Chapter 2

Still Charley’s turn:

Thursday was just another day at work. At least it was until just before lunch.

I’ve found that keeping to a schedule when working from home helps keep my day organized, so I always had lunch at 11:30. Terri knew that. At 11:25 she came over for a lunchtime visit, bearing chef’s salads for me, her ... and Claire.

“Good morning, Miss Black,” Claire said. “We thought you might appreciate a salad for lunch. I was also hoping that after lunch would be a good time to see how you work, if that’ll work for you.”

Terri snickered, and I rolled my eyes. I appreciated that she appeared to be trying to keep it professional, but given how we’d been acting the previous evening it just didn’t fit. “Uh, it’s ‘Charley,’ or even ‘sis,’ I try to leave Miss Black for those whose relationship with me is strictly professional. If you’re going to be my sister, then we can be informal. As far as timing goes, sure, this is as good a time as any. If I end up on a call, though, please be quiet, and we’ll get you seated out of view of the webcam.”

We were just sitting down to lunch when Terri said, “Damn! Claire, could you go get the ranch dressing, please? It’s in the second shelf in the right door of the refrigerator.”

“Sure, Grandma. Be right back.”

Given how often I ate with Bill and Terri, I knew we both used the same ranch dressing, so I thought she was probably buying us a little time alone.

“What’s up?” I asked after Claire left.

“Not much, but I’d rather stick around as a chaperone, if you don’t mind. I don’t want Claire putting you in a bad position.”

I nodded my understanding while saying, “Thank you. I offered the invitation before she started flirting with me last night.”

She tilted her head and gave me a look that said there was more, so I continued, “I’m serious, she started it. But, yeah, I was doing it, too. I don’t know what it is, but she makes me feel more playful than I have in years.”

“Understood. She was being pretty blatant, which was probably driving it.”

Just then, Claire returned with the dressing, and we sat down to eat. After lunch, Terri offered to clean up, so I took Claire to my office and got her set up to look at what I was working on, as well as working out where she’d need to scoot to if a video call came in.

After that, I showed her some code I was reviewing for one of our newer developers. It was pretty clean overall, but I pointed out one spot where I’d suggested Sandra divide an existing method so we’d have two that did one thing each, given that she was only using one of the results.

“So, if you look here, Sandra’s dealing with soil loading, how much pressure are we putting on the ground,” I said. “In order to get that, we want the compression in the wall, which is a major input for the soil loading routines. That’s fine, but the current method we have for getting that compression is also calculating part of the wall design, not just the compression proper. If she breaks the method in half, she can have one that just returns the compression. It’ll still be used by the one that does the other design work, but she doesn’t need to waste time on things she’s not concerned with. It probably should have been written that way originally, but, what can I say? It predates when I started.”

Next, I got back to dealing with a new app and talked to her about it. One of our customer reps had started getting requests for something that would help them better understand sites early in the process, possibly even before surveying. Ideally, they wanted to be able to take a plat map, visit a lot and get a rough idea of how things would work without having to devote too much time up front.

During a brainstorming session, Mary — one of our developers, who was also an engineer — gave us resolution guidelines for this stage of the project. Dave suggested that Apple’s ARKit had good enough resolution for that and could easily get us the information we needed, as well as allowing the user to rough check things as they designed the structure. I was working with Dave’s notes to design a tie in between the new app and the rest of our software so that the app could have access to the real data when we had it. I might or might not end up actually writing the interface, but the design was important so Dave knew what it would need from his part of the project.

Everything we talked about should have been way over a fourteen-year-old’s head, since I wasn’t soft peddling it. Judging by the questions she asked, though, maybe not. She did say that she’d spent some time in the computer lab at her previous high school, but this wasn’t just understanding the programming side, she was asking questions to understand the reason for the application.

The time should also have been completely safe from flirting. Nope. She leaned in to look at one monitor and ended up placing her hand on my thigh for balance since my work chair didn’t have arms. Warmth flowed from her hand and I felt a flutter in the pit of my stomach. Later, looking at the furthest monitor, she put her hand on the back of my chair and leaned in, breathing gently in my ear. I almost placed a video call just to gracefully get her out of my personal space. She was turning me on so much I was having trouble concentrating.

“Come on, Claire,” Terri said after a couple of hours. “Let’s let Charley get some work done.”

Claire smiled and agreed, thanking me effusively for taking the time to show her the process. Then she gave me a hug across my shoulders before getting up and kissing the top of my head. She bounced out of the room, followed by a chuckling Terri.

Friday, work got a bit frustrating. One of our customer reps had promised something that would be way more work than it could possibly be worth to us. Steve and I got on a call with her and discussed getting us involved before making any promises.

We then spent a couple more hours working with her to come up with something that would achieve the same ends, but would be easier to develop and much easier to maintain. Afterward, while I still had Steve on the line, I told him I’d give the project to Jeff and see what he came up with. I’d do design reviews with him, but he’d been rocking it lately, and I had faith that he’d do a great job. Steve and I had already decided that if and when we ended up hiring more developers, Jeff was getting his own team. He’d still report to me, but it would give me more time to program and give him more responsibility.

After that meeting, I took the rest of the day off and headed out on the bike to burn off some frustrations. I had a little forty-mile loop that I liked to ride, but this time I tacked on another hilly section to give me a full 100K. I climb well, one of the few advantages of only weighing 90 pounds soaking wet, so I pounded on the hills, working off the tension from the meeting and, to be honest, from the last couple of days around my new neighbor. The hills wouldn’t object to being used that way, and I’d be more relaxed heading into the weekend. That was important, since I knew I’d be spending more time around Claire. I almost always ate dinner with Bill and Terri on the weekends, and Terri had made sure to invite me this time.

Even though I took it easy on the way back into town, just spinning to cool down, I was soaked with sweat when I got home. Once I walked the bike around back, I started my after ride stretches.

I was leaning forward toward the top tube of my bike with my knees locked, stretching my shoulders, arms, back and hamstrings when I heard, “Wow! That’s a great view.” I hadn’t seen her, but a quick glance showed that Claire was in her backyard reading.

I blushed, but gave my butt a little shake in her direction, too. It was so wrong, but I just couldn’t seem to help myself around her.

“Geez, sis.” she said as she came over. “You’re drenched. You must have been working pretty hard out there.”

“I was,” I said. “I was frustrated and took it out on the hills.”

She came over and hugged me tight, sweat and all, before kissing the top of my head again. “So, what’s got you so frustrated?”

Given where my head was when she hugged me, the problem with work completely fled my mind. All I could think of at that moment were the breasts bracketing my face. I did manage to keep from saying that, though, instead buying time to formulate a coherent response. “Uh, I really need to go clean up,” I said. “Can I put off answering that until I don’t stink?”

Her eyes twinkled at me, but she wrinkled her nose and said, “You’re right, you do need to clean up.”

I playfully swatted at her, then said, “Why don’t you see if Terri wants a night off from cooking. We can go downtown, and I’ll treat you all to pizza, then we can walk off some of it on the waterfront. We can talk then.”

“Sure, I’ll check with Grandma and Grandpa while you’re cleaning up.” Just after she turned away to go inside, she turned back and said, “Uh, sis?” When I looked at her, she said, “Lycra looks great on you!” I felt my face warm with a blush.

After finishing my stretches, I wheeled my bike into the shed and locked it up before heading in for a shower. After my shower, I checked my phone and saw a message from Terri saying they’d meet me down there at 6:30. I briefly debated what to wear before settling on sandals with a pretty summer dress that made me feel sexy. I steadfastly refused to think about why I wanted to be sexy, instead grabbing my other helmet and the cargo e-bike before heading down to the waterfront.

After locking my bike up, I was just sitting on a bench watching the people go by when I noticed Bill and family drive by in their Prius, looking for a parking place. Unsurprisingly, they ended up just over a block further on — one of the reasons I’d ridden instead of driving was the parking situation downtown. I got up as soon as I saw them and wound up getting to their car just after Bill finished parking. I held the door for Terri to get out, then for Claire to get out of the back seat.

I was surprised to see that Claire had changed into a cute blouse and skirt. The shorts she had on earlier would have been right at home where we were going. When she got out of the car, she smiled brightly at me and twirled, causing the full skirt to flare out, showing lots and lots and lots of gorgeous legs. Damn, she had long legs.

“Do you like it, sis?” she asked. “Grandma took me shopping so I’d have some nicer clothes.”

“The shorts you had on earlier would’ve been fine tonight, but that skirt looks really nice on you,” I said. She was so cute I just had to haul her down and kiss her cheek.

For her part, she gave me another hug, but this time she held it for a moment longer than a ‘just friends’ hug and stroked my hair.

All evening I fought it, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I felt playful and young around her. I finally admitted it to myself; I was falling hard for a girl half my age. It felt so much more intense than it ever had before, but still ... Orange was so not my color. I resolved to talk to Bill and Terri as soon as I could.

While we were walking the waterfront after dinner, I managed to get a moment alone with Terri.