I don’t know how to express it to her, but I try my best the next morning.

“That was incredible,” I say. “I’ve never… You know, I’ve fucked plenty of times.”

“I know,” she says, winking at me.

“But I’ve never made love before. That was different… so different.”

She just kisses me and hugs me. “Remember,” she says. “It’s new for me, too.”

We eat breakfast together in the kitchen, with the light coming in.

For me, it’s the longest I’ve been in daylight in a few days, maybe more. I’ve been locked away down there in that basement, bleeding my eyes out onto the computer screen.

Everything seemed impossible, impractical, completely pointless. I was lost, and for more time than I thought. I’ve been lost for years, and now I’ve found her. I was adrift, like a sailor at sea. Except the sailor knows he’s lost, and I didn’t.

I wish I could tell her everything, exactly how I feel. But it’s hard starting to express myself like this…

It’s not like I’m a new person. No, I’m still the same commanding guy who can tackle everything, just like before. But I’m better equipped now to confront challenges than ever. I was missing the critical thing. I was missing Lily.

I tell her what I can. I do my best, which isn’t enough. There will be time for that later. She’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.

We don’t talk much through breakfast, finding ourselves just staring at each other instead.

The rest of the day goes by like a pleasant dream. We walk in the park in the sun, and she falls asleep with her head in my lap as we sit in the warm grass. Children are playing nearby, laughing and running around.

The day floats by and I don’t think about my business problems at all. They simply don’t enter my head, so enthralled am I to have this beautiful creature at my side.

“You want to get some ice cream?” I say as Lily wakes up, smiling at me as she opens her eyes.

“Ice cream?” she says sleepily.

I nod.

“Oh!” says Lily. “What happened with the algorithm? You said…”

I tell her everything, including the news that I got from Jonny Robbins, and I share with her the struggles I’ve been having with trying to figure out how Simmons could have faked the results.

“So what do you need to do to prove that he faked it all?” she says.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I’d have to have access to the tech magazine’s servers.”

“What’s it called again?”

“Tech Bee Bumble,” I say. “Only a bunch of computer nerds could have come up with a name like that.”

“Can’t you just hack in?”

I shrug. “It would be tricky. I mean, they’re tech guys who talk about security all day long. Believe me, I’ve tried, but their servers are probably more secure than the government’s. And that makes me wonder if Simmons really could have cracked it himself in order to manipulate everything.”

“Wait, did you say Tech Bee Bumble?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Why? I bet you’ve heard of them. They’re pretty big in the algorithm world. Not a lot of people outside the business know them.”

“You know,” says Lily. “I have all these roommates… and I thought they were all finance people. They party really hard, and they’re never home. I hadn’t even met any of them until recently… because I was at home.”

“Because you quit?”

“Yeah,” she says, letting her word trail off into nothing, into embarrassment.

“Just say the word and you’re hired again.”

“Really?”

“Of course,” I say. “But keep in mind that I’ll be your boss again.” I wink at her.

“You’ll always be my boss,” she says.

“That’s kind of weird,” I say, laughing.

She laughs. “But, yes, I desperately need the job. Money’s kind of tight right now.”

“No problem. But I don’t know how much longer the company’s going to be around if I don’t fix this problem.”

“Wait,” says Lily. “Before you say that, I think I have a way we could get into the system…”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, so get this. One of my roommates is this guy named Blake with a real big head. He doesn’t talk much. And he’s not a finance guy at all. He actually works for that same magazine.”

“He works for Tech Bee Bumble?” I say.

“Yeah, I’m positive. He told me the name and I didn’t remember it right away, so I asked him again. He’s kind of a weird guy. He finally just pulled out his ID card and showed me the name on that. Maybe he is a finance guy after all or something, I couldn’t really get the whole story out of him. But what I do know is that he definitely works for Tech Bee Bumble.”

“You think he’d let us into the building, or give us access to the server? I personally doubt it. They’re going to have top security over there.”

“I really don’t know him at all, and he didn’t seem too friendly. I doubt he’d do anything willingly, but maybe…”

“Are you suggesting we use his credentials or something to gain access?”

“It could work, couldn’t it?”

“You’re naughty,” I say. “Very naughty. And I like it.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to punish me later,” says Lily. “First of all, what do we need? What would give us access?”

“Well, if we could get onto his laptop or something… That’s pretty much all we need.”

“Great,” says Lily. “Let’s go to my place then.”

“Right now?”

“Of course. It’s important, right? And the company’s in jeopardy.”

“I just care about you,” I say. “But now that you mention it, I would like to crush Simmons…”

“That’s the Ryan Hudson I know,” says Lily, giving me a forceful kiss on the mouth.

My cock grows, pressing against the fabric of my pants. I can feel her body against me, ready.

But there’s business to take care of. We’re going to have all the time in the world to fuck.

“I’ll get us a car,” I say, using my phone to order one.

Less than a minute later, while we’re still making out, a sleek black car pulls gracefully to a stop only about fifteen feet from where we’re sitting.

“Good service,” says Lily, impressed. “I could get used to this lifestyle.”

“It’ll be an easy transition,” I say. “But we have to prove Simmons a fraud first.”

The driver drops us off by Haight Ashbury, where Lily’s apartment is tucked into the back side of an old rambling Victorian.

Lily takes my hand and leads me through the entrance hallway, which has cracked paint and a strange, moldy smell.

“I used to live in places like this,” I say.

“It takes some getting used to.”

“It’s not bad,” I say, eyeing a broken broom that’s leaning against the wall in the hallway.

“I’m this way,” says Lily, opening the door to her apartment with her key.

The kitchen is… intense. It looks like a bunch of college kids live here or something. The sink is full of dirty dishes, and there are half empty vodka bottles lined up on the counter.

My first thought is: where’s the maid? What’s she been doing? Is she on vacation?

Then I realize most people don’t have maids, let alone a staff of them.

“Nice place,” I say.

“No need to bullshit me,” says Lily.

I laugh. “Just trying to be nice.”

“That’s not really your style. Come on, it’s this way.”

“Blake?” she calls out, moving down the hallway. I follow. “Blake? Hailey? Is anyone home? Seems like everyone is out.”

“How much time do you think we have?” I say.

“It’s hard to say. Someone could come home at any time. I don’t know their schedules. Hailey’s at work… she’s my best friend… the one from the park.”

“The one who wanted you to jump my bones again in the park?”

“Yeah,” she says. “And come to think of it, I need to apologize to her.”

There’s a noise in the hallway.

“Is that someone?” I whisper.

“Maybe…”

The noise goes away, and the front door doesn’t swing open.

“A lot of my roommates are never here. Blake’s one of them. Here’s his room.”

We enter the room, which is sparsely furnished with a mattress on the floor and not much else.

“They must not be paying well over at Tech Bee Bumble,” I say.

“Here’s his laptop.”

Hailey goes over to his laptop, which is lying on the floor near the mattress.

“He probably fell asleep jacking off to porn or something,” I say.

“Gross,” says Lily.

I crouch down in front of the laptop, careful not to move it from its position. I’m also careful to avoid sitting on the mattress because, as Lily points out quite accurately, it’s quite filthy.

I open the laptop.

“No sticky keys,” I say. “Good sign.”

“Sticky keys? Is that a programming thing?”

“I don’t want to sully your mind with telling you what that is. It’s just a joke.”

“There’s a password,” says Lily, upon seeing the password screen come up. “Damn, this whole thing is ruined. I have no idea what his password might be.”

“Don’t worry,” I say, pulling a little USB drive from my pocket. “This thing will break through anything. It’s a special little program I made for circumstances just like this. You never know when it might come in handy.”

I plug the USB drive in and sure enough, the computer boots right up.

“Piece of cake,” I say. “Now comes the tricky bit.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Let’s see if I can use this machine to access the Tech Bee Bumble server,” I say. “With any luck he’ll at least have an email log on there… and then I can plant my worm.”

“You have a worm?”

“I made one at home… I modified it a little bit, in case this situation came up. That’s what I was doing all this week… mostly. I just couldn’t figure out how to get the worm in. Don’t worry, it’s not going to hurt their system at all. It’ll just plant a back door and give us the access we need to snoop around.”

“Sounds good,” says Lily, looking nervous. “They might be getting back any minute.”

“It won’t take long,” I say.

Sure enough, there’s an email log on to the server, and I’m able to parlay that into an installation of the worm. Another piece of cake, although frankly not many people would be able to pull this off.

There’s a sound in the apartment, the slamming of a door, footsteps.

“Someone’s coming,” says Lily. “Let’s hope it’s my friend Hailey….” A few seconds go by. “It doesn’t sound like her. Shit, I think it might be Blake… he’s kind of heavy… What are we going to do?”

She’s almost sweating with anxiety. She doesn’t want to be caught in his room, and I can understand that.

I quickly remove the USB drive and shut the laptop.

The door begins to open.

Thinking quickly, I grab Lily just like in the movies and kiss her.

I can tell she’s surprised, but she kisses me back.

To make it extra realistic, and for my own pleasure, I put my hand up her shirt and grab her breast gently, squeezing it. I can feel her nipples getting hard. I’m tempted to put a hand down her pants, but that might be going too far for this situation.

The door opens fully.

A young man, slightly overweight, with a large head, steps in. This must be Blake.

“Oh!” says Lily, pulling away from me, doing a great job of following along with my trick and pretending to be surprised. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t… I was just showing my friend here the apartment.”

“How’s it going?” I say.

Blake looks incredibly embarrassed. “Uh… I’ll be back in a minute,” he says.

“You think that worked?” says Lily.

“Of course. He bought it hook, line, and sinker.”