Tyler’s mouth dropped open. “You did it?”
“Yeah, man. I did it.” He had a big grin on his face and she couldn’t help but feel a wave of pride. If nothing else, both the guys were dedicated to what they did. Something she’d always admired about the two of them.
“Woo hoo.” Tyler high fived him and gave a laugh. “Thank goodness for that. It was doing my head in.” He frowned. “What was it?”
“Mutated code but it was hiding behind other layers of code. I hacked into it and changed the sequence around a few times and it worked. Now the guys downstairs can have it.”
Tyler whooped again and hurried over to his desk and went into the program while Simon stood with Ruby in his arms. Eventually she moved and tried to control her emotions by taking charge of the dogs again.
Simon wiped a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up. He sniffed the air. “Ah, tacos. You sure know how to please a guy.”
George came out from behind the desk and bounced around when he saw Ruby’s crew, his little growls of joy making her laugh.
“Want to take them outside to play?” Simon picked up Ziggy and got a face wash of kisses. “We have an outside area up here with real grass so they can pee and sniff to their hearts’ content.” He took the food bag and called out to Tyler. “You grab the plates and napkins from the kitchen.”
Ruby followed him into another room that looked like an executive office and out through a door onto a covered balcony. A grassed off area as big as her backyard greeted them. Large planter boxes with leafy trees would give shade in hot weather and a picnic table sat to one side under a sunshade. She could see the water of the bay over one edge of the roof and if she turned and looked back to the hills, she could almost pinpoint where the shelter was.
She let the dogs off their leashes and smiled as they ran around sniffing everything. “This place is awesome.”
Simon gave Ziggy a hug and let her down to go and play with the other dogs. “Yes, it is. It took quite a bit of convincing from my dad to make us move here too. We didn’t want to leave the basement to start with but once I bought them a new house, we didn’t have much choice.”
Ruby shaded her eyes from the setting sun. “So why did you?”
He glanced at her, took her arm and walked over to the table where he pulled out a white chair for her. Simon pulled out a tray of tacos followed by a small container of vibrant green guacamole and set them on the table as he spoke. “Because we had no choice if we wanted to keep doing what we were doing.” He placed all the takeaway boxes together and placed them in a trash bin before he turned a chair around and sat next to her. “When we sold that first program, we had to either keep at it which we wanted to do or risk being a one hit wonder or go away and hide. We chose to keep going because it was what we’ve always wanted. We wanted to build up the company and get it to where we are today. We’re in almost every company in the world that has anything to do with online creating. At least our components or our programs are.”
Ruby had always been inspired by his drive, his need to succeed and despite what had happened between them, she still felt a sense of pride when she thought of them. She leaned closer to listen to better hear him speak, focusing on the gleam of excitement in his eyes that never ceased to amaze her. She’d always been drawn to him when he started talking about the future and his place in building that. That magnetic pull hadn’t diminished over the years and that in itself was comforting.
“I can’t imagine you wanting to stop. Not after all the work you put into it.”
* * *
Nor could Simon but when things had gone wrong between them, he had considered it. The last thing he wanted to do was make anything that would give him more money. He couldn’t imagine being without Ruby and saw no way to fix it other than hiding away from the world.
Luckily his family and Tyler had stood behind him and held him up, encouraging him to keep going. They’d also convinced him that things could always get better. It all depended on your perspective and how you dealt with the hand you’d been given. Or as he preferred to think of it, the hand he’d dealt himself. Eventually he’d come to grips with how life had turned out and his part in it.
It was back then that Simon had realized what he wanted to do to ease his guilt over the mistakes he’d made with Ruby. Help people less fortunate than himself. Which was what Ruby had been doing ever since he’d known her even if she’d chosen animals over people.
“With the way things had gone, it was a very real possibility for me. I had a plan and it’d gone wrong. Time for a rethink on my part.” Simon gazed at her intently, wishing she would look at him, want him like he wanted her.
“So, tell me then. What did you end up doing?”
“We sponsor kids with computers who’d never have a chance to own one otherwise. Tyler came up with the idea to build simple, kid friendly laptops that get handed out at school to those that don’t have them. So far we’ve managed to get into quite a few
