family and occasional colleagues-with-benefits hook-ups with Wes … or Rob … or Arjun.

“I’m good,” she said, flashing a smile she didn’t feel. “Thanks,” she added as an afterthought. He shrugged and left. Even though they worked for a tech start-up, Wes wasn’t one of those guys who rolled out of bed and stumbled into work wearing pyjamas, a three-day growth, and the stench of the unwashed. He cared about his appearance and, not for the first time, Jules acknowledged that Wes was hot. He was also particularly good in bed.

Bed. The thought of curling up in her bed and sleeping off the headache was the most appealing one she’d had all day. Her phone buzzed on her desk.

Decided last minute to head to dads. Wanna come?

It was the lifeline she needed, time with two people from her extremely short list of favourites. She tapped out an affirmative response before saving her work and shutting down her computer. Will’s next text popped onto the screen.

Pizza or sushi?

As much as she loved sushi, Colorado was hardly the place for fresh seafood, and she’d yet to find a local sushi place that didn’t disappoint. Good takeout pizza, however, was plentiful.

Duh.

She watched the dots flicker on her screen, then stop, then start again, before her brother sent her a triple emoji reply that got her laughing for the first time that day—actually, it had been days since she’d laughed.

Forty minutes later, she was reclined on her dad’s couch, a craft beer in one hand—a new brew from one of her brother’s clients—and a slice of prosciutto and feta pizza in the other—both a nod to the “Hipsterville” status of her hometown.