Heart Beat Song (A Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist Fanfiction)

Chapter Twelve: Complicated

I sat on the risers, my tablet in my hand, sketching designs for the Scavenger hunt alerts, feeling...in all honesty, more free than I have in years. Leif apologized, we're all good...

Assuming I trust him and believe that his apology is genuine...do I? I want to believe it is but...am I right about that?

I glanced up, my eyes traveling to Leif's desk, where his back was to me. He moved his arm, knocking a pencil off of his desk. He turned around to pick it up, and his eyes immediately found mine. He smiled, and I found myself unable to do anything accept smile back.

I really want to believe him.

"Will you tell me the truth?" My focus was redirected from Leif to Max at the question that was practically shouted at Zoey, who had been walking around surveying everyone's progress. "Why didn't you wanna go to dinner with me?"

"Oh no." I muttered, setting my tablet down beside me.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't do that, you tried to set me up with out barista, ever since I mentioned Hand-Picked, its like you haven't been into it."

"I have a lot going on, Max." She said, walking away from him. He got up, following her. 

"I know, but something just feels a little bit different between us all of a sudden. Is this because of your new power?" My eyes widened, and I saw Zoey's eyes fly to me. I shook my head, quickly grabbing my tablet again and looking at it when Max looked at me too.

"Um, come here for a second." She pulled him off to the side, a little ways away from me. "My new power?"

"Yes. Your new power over me as my boss. Is that what this is about?" She glanced at me.

'Just tell him.' I mouthed.

"Yes, that is exactly what this is about." I face palmed.

"Hey." I jumped, turning to see that Leif was now standing in front of me. He chuckled. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't! You didn't scare me, I'm...I'm good. What's up?"

"Nothing much, you...you just seemed kind of distracted, so I thought I'd come over here and see what the Technological-Marketing Relations Manager was up to." 

"Yeah, I'm just working on the art for the scavenger hunt push notifications." I said.

"Oh, cool. Can I take a look?" I nodded and he took a seat beside me. I glanced back to Zoey and Max for a moment before turning to him and handing him the tablet.

"I debated, because I didn't want to be super obvious and do question marks or something like that, because I didn't want it to be cheesy, so I thought we could just do a trendy, artistic background with simple lettering. Marble and gold are really popular, and pink just seemed to go best with those so, that's the template, and that's the preview of what it will look like on the watch screen." I swiped sideways so that he could see both images.

"Mary, this is great!" He said, looking back at me. "This looks awesome, the beta users are gonna love this." I smiled as he looked back at it. "Is that one of the clues?"

"Yeah, 'At this location, selfies are never second rate. When people think of San Francisco, they usually think of the-"

"Golden Gate. This is the clue for the bridge, hinting that they have to go to the bridge look-out and take a selfie there." I nodded. "That is so cool."

"Thanks." I said, taking the tablet back.

"This is...kind of weird, isn't it?" He asked. "Well not weird, its just...the last time we sat down and had a friendly, civilized conversation was-"

"The night before the peer reviews came out." I said. "That was the week from Hell because our photo editing app was uploading everyone's pictures as Negatives." I remembered.

"Yeah, and we were staying late to fix it, so we ordered dinner from that Thai place you love so much....Thai Time!"

"Yeah!" I laughed. "I can't believe you remember that."

"Well...I remember a lot of things." he said. "I remember once we got our food we literally just sat on one of the bench overhangs and talked for three hours." I nodded.

"That's how we figured out the bug, right?" I asked. He nodded.

"Yeah, that was a...a fun night." I nodded in agreement. "We should do it again. Maybe tonight we can go grab dinner or something." I looked down at my lap as memories began to come rushing back.

"You're just gonna do it, Mary. Its not a big deal? You guys are friends! 'Hey Leif...I had a really great time last night, and I just wanted to know if you wanted to grab dinner or something. As...not friends-' No that's so awkward!"

"Ok people! Peer Review time, head to my office when I call your name!"

I bit my lip.

"Um..." I looked up at him. All it took was that look and he somehow knew what I was thinking.

"You're not there yet." He said, nodding and standing up. "Yeah, of course, it was stupid to think that after one conversation you'd be willing to go get dinner and just pick up where we left off."

"Leif, I-" He shook his head.

"Its ok," He said, "I get it. Just take your time. We'll take things slow." I sighed. "Have a good day, Mary."

"Yeah...you too." He slipped his hands in his pockets, going back over to his desk and slipping his glasses onto his face, getting back to work. I looked back over to where Max and Zoey were to see that they were back to work as well, only Max looked beyond ticked. Not a good sign.

Since when are our lives so complicated?

~~~

"I don't get it, guys." I glanced up from my lap top the next day, still sitting on the risers to see Zoey pacing around the bullpen again. "I told you to establish a model for how fast each leg of the scavenger hunt will go. I gave you all the parameters, I told you I'd be checking your progress, the project needs to be done by tomorrow morning. I couldn't have been clearer, so can someone tell me, why isn't the work getting done and getting done properly?"

"Maybe we're just not used to someone standing over our shoulder every five minutes." Max told her. I bit my lip.

"He's right," Tobin agreed, "I haven't felt this kind of stress since I got into both MIT and Harvard. 'What are you gonna do, Tobin?! What are you gonna do?! Hack into the CIS and go to prison for three years instead. What?" I furrowed my eyebrows, pointing a finger at him.

"We should really talk more." I said.

"I think I need to sit down, my sciatic is acting up?" Leif added.

"Now?" Zoey asked. "You've been at a standing desk for years! Are these actual complaints or are you guys just messing with me?" I got up, walking over to her and putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey Zo, sweetie," I said, causing her to look at me, "Maybe just take it down a notch, ok? Just take a breather, give them some room to breathe-"

"No, forget about it!" She said. "It was my idea, well half my idea, I have the vision, I'll just do the entire project myself." She walked over, sitting down at her desk. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

Like I said...complicated.