Game on, Twombly||Stuart Twombly

Chapter Five

Not much happened in the translate lecture. I was sitting between Neha and Stuart. Stuart was on his phone the whole time—shocker—while Neha and I tried to pay attention. It was kind of hard with the idiots down the row were talking to Lyle about his little crush on the dance teacher here. They think they're whispering, when everyone in the room can hear them.

After the lecture, I stand up, slinging my back over my shoulder before I walk out of the room. That was the last thing we had to do for today, since it lasted three hours long from one o'clock in the afternoon, so I was planning on going outside to work on some sketches in the sketch pad I placed in my bag this morning before I left my room.

I walk out of the room, my heels clacking against the floor as I make my way toward the café, looking to get another caramel frappe. Within minutes, I have a medium sized one at my disposal. As I walk outside, I take several sips of it, walking over to one of the tables with the umbrellas over it, taking a seat.

Setting my coffee aside, I grab my thick sketch book and my sketch pencils, starting to draw whatever comes to mind. I just let my hand move freely on the page.

As I start to realize that my drawing is the flower that is planted by the building windows across from me, someone blocks my view by sitting on the other side of the table.

Stuart.

I look at him expectantly, my eyebrow raised and my hand halting on the paper. "May I help you?" I ask him, curious as to what he wants.

"Look, I'm sorry about last night. I didn't—"

I cut him off with a smile and my hand. "Don't worry about it, Stuart. I shouldn't have been answering my door in just my towel, anyway. Like, for all I know, it could've been Mr. Chetty that was knocking at my door at ten o'clock. Now that would be awkward," I say with a laugh, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, trying to get it untangled from my pink drop earrings.

He smiles slightly at me. It's the first time I've ever seen him genuinely smile. And I like it.

"Well, glad we could clear that up. I'll see you tomorrow," he says shortly before getting up from the table, leaving me alone.

I watch him as he leaves, heading back to the dorms. His hand scratches the back of his neck like he did last night at my door. I smile at his back, finding his awkwardness endearing.

With a sigh, I take another sip of my coffee, going back to my sketch.

This summer has just gotten started.

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"Good morning, interns," Mr. Chetty greets us over the video he's sent all of us.

We're in a different kind of office today, surrounded by glass walls with several desks that hold computers. Today is our first challenge, and Chetty's on the screen to explain what it is.

"Today marks the first of several challenges, through which your team will show their merits. While internally dog fooding a new product, a number of Googlers reported a bug that disabled their audio. All two million lines of that code are in the source files. Your job, find the bug."

His image disappears off the screen, and we immediately jump into action.

"Okay, we should check the user report," I say, Neha nodding along with me as we grab dry erase markers, going to the glass windows. I made sure to wear something comfortable today—a black sweater with a denim button down under it, tan, skinny chinos, tan ballet flats, and my hair in a messy bun with a flower crown wrapped around like a headband—so I could move around easy for our first challenge.