Fire And Ice

34. Dragon desk.

Victor stepped in and then off to the side, allowing me access. The other trailing behind us.

The walls were wood panel, very plain compared to what I'd seen downstairs. There were wood slat double doors opposite the one we came in, and a regular sized door off to the side, also closed. Along one wall was a bookcase filled with binders and computer manuals.

There was a long, light wood table that took up one side of the room. The top of it was littered with a collection of computers and other morden upto date electronics. Nearly all were opened, with half of the guts taken out and exposed on the table.

There were other, smaller tables against the walls around the room. These were also piled with various computer parts and the shells of laptops and phones. It wasn't disorganized so much, it was just half-finished projects ready to be pieced together.

On another side of the room was a large dark mahogany desk, facing out. The feet were carved into claws standing on top of orbs. The front depicted a dragon sailing through clouds. The top was bare except for a large black desk mat that took up nearly the entire wide surface, a striking contrast to the messy table opposite it.

Broken equipment, computer manuals and an empty desk? If Victor was hiding Academy secrets in this room, he was doing a fabulous job of it. I wouldn't know where to start.

Victor pushed aside the leather wingback rolling chair from behind the clean desk. He hovered over it, opened the left side drawer, and fingered the underside of the opening until there was a click.

The mat on top of the desk shifted. I drifted closer, curious. Part of the mat opened. A security panel keypad appeared. Victor tapped in a series of numbers and pressed the input button.

The mat shifted again, opening up in the middle. Two flat computer monitors drifted up on an unseen platform, positioning to a comfortable eye-level. The screens were already illuminated.

My eyes were wide and I was sure if I hadn't stopped myself I would be bouncing like a kid on a Christmas day.

My face took a sheepish expression as I remembered something and my mental rule that I made up seconds ago was broke, "I saw your password."

Victor's fire eyes blazed, amused. "What is it?"

I flashed numbers at him with my hands, in the sequence he'd used for his password. "I'm pretty sure that's it," I said.

Victor beamed.

"Are we going to get into trouble with her knowing passwords?" Nathan asked.

"I trust her," Victor said absently, directing his attention to the computer screens. A keyboard and mouse had also appeared. He tapped at the keyboard.

"That's not what I meant." Nathan said. I smiled at him in understanding. Knowing Nathan is just looking out.

"Well, I'm going to get my pancake. Are you coming, cupcake?" Luke said standing in the doorway.

"No. I don't want her downstairs or anywhere in this house other than the room I'm in." Victor said focusing on Luke, Like they are communicating with their eyes.

"Then bring some for me, will you?" I asked, as they broke the eye contact and victor turned back to the computer. My mouth watering as it's been a long time since I've had chocolate chip pancake. Luke nodded.

"I'm coming too." Nathan said, then did a short wave to me and they both left the room, leaving Victor and me alone in the room.

Victor stepped back, moving the large chair around. He patted the seat and then curled his fingers at me. "Sit next to me?" He asked. I nodded and sat down on the chair.

He rolled over another one of the shorter office chairs from the long table. He brought it to position in front of the monitors and keyboard. I felt awkward that he gave me his fancy chair and he had to sit in the smaller one. He nudged my chair over, positioning me to his left.

He then was typing something. It felt weird to see what he was doing even though I badly wanted to see what he's doing. But I didn't. I sat cross legged and swung left and right on the chair, using Victor's leg as leverage as I was bored and didn't have anything to do.

I fingered the arm of the chair, feeling the smoothness of the leather. There was nothing interesting to look at so I looked at Victor.

He was focused on the screen and at that moment I realised he was handsome when he was smiling, but his looks were killer when his fire eyes roared into a blaze of concentration like he had now.

I blushed at the direction of my thoughts. Happy that Victor wasn't paying attention, I looked away.

The room was completely silent, expect for the occasional clicking of the mouse and tapping of the keys of keyboard.

There was a faint ticking sound, like that of a clock. I thought it was the hidden computer in the desk Victor was working on. I tried pinpointing it but couldn't figure out the exact location. It was also irregular, almost irritating.

"What's that ticking noise?" I asked my voice slightly irritated, as I couldn't tolerate the irregular ticking.

"Check the drawers." He said, not taking his eyes off the screen. I stared at the handle of the drawer for a second. Well, he said to open.

The first drawer was lined with a collection of miniature tools. I imagined it was for breaking into the smaller tablets and cell phones. The tools were mostly silver metal, with ebony handles. The moment I saw the set, I was itching to find another cell phone to take apart.

The second drawer was shallow, with an organized collection of USB drives and a couple hard drives not taken out of their boxes yet.

The third drawer was much deeper and had a collection of typical desk set doodads. There were pencil cups, business card holders, a holder for sticky notes, letter openers, fountain pens, a couple of pocket-sized day planners and a collection of desk clocks. Some of the clocks were still ticking away at incorrect times.

I wanted to stop the clocks but they don't belong to me so I closed the drawer and sat back. After a few more minutes, I heard the sound of footsteps, light and faint. I smiled knowing it's Luke.

I slowly stood up and that caused Victor to turn his attention to me. I smiled as I held a finger to my lips and walked to door, hiding.

Victor looked at me in confusion but went back to typing at the screen but looking at me every 5 seconds. Not being alarmed as I was smiling.

As soon as the door opened, I didn't wait to see who it was I jumped out, yelling "boo."

I froze as I realised it wasn't Luke. I blinked at Owen, a blush taking over my face. Suddenly I heard a laugh and I looked behind Owen to see Luke on the floor clutching his stomach, laughing. Nathan balanced a plate of pancakes a he laughed.

I heard a slight chuckle and I turned to look at Victor with wide eyes and open mouth, who had his hands over his mouth. I huffed and sat down on the chair, where I was sitting before and hid my face in my hands in embarrassment.

Owen cleared his throat and I looked up and saw he had entered the room, along with Luke and Nathan. Luke was still beaming.

Nathan rolled a chair and sat next to me and handed me the plate. I smiled in thanks, but didn't eat. It was werid to eat when the others weren't.

Owen looked at Victor with a 'we need to talk' look. When he looked at me, I shrugged. Owen and Victor left the room.

Nathan pointed at the plate, "Luke made it and there's too much chocolate."

"Just what I needed." I said and started to eat my pancake. Both of them kept conversing so it was not much awkward. Plus it's so much fun when the guys are around.