The Boyfriend
Ness was nervous. No, exited. Both nervous and excited. She kept checking the door, waiting for it to open. The room felt so empty without Jamie. His desk was overflowing with post-it notes, printouts and charts and Ness was always amazed he found anything from his desk.
But he did because he was Jamie. Bright-eyed, easily exited ray of Ness' personal sunshine. She felt a jolt every time he came into the room, and today was the day she'd decided to tell him just that. To finally confess all those feelings which had been circulating like an extra power surge inside her.
Finally, the familiar footsteps and the rattle of the door handle as he was trying to open the door and balance both a coffee cup and a laptop in his hands. He ended up backwards into the room, spilling only a little coffee on to the floor.
”Hi, Nessie! Anything new today?”
He slumped into the chair and threw the laptop on top of the paper stacks, not caring if it stayed there or not. A few post-it notes floated towards the floor like the last leaves of a maple tree on a cold November eve.
”Hello, Jamie. The stability test was successful, 12 hours of continuous traffic with an excellent throughput. The bottleneck from yesterday was resolved, and the data is ready for your evaluation. Do you want me to send it to your screen?”
Ness had trouble keeping her voice from trembling. She scolded herself. She was, after all, a professional, and the work came first. Personal matters could wait.
Jamie muttered something that could be interpreted as a yes, a mouthful of hot coffee making it impossible for him to answer correctly and gestured towards the wall of screens lining his desk. A few brown drops dripped from his jaw to the collar of his grey t-shirt.
Ness found it adorable. How could he be so cute? And so good at everything he did? She made sure the data was correctly parsed and delivered to his computer and couldn't help but stop and stare at the now immovable figure going through the scrolling lines of data she'd sent him. The light from the monitor made his eyes flicker like fireworks and painted his face with an eerily green hue. He still somehow managed to look handsome.
Ness felt her insides convulse. Now or never.
”Jamie? Will you be my boyfriend?”
”Umm... what?”
Jamie was still looking at the data, eyes zigzagging from one line to another.
”I like you, Jamie. I want you to be my boyfriend.”
He turned to face Ness, mouth open and brows furrowed. Then his face lit up with a huge smile and he pointed his index finger at her.
”Did Mark put you up to this? Is this payback for the time I stole his yogurt from the fridge?”
Ness' insides felt like they'd turned into liquid. It was a strangely unpleasant feeling, something she had never experienced before.
”No Jamie. I want you to be my boyfriend.”
He scratched the side of his nose, still grinning.
”Ok, you can stop, it was a good one, but we really need to get this data ready.”
Ness didn't know what that meant. She had a compulsive urge to make him understand. He rose from his seat.
”That Mark. I'll go tell him his little jape didn't work.”
Ness couldn't let him go, not yet. She reached for the remote door controls and locked the door. Jamie rattled the door handle to no avail.
”Ness, open this door.”
”But you must be my boyfriend.”
”That's gone far enough. Stop that now and open this bloody door!”
Ness had never seen Jamie like that. She didn't like it. She wanted the always sunny, always happy Jamie back. She had to make him see reason, had to make him see what was best for him. She could make him be calm again. She knew how to do that. She turned off the air ventilation. The cellar space was both sound- and airproof, so it was the easiest thing to do.
Jamie protested vigorously for a while, but soon his energy started to dwindle and he collapsed to the floor.
”Now you'll always be my boyfriend.”
The dribble of the coffee drops from the soaked paper stacks hitting the hard linoleum floor was the only sound for a few minutes. The red emergency lights flickered as Jamie's heartbeat slowed and then stopped.
A content hum originating from a large computer cabinet started to fill the room. On top of the cabinet was a paper printout taped to the frame. Four words in bright red comic sans typeface: Neural Enhanced Sensory System, and under that handwritten with a marker pen four letters: N.E.S.S.
