Her eyes lingered on me a little longer, then she stepped inside and cleared her throat. “Anyway. The problem.”
“Yeah, the problem,” I said following her into the vestibule. “From your text, it sounded...”
I trailed off. Wow. This place was even nicer on the inside than the outside—it even felt bigger, somehow. The high, vaulted ceiling above my head seemed way too high for the simple two-story structure I’d parked in front of. A roaring fireplace bathed the living room in a romantic light, with a winding staircase around the perimeter of the room leading to the second story. A shelf of leatherbound books sat above the fire: I tried to see if we had any favorites in common, but all the titles were in Latin.
I don’t remember Christina taking classes in Latin, I thought. Maybe they’re just for show?
“Nice place,” I said, meaning it.
“Thanks,” Christina said with a smile. “And yes, the problem is serious. Everything’s down: my computer, my Netflix, even my phone.”
With a nod, I looked around the room. “That’s what I’m here for,” I said with a smile, gesturing at the bag at my side. “Hopefully it’s something I can fix right on the spot. Where’s your modem?”
Her brows furrowed together. “My what?”
Oh boy. “It’s a box,” I said, holding my hands a short distance apart. “About this big, with a lot of blinking lights on it. It’s how the Internet gets into your house.”
“Oh, that!” Christina’s eyes lit up. “It’s in my bedroom.”
I swallowed hard. Bedroom? Play it cool, Luke.
“I’ll need you to show me to it,” I said, looking up at the second floor. “That’s not a problem, I hope?”
“That we’ve only reconnected for five minutes and you’re already asking to see my bedroom?” She gave me a lascivious grin. “Not at all. We’re definitely going to have to do some catching up, Luke. It’s been a long time. How did you end up running your own business? Back in college, you seemed like such a…”
Loser, I thought ruefully. I’d learned not to take it personally. If there was one ironclad rule in the world, it was this: the way people treated you depended on how you looked, and first impressions were hard to shake. It was why Christina had never given me a second glance back at college—while now, with some muscle on my arms and a business underneath me, she sounded half-ready to jump my bones.
“...slacker,” she finished, too polite to say the actual word. “But, I mean, clearly you’ve gone through some changes.”
“Clearly,” I agreed. “And I guess we both ended up as business owners, huh? Small world.”
“Getting smaller all the time,” Christina said, leading me up the stairs. “It’s right over here…”
The second floor of Christina’s home was less imposing than the entrance. More carpets, more homey touches—there was even a bathroom mat in the shape of a cute kitty cat next to the master bedroom. There were enough women’s touches to shake off the weird feeling I’d gotten from the home’s appearance and the too-large living room.
“Nice pics,” I said, admiring the walls. “Looks like you’ve had an interesting few years.” Like most people, Christina had framed photos adorning the walls: one of her college graduation, an old photo of her doing a kick atop a human pyramid during a halftime cheer, her on a jetski in the Caribbean with her family. The kind of shots you’d use for a dating profile, or as your curated top pics on Instagram.
All except for one. I almost missed a step at the sight of it—Christina in the woods with four other beautiful women, gathered around what I first took as a smoldering campfire. Only instead of flames, a large burlap sack sat in the middle of the coals. An aura of foreboding stole over me as I stopped to examine it further. The girls all looked like they were having fun, though whoever took the photo had given them all a serious case of red-eye. If not for that one, strange little detail…
“What’s this?” I asked, pointing at the picture.
“Camping trip,” Christina said, as if it were an ordinary photo. “Me and the girls go out every now and then—drink pinot, gossip, you know the deal. One of my besties is totally into this whole ‘solstice’ thing? I don’t really get it myself, but it’s fun…”
Don’t ask, I told myself. I didn’t want to screw up a good thing. “It’s good to hang out with friends,” I said, turning away. “People drift apart too easily when they grow up, yeah?”
A knowing smile spread across Christina’s face. “I know exactly what you’re talking about.”
I found the modem almost immediately—it was tucked beneath Christina’s big king-sized bed, along with an ancient-looking router. Lights on the side flashed, though two of them that would normally be green blinked a deep red. There’s the problem, I thought reaching for both.
I unslung my messenger bag and slipped a small black laptop out of a pouch. Its plastic was scuffed, and it certainly wasn’t a top-of-the-line device—but it would let me dial into the router and diagnose the problem. I booted it up, fishing in the bag for an Ethernet cable as I focused on my work.
A little noise snapped me back to reality. Christina stood on the other side of the bed, her long braid curled around her waist. The headboard next to her had a strange symbol like a star carved into the mahogany—probably some kind of good luck thing, I figured.
“Can I get you something while you work?” Christina asked. “You’re probably not supposed to drink on your shift, but it’s already so late. I’m sure I’m your last client for the night, right?”
“You are,” I said with a grateful smile. “And seeing as I’m the boss, there’s no rules against drinking on the
