Page 45 of Override

Wheels follows my line of sight before snorting loudly. “Jesus Christ.”

“I travel.”

For about thirty seconds, neither of us says anything.

Then he looks at me. “You’re doing it again.”

I don’t look up. “Doing what?”

“The weird staring thing.”

“I’m reading.”

“You’re emotionally cyber-haunting a redhead.”

“That is not a sentence.”

“It absolutely is.”

I exhale slowly through my nose while typing another command line.

Beside me, Wheels watches the surveillance feed quietly for a second too long.

Maeve disappears into the guest bathroom upstairs. The only room in the house without cameras.

My chest tightens automatically.

Unfortunately, Wheels notices that too.

“There it is,” he says.

I glance over finally. “What?”

“That face.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The one where you look like somebody just kicked a puppy emotionally.”

“That’s not a real expression.”

“It is now.”

I hate that he’s observant when he wants to be.

Wheels twists slightly on the couch to face me more fully. “Seriously, man. What’s going on with you?”

The question settles heavier than it should. Mostly because I don’t have a good answer.

Rain taps softly against the apartment windows while Michael Scott screams about bankruptcy in the background.

“I don’t know,” I admit finally.

Wheels goes still beside me. Not joking now. That alone feels dangerous.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

I scrub one hand down my jaw slowly, eyes drifting back toward the laptop screen again. Maeve still hasn’t come out of the bathroom.