“Hey, Gabe, do you have any coffee? I’ve got a terrible migraine,” Kerim said.
Gabriel’s mouth dropped, as if to say something to Kerim before turning to Cristal.
“Would you like coffee too?” he asked.
“Sure, thanks,” she said.
Gabriel half-smiled at her, then disappeared into the kitchen, which was really part of the living/dining room, separated only by a 1970s’ style orange beaded curtain. Gabriel always said the 70s were the coolest time in human history. She and Harry used to rag on him when he would bring out his round table and play his vinyl records of the 70s classic disco hits.
“Okay, so now what?” Kerim asked.
She needed to get set up and entertaining Kerim wasn’t part of the agenda. The coffee table was cluttered with gaming magazines, pop cans, chocolate bar wrappers, and a tissue box. She piled the magazines together and pushed them off to the side, giving her space to put down her laptop.
When she opened the laptop, the screen already had the terminal open, ready for her to start working. Kerim shifted closer to her, his knee a fraction of an inch away from hers. She glanced down briefly and moved her knee away. Is he for real?
“Do you think you can really decode the encrypted file? Harry seems to think so. But we all know that he has a crush on you.” He turned toward her with a wry grin.
I could smack him right now. She tried to focus on the code in front of her, letting her fingers fly across the keyboard. The characters and numbers that flashed before her were comforting. No emotional misunderstandings or tension to deal with—just pure, straightforward code.
Kerim’s hand found its way to her knee.
Cristal leaped up from her seat, and her arms were flailing up to push Kerim away, which knocked Gabriel sideways as he was just entering the room. The tray of coffee mugs slipped from his hands onto the table and sent boiling coffee onto Kerim’s lap and her computer.
“Hey! Take it easy, man!” Kerim cried out.
“Is it okay to grab a girl’s knee where you’re from?” she yelled.
“What the hell are you doing?” Gabriel added, reaching out and grabbing the box of tissues from the table.
Kerim stood up, coffee dripping down from his pants to the carpet.
“You are both insane!” Cristal snapped while pulling the tissue box from Gabriel’s hand.
“Hey, I need those,” Kerim said.
He reached out for the box.
Cristal pulled the box away, taking a handful of tissues and wiping the sticky brown mess off her computer. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Gabriel’s fists clenched. This is frickin’ crazy. Instead of getting the data for the video chat meeting with Harry, here she was babysitting the boys.
“You know, you’re a real jerk,” Gabriel growled.
“What did you say?” Kerim asked in a dangerously quiet voice.
“Oh, you heard what I said,” Gabriel said, his eyes blazing.
He lunged towards Kerim, swinging at him. Kerim smoothly turned his body avoiding the punch. He grabbed Gabriel by the wrist and twisted his arm behind his back.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Cristal mumbled to herself.
Just then, she noticed that her hands had started to shake. Oh, not again! She needed to get out of there soon. She grabbed her laptop and backpack.
“What are you doing?” Gabriel asked with his hand still locked behind his back.
“Where are you going?” Kerim added, letting Gabriel’s arm go.
She stopped and whirled around to face them.
“I don’t have time for this, whatever this is. We need to finish the mission. I don’t know about you but I want to find my dad. Obviously you two only want to arm wrestle.”
Her hands were still shaking. She walked past the kitchen towards the dark hallway. To her right, she saw a room with a desk and an office chair. A disco ball hung from the ceiling. The few times that she and Harry came to see Gabriel, they never went beyond the living room area.
In the corner of the room were a twin-sized bed and a bookshelf full of action figure dolls. The bed was neatly made; the wall was covered with posters of video games and 70s music bands.
She went straight to the desk and cleared the papers off, placing them in the drawer. She put down her laptop and opened the video chat window.
If those two guys want to waste time, she was going to video chat with Harry by herself.
Before she could continue with the decoding, she knew that she needed to calm down. The shaking episodes that used to overpower her in her teens only came about when she was extremely stressed. She used her deep breathing exercise to stop herself from shaking. She knew that if she didn’t stop it, something terrible could happen.