eight

I had never felt so calm and collected walking into work as I did today. It wasn't just the new look, but the new confidence it had given me, that allowed me to feel this way.

After getting home from the salon just after midnight last night, Becca had been waiting eagerly to see what Nikki had done to me. She knew just as much as I had about what was going to be done to me, but also loved it just as much as I did when she saw me walk through the door.

Becca had never been shy of a little change herself, going from brunette, to blonde, to red, before settling on the black with pink bangs that she now had. I would never be as adventurous with colours as her, but was excited to have at least made the move to blonde.

I walked over to reception, needing to ask about getting new ID photos taken. Although the company had relatively lenient dress-code policies, it was required that our key-cards be updated whenever a more major change was made. This was most certainly one of those times.

"Ally?" Bella looked up at me with her mouth open in shock. "I hardly recognised you! You're so gorgeous. I mean you always were, but-"

"Thanks, Bella," I chuckled, shutting her up from her nervous rambling. "I was just wondering how I go about updating my ID?"

I followed her into a tiny office, located just behind reception. She had me stand in front of a blank wall, taking my new photo in a couple of clicks. She showed me the picture, making sure that I was happy with how it looked, before connecting it to her computer.

"We're placing an order next week," she informed me, "so it'll be a little while before it comes in."

"All good," I smiled, thanking her before heading back into the lobby, just in time to see Conner arriving.

He stopped and stared for a good minute, deliberately making it awkward as only he could.

"Nikki's really done it this time," he beamed.

"She sure has," I laughed in agreement. "You like it?"

"Like it?" he repeated my question. "Ally, I would almost consider going bisexual for you."

"All I ever wanted," I joked.

The two of us headed for the elevator, selecting our respective levels as the doors closed us in. I said goodbye to Conner as he got off at his stop, making the rest of the journey to the top floor solo.

"You look different," Nikki smiled mischievously in my direction, drawing a considerable amount of attention to where I stood. People were mumbling all over the place, but it didn't bother me. "New skirt?"

"It is, actually," I smiled across at her. "Thanks for noticing."

I placed down Mr Gray's coffee on his vacant desk, thankful that I'd managed to fit in all of my extra errands this morning without making myself late. Heading into my own office, I shut the door and got straight to work, opening my emails to view my day's tasks.

Before I could even locate the email, the sound of someone knocking at my door made me jump a little. Hardly anyone ever came into my office.

"Come in," I called, anxious to see who was after me this early in the morning.

Sure enough, the door was opened, revealing a slightly dishevelled Mr Gray. He still looked sharp, but nowhere near as flawless as he usually did.

"Goo-," he began to speak, but stopped as soon as he looked over at me. An unknown emotion flashed across his face, most likely shock. But as always, the expression was gone as soon as it had come, being replaced by his usual stoic profile.

"Good morning, Miss Carson," he finally greeted me.

"Mr Gray," I nodded in return. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, per se, but it might be if we don't act on it soon."

"What's up?" I turned my chair so that I was fully facing him now, indicating that he had my undivided attention.

"It's the new website," he sighed, "which we were meant to be rolling out tomorrow."

I was extremely familiar with the project he was referring to. It was all that had been talked about for the last few weeks, both in the office as well as the media. There was a lot riding on it's success.

"We were doing some final testing today, and came across some major glitches to the system."

"In terms of functionality? or construction?" I asked, trying to get a better insight on the problem at hand.

"A bit of both, I think," he replied. "It's clunkier than we'd hoped, and has a number of pages which aren't properly linked. At least that's what I'm assuming is the issue."

"Do you want me to get in contact with ICT? Or maybe the design team?"

"I already have," he sighed more heavily than before. "They're doing what they can."

"Oh," I wasn't really sure what else to say.

"Are you able to stay back a little later tonight?" He asked, almost begging with his eyes.

"If you need me to," I agreed. "But I assure you that there's not going to be much that I can do if those teams can't even fix it."

Tonight was Becca's last night here, which made me want to find any way out of staying behind. It wasn't like we'd made any concrete plans, but it would still be good to spend the time with her.

"All we can do at this point is try," he sounded defeated.

I let out a breath, considering my options. I didn't really have many at this point. My role as Mr Gray's assistant meant that my loyalties ultimately lay with him.

"Then it's a deal."

He let out a harsh breath, focusing on the floor for a moment before looking back at me. He stared at me, silently, for longer than I was comfortable with.

"You changed your hair," he commented. "I like it."

With that he walked out, closing the door behind him and leaving me completely dazed.

Although it wasn't quite the 'love at first sight' reaction that Nikki had promised, I would definitely take it anyway.

———

Given the current crisis that was being faced by the company, I decided that I'd eat lunch in my office instead of taking a proper break. After hearing from Mr Gray about the nature of the issues, I'd logged on to the admin portal of the website and checked out the glitches for myself. He wasn't wrong; the system was laggy, and there were a number of links that led to dead ends. I had no idea how these problems had slipped through the cracks of our initial testing, but now wasn't the time to be asking that question.

I'd also texted Becca at the first available moment, letting her know that I was required to stay back at the office later than usual. As expected, she was disappointed at first but also super supportive, knowing that it hadn't been my choice, and that I had a loyalty to my employer. I made sure to promise that I would make it up to her when I eventually got home.

By five o'clock, when I would usually be finishing up for the night, I wasn't even halfway through the website's code. I'd resorted to searching the foundational coding of the site, looking for any error I could find. I was by no means an expert at reading whatever language it was in; I wasn't even experienced enough to know what it was called. But I had the basic knowledge, and it was my only hope.

Not long after this, my door was once again pushed open by Mr Gray, who now looked even worse off than he had this morning.

"You can join me in my office if you'd like," he suggested, waiting silently for my response.

"Ok, Sir," I nodded my head, gathering my laptop and following him next door.

"I though it might be easier if we worked together on this one," he explained, dragging a second chair behind his desk. "And I could also do with the company."

As we worked side by side in his spacious office, we talked. It wasn't anything too distracting, nor was it meaningless chatter. It was just friendly conversation, which I found myself rather enjoying. It also seemed to help take my boss's mind of the situation, killing two birds with one stone.

"How old are you, Mr Gray?" I spoke, "if you don't mind me asking."

"No, it's fine," he smiled. "I'm twenty-six."

"You're only two years older than me?" I'd expected him to be at least thirty. "How'd you manage to build this empire in such a short time?"

"My dad did most of it," he replied. "I can't really take much credit."

"Mr Gra-"

"Call me Tyler," he interjected. "Mr Gray is way too formal when it's just us."

"Ok Ty-ler," I enunciated, partly to tease him, but also not entirely intentionally. It felt odd calling my boss by his first name, almost like it was forbidden, or at least should have been. But he didn't seem to be making any inappropriate moves on me, so I wasn't all that worried by it.

"Much better," he chuckled.

"So what caused the sudden change in appearance, Ally?" The way he said my name sent literal shivers down my spine. This man was completely intoxicating without even trying. "Bad breakup?"

"Spot on," I laughed, trying not to let him see the effect he had on me.

"Wait, seriously?" He turned his attention from his computer, intrigued by my revelation.

"Yeah," I laughed at his disbelief. "Last Friday."

He looked away for a moment, mumbling something under his breath so softly that I couldn't decipher a single word of it.

"So that's why you were trying to slide into my DMs last night," he said out of nowhere, taking my attention away from the code that I'd been examining.

"What?" I had genuinely no idea what he was talking about.

"Are you trying to deny the fact that you followed me on Instagram to get my attention?" a smirk started to spread across his face. "Because your little message last night certainly gave me that impression."

I instantly grabbed out my phone, opening the Instagram app and desperately clicking on buttons in an attempt to find where the messages were kept. Sure enough, there was one active conversation in my inbox. I clicked on it nervously, wondering what on earth Nikki could have said.

Ally Carson: i haven't had a chance to see much of the city yet. wanna be my tour guide?

"I'm going to kill her," I groaned, shaking my head in disbelief.

"Kill who?"

"Nikki," I laughed, starting to see the humour in the situation. "She made me an account last night."

"Ahh," he nodded in understanding, "so you could spy on me from all angles."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," I chuckled, "but I don't think Instagram is the most effective method of spying on someone. Especially someone who's face is all over the tabloids as it is."

"I guess we'll wait and see," he said.

I wasn't really sure what he meant by that, but was certainly not going to waste my time trying to find out.

"What about your love life?" I turned the spotlight onto him. "I'm assuming that the amiable girl I met in the hallway the other day had a thing or two to say to you about your new PA?"

"I'll have you know that Courtney is a very good lover," he tried to justify himself, his attention now completely focused on our conversation.

"Until she opens her mouth," I rolled my eyes. "But I'm sure she doesn't get much of a chance to do that around you."

"If I didn't know any better, Ally," there he went again, making me weak with the simple mention of my name, "I would say that you're jealous."

"Jealous of a meaningless fling?" I questioned, as though it was ridiculous of him to even suggest it. "Sorry Tyler, but that's not really my scene."

"And what exactly is your scene, miss Ally."

Focus, Ally. Focus.

"Monogamy, for starters," I said, causing his eyes to open wide. Yes, I had just gone there. "And someone who I can call my best friend, before even knowing how good of a 'lover' they are."

"So you're wanting a marriage then?" he asked. I could tell that he was now genuinely interested, and the conversation had turned almost serious.

"Mhmm," I nodded. "And at least three kids."

"Three?" He raised an eyebrow in surprise. "I'm assuming you're an only child?"

"I have a brother," I replied. "And he's one of my best friends."

"I have two sibling," he explained without me even having to ask. "One is my best friend, the other my worst enemy."

"Brothers or sisters?"

"One of each," he answered. "My brother is my biggest critic."

"There's nothing wrong with constructive criticism," I smiled knowingly. Becca was by far my biggest critic, but it had made me who I was today. "Unless you're too proud to take it on board."

"It's not that easy," he responded. "I-"

I could tell he wanted to say more, and had a lot more to say, but he stopped himself at that for now, turning back to his computer screen.

"I know," I spoke softly, returning my attention back to my work as well.

———

"I think I found something!" I blurted excitedly after a while. "I'm not entirely sure, but it looks like someone's looped the code incorrectly."

"What does that mean?" he moved his chair slightly closer to where I was sat, looking at the section of input that I was pointing to.

"If I remember correctly," I replied, "it stops the code from being able to reach an end point, which causes linking issues and also consumes a lot of the processing power. That would explain both our main issues."

"Can you fix it?"

"I can try," I said, opening up the test module so that my tampering wouldn't actually change the website until I knew that it was the solution we were after.

I racked my brain for the correct inputs, typing up what I believed was the correct sequence.

"Try that," I clicked enter, applying the changes to the test site.

The screen flickered, jumping through from page to page without either of us touching anything.

"You sure you put it in correctly?" he asked, growing increasingly worried as the time went by.

I scanned the sequence once again, noticing a small typo in the input. I was by no means certain that this was the only issue with what I had just put in, but it was certainly an error.

"Ok," I clicked enter again. "Give it another go."

The screen flickered again, as if to reload itself, but this time stayed on the home page. Tyler timidly grabbed hold of the mouse, scrolling through the page and clicking on some of the links that had given us grief with the previous design. We anxiously held our breath as each page loaded, exchanging a look of hope as each one opened successfully.

"I think," he began, clicking on one of the only links we hadn't tried yet. It, as with every one before it, connected smoothly and most importantly, quickly. "I think you've done it."

His eyes were now twinkling with delight as he looked over at me. Relief was clear in his expression, his whole body less tense than it had been just minutes before.

"Should I apply it to the actual site?" I asked the million dollar question. Although we were pretty certain that this was the solution, there was never any guarantee that it would respond the same in the actual code.

He looked over at the clock, which now read a quarter to twelve. The website was scheduled to go live at midnight, so we didn't really have much of an option.

"Let's do this."

———

"Oh, I almost forgot," I turned to see Tyler putting on his jacket. "Is it alright if I come in a little late tomorrow? My friend is leaving for Australia at ten."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" He asked, his voice not giving away whether he was angry or confused. I was worried that I'd left it too late.

"Sorry sir, I-"

"I wouldn't have gotten you to stay behind if I knew that this was your friend's last night here."

I let out a sigh of relief, sending him a smile.

"It's alright, Tyler. This was important and I'm glad that I could help."

"You really are a lifesaver, Ally," he said for the umpteenth time. "You saved my ass, as you always seem to do."

"Just doing my job," I smiled, heading for the revolving doors. "Goodnight, Tyler."

As I made my way home, down the bustling streets of Manhattan, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Taking it out to check the notification, my breath hitched as I read the simple words.

'tylergray started following you'

"No, Mr Gray," I thought to myself. "You will be the death of me."