Written by a Woman

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

ZAID

Even though I assured my sisters that I knew how to woo a woman, the reality was, I had no idea what I was doing most of the time I interacted with her. My only hope in flirting with Signe in a way she appreciated, was by researching what women like Signe liked online.

I would rather shave my entire body with a dull razor than admit to my sisters that I probably could use some advice, and I didn’t want to encourage them to take a page from our mother’s book and insert themselves into mine and Signe’s hypothetical relationship.

Salma already did enough with the whole babysitting fiasco.

So here I was, sitting in my bed, scrolling on my phone on my anonymous account that was filled with romance novels, women reviewing romance novels, and Signe Lange.

That being said, the confidence that people had on the internet would always astound me.

I wasn’t referring to Signe, because her internet confidence was something enthralling. It drew the viewer in, not just because of her beauty, but also because of the way she delivered her content to viewers. Her personality showed through, even though most people made their presence on the internet something fake, like a persona. Not Signe, she was herself no matter if she was at work or online.

No, the people that shouldn’t be as confident on the internet were usually men.

Specifically, men who felt the need to put down others.

There was a trending video, and I had seen a couple of people stitch already with their own sassy rebuttals. It showed a man walking through what looked like a construction site, and he claimed that when he brought dates over, he made them walk through a narrow passageway to ensure that they passed some sort of physical test. It illustrated that he wouldn’t tolerate a woman too big to fit through the tight space.

“I make all the girls that I bring home walk through this,” he started the video, “Because if they can’t walk through this—” and then the video would cut off with someone else calling him a misogynistic prick. Because he was.

What caught me by surprise, however, was Signe’s response to this video.

As soon as his clip ended, her flawless face filled the screen.

“Yeah, so,” Signe cleared her throat while she nodded along as if agreeing with the man, “I make all the guys that I bring home play Xbox just to make sure that they can do this,” She then lifted an Xbox controller and flicked her thumb against the joystick in a very sexual manner, “Because if he can’t do this—” and then her video cut off.

And I threw my head back against my headboard to cackle.

Jesus, this woman was amazing.

I was still chuckling to myself and getting ready to call it a night before my phone buzzed with an email notification, and I adjusted my glasses to read it.

Brandon was cc’d on the email from a potential client in Tennessee, so I wasn’t too surprised to see a text from him before I could check my schedule for the next few weeks.

Brandon: Let’s use this opportunity to update the photos on the website.

I frowned before responding.

Me: If the photographer is willing to go to Tennessee, that’s fine.

I hated getting my picture taken. I was uncomfortable in front of the camera, and no matter how hard I tried to smile, it always came off more like a grimace. Something about posing with a smile felt impossible.

Brandon: Damn. I just called, and their voicemail said they were on vacation for the next month.

I smiled at that, good for the photographer. Sun Steer usually called the same person, since they knew our brand and vision and we had built a comfortable relationship with them.

Brandon: Isn’t Signe good with a camera?

I felt my heart stutter in my chest.

Signe had taken a couple of pictures at company parties and events in the past. She would just take her phone out and start snapping pictures of decorations and buffets and employees laughing and send them over to our marketing department for them to use.

They haven’t used all of the images she’s sent over, but they have used quite a bit for the company’s social media account.

Me: If the camera is attached to a phone, I believe so.

Based on what I saw on her social media account, she had a very good eye for aesthetically pleasing shots. How that would translate to the Tennessee landscape and tractors, I wasn’t sure.

Brandon: She can tag along since she’ll book the flights and hotel anyway.

I didn’t realize Nikhil was expected to go too, so I sent him a message to see.

While I waited for his response, I laid my head against my headboard and tried to calm myself, instead of getting too nervous about the idea of flying in a plane for four hours with Signe. Even with a third wheel there, what would we talk about? Would flying freak her out? Would she take her shoes and socks off as soon as she sat down? Would she clutch her seat as soon as there was a hint of turbulence, like me?

Perhaps I was overthinking the whole thing.

I didn’t know why I was so worried about disappointing Signe on this trip. She wasn’t the type of person to write off someone for being nervous about sitting strapped in a chair at fifty-thousand feet.

A new message came in.

Nikhil and Signe were included in the thread.

Brandon said that they both would be joining us in Tennessee, instead of asking. The email left a bad taste in my mouth. Brandon wasn’t always this bossy. I remember when we used to goof off back in college, but ever since this company started to take off, he suddenly became all business.

I wouldn’t even go as far as to call us friends at this point. Colleagues made more sense.

The way he demanded that all three of us drop everything to meet with this potential client implied as much.

Nikhil: Unfortunately, I have that week off. Mary has volunteered to go instead.

I smiled; glad Nikhil didn’t fawn over Brandon’s demands while also allowing Mary to step into her promotion a little bit more. If I remember correctly, Jacqueline should be emailing her the official offer letter this week as well. We were hiring more engineers, and an entire additional team needed a manager. Mary was perfect for the role. Nikhil’s time off had already been scheduled weeks ago.

Brandon: That will work.

No form of thanks, no acknowledgment of how this changes everybody’s schedules. Nothing. He just expected it to happen because he said so. Sure, he was the CEO of Sun Steer. But he wasn’t a god. His employees were still people that deserved to be conversed with properly, instead of people waiting for him to snap his fingers and say jump.

That was the problem with a hierarchy like upper management. It was too easy to forget about all the worker bees that made every success of this company possible.

I didn’t want to end up like Brandon.

I wanted to be part of all the work, not sitting alone in an office with everyone fawning over my next set of demands.

Though, to be fair, Signe never fawned. She treated everyone with kindness and respect. Minus that one time that I saw her flip off Brandon underneath her desk, though that was deserved. He’s changed a lot since college.

All business.

Cutthroat.

Bonding and establishing rapport with employees is not something he bothered himself with.

I opened a separate thread and sent a direct message to Brandon.

Me: We need to talk about alternatives for CTO soon.

It took less than a minute for his response to come in.

Brandon: You’re right, I’m getting ready to announce some changes in upper management, let’s talk after Tennessee.

Relief relaxed my shoulders, a light starting to shine at the end of this long tunnel.

I scrolled on my phone some more, even though I hated how much more time I was spending on social media in general, I wasn’t upset at all the information I was getting about Signe. How I was able to see the side of her that she kept hidden at work.

I wanted to know all sides of Signe, it seemed.

The thing about following Signe’s socials as closely as I did in order to learn her likes and dislikes, though, was how it affected my algorithm.

I discovered this not two videos after Signe’s, when a blonde middle-aged woman with a septum piercing, whom I had never seen on social media before came on the screen and started the video with, “Are you fingering your wife or girlfriend?”

I raised my eyebrows at that intro, thinking to myself, What ever happened to, hello? How are you?

The woman continued as if that wasn’t an insane thing to start with, “If you’re not, you should be. If you are, you’re probably doing it wrong.”

Well, damn .

“Don’t worry, there’s hope. In this video I’m going to be discussing all the tips and tricks needed, and why. Your clit-owning partner will thank me.” I paused the video, checking the time and seeing that it was late and that I should probably go to sleep.

But also…

“First…” the woman’s voice rang after I hit play and continued for the sake of education. This seemed like a much better source than anything Pornhub might have to offer on the subject, and the no-nonsense way the woman delivered the information about the female orgasm made me realize I had a lot more to learn about it.

Was I being too hopeful about the opportunity to practice this new educational material with a certain redhead? Perhaps. Even though, if everything went to plan, I wouldn’t have the chance to show off my, well, skills for a long time. Until after Signe finalized her book deal and quit. After I asked her out, and after I managed to “woo” her enough for her to confidently delete her dating apps.

Go big or go home, I guess.

An hour and a half had passed when I finally halted my research, after deciding to follow that blonde woman’s account specifically because she made lots of videos on the proper way to please a woman. I felt much more educated on the subject of giving women orgasms, so I finally closed my eyes and went to bed.

My dreams about Signe weren’t exactly tame that night.

I was scolding myself the next morning when my alarm went off and I realized that I needed to take care of some things in the shower if I was going to be able to handle being in the workplace with Signe again.

But I needed to be professional.

I was management, and it was inappropriate for me to be sporting an erection simply from learning how to take care of a woman properly with hopes that one day, in the far future, Signe would want to be that woman.

* * *

SIGNE

“I watched the show you recommended last night,” I informed Mary as she settled into the back seat of Zaid’s Tesla, “It was quite the titillating experience.” I turned in the passenger seat to wiggle my eyebrows suggestively. Mary’s eyebrows came down flat.

“Not a good enough reason to use the word ‘titillating’,” she shook her head once, already pulling her phone out of her pocket and settling into the backseat, still grumpy that I beat her to the passenger seat by calling “dibs.”

The sound of another woman huffing in amusement made us all look to the other end of the parking lot where Jaqueline was walking towards us, a hand over her mouth for a moment before she removed it and revealed her professional but friendly smile, “Ladies, are you busy?”

Zaid was still on the phone, speaking low and resting his hips against the hood of this fancy electric car. Mine and Mary’s windows were rolled down, so we leaned closer to them to chat with Jacqueline.

“I just wanted to make sure the two of you feel safe with the travel plans,” She gave me a pointed look, “And that the hotel accommodations are something you’re comfortable with.”

Mary and I exchanged a curious look before I nodded encouragingly at the head of human resources, “We feel safe, and I booked the hotel rooms myself. So it isn’t a situation I’m worried about.”

What was she implying, exactly?

Out of all the men in the company, Zaid was probably the one I had absolutely no reservations about traveling with at all. Nikhil an immediate second. If anything, knowing what I have written about the CTO, he was probably the one who should be checking in with Jacqueline like this. But Zaid didn’t know what I had written about him, so here we were.

“Alright,” Jacqueline nodded, thrumming her fingers on the car door, “If either of you need anything, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.” She gave us a warm smile before stepping back from the car and wiggling her fingers goodbye. She then nodded her head at Zaid, who was still on the phone but nodded back at her and left.

“…Do you ever get the impression that Jacqueline has some trauma?” Mary asked.

“What do you mean?” I watched her walk back into the building, probably to interview more software engineers since hiring was chaos lately. I had helped her with a lot of onboarding paperwork in the last week.

“She’s always very protective of the female-identifying employees,” I heard Mary shift in her seat behind me, “More so than I am used to from an HR rep.”

I sat with Mary’s thoughts for a moment.

She had a point.

“Didn’t Jacqueline start just a few months before I did?” I asked as soon as the driver’s side door opened and Zaid took his seat at the wheel.

“She started about six months before you,” Zaid replied, inserting himself into the conversation, “Right after we got our Series A funding.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Mary chimed in from the back seat.

“What’s Series A funding?” I had heard this mentioned at the office a few times before, but I didn’t understand all the terminology and details. All I knew was that Sun Steer was a “rapidly growing tech startup” and that seemed like enough information for me to do my job.

“It’s just fancy terminology for the first round of funding from investors,” Zaid explained, resting one hand on the wheel. I held my breath as he flipped the car into reverse, anticipating the classic “let me rest my hand behind your seat so I can look over my shoulder as I pull out of the parking spot” move, but that didn’t happen.

Because we were in his fancy space car, which had several cameras to help him back out seamlessly without having to turn in his seat.

My chest deflated at the realization.

Because I was just embarrassing at this point.

“So, wait,” I blinked as we turned onto Irvine Boulevard, heading towards the I-5 freeway, “Did Sun Steer not have an HR department before you had investors?”

Zaid and Mary both chuckled before responding, “No.”

“Is that legal?” I pressed, “Can companies just…not have a human resources department?”

“That’s not how startups work, Signe,” Mary leaned forward when we finally started heading north on the freeway, the car’s cameras making it easier for Zaid to merge into traffic, “When I first started a couple of years ago, there were probably only about twenty employees at Sun Steer.”

“Whoa,” I widened my eyes, “That’s so small.”

“When I first started,” Zaid spoke with a small smirk on his lips, glancing in his rearview mirror before merging lanes again, “It was just me and two other guys.”

“Okay,” Mary scoffed, “That’s not special. That’s what happens when you start a company in your dorm room.”

“Wait,” I held my hand up, as if I was going to stop them both from moving forward even though we were all trapped in the car together, “You started Sun Steer?”

“Well,” Zaid lifted a shoulder, his dark eyes flicking over to me behind his glasses before turning back to the road, “Brandon, me, and a guy named Rodney.”

“Whoa,” I sighed, “You’re an OG employee.”

“I’m employee number three, actually,” He kept one of his large hands on the steering wheel before reaching into his jeans pocket and pulling out his company ID badge, showing me the “003” numbers at the bottom of it.

“Damn,” I reached forward and grabbed the badge from his hands, “Nice picture.”

You could immediately tell that he wasn’t excited about having his picture taken. His smile was barely there, mouth closed, his head tipped back just enough to expose his solid neck and clavicle. It was genuinely a flattering picture of him, even if he didn’t look happy about it. He didn’t acknowledge the compliment at all.

“So,” I handed it back to Zaid, and when his fingers brushed against mine since he was keeping his eyes on the road, I tried not to internally squeal from simple, accidental contact, “Jacqueline is a fairly new addition to the company. Like me.”

“Yes,” Zaid nodded.

“So, you’ve always been CTO?” I added after a second of silence. There was no way in hell I was sitting in this car with the two of them without chatting. I couldn’t handle it.

“No, that is also a newer development,” Zaid’s brows scrunched a little, “I was in a position like Nikhil’s until recently.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“But we all know how much you love your position now,” Mary added. You could hear the smile on her face laced with heavy sarcasm.

“I’m over it,” Zaid didn’t even bother playing along, “I’m ready for a change, that’s for sure.”

“I’d love to have you as my manager.” Mary sighed, “I love having Nikhil as a manager, too. Alice has been nice so far, but I don’t get to work with her much because she’s on another team.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Mary man-spreading in the back seat, her arms crossed over her chest as she stared out the window, “If you do step down as CTO, who would they hire to replace you? Nikhil?”

Zaid sighed, “If they wanted to hire from within, sure. Though Nikhil has made it clear that he doesn’t envy my position in any way. Do you want it?” Zaid lifted his gaze to look at Mary in the backseat before she started gagging.

“Pass,” She waved her hand, “Just give me my next promotion and give me raises from there. CTO sounds awful.”

“Why?” I was full of questions today, “Doesn’t CTO make bank?”

Zaid gave me a surprised look before settling more comfortably in the driver’s seat, “The pay is a big perk, but it’s really a position that is nothing but meetings and meetings and more meetings that can just be emails.”

“Oh,” for some reason, I pictured CTO being more…involved. But a job that’s basically just meeting with people all day every day does sound draining. Unfulfilling, even, “That’s why you want to step down? Why did you even take the position in the first place?”

“Yes,” Zaid nodded, before he squinted and tapped on the large iPad-looking screen on his car. A moment later, the storage compartment in front of me popped open, “We wanted Sun Steer to look organized. Like we had more money than we did so other people would want to invest. Having managerial positions like CTO filled, helped establish that image. I accepted the position under the condition that it would be temporary until someone better suited came along. Could you grab my sunglasses out of the case and hand them to me?”

“Sure,” I reached forward to grab the glasses case and handed him the sunglasses, putting his regular glasses safely in the case instead and pushing the door closed, “Freaking space car.”

“What was that?” Zaid asked.

“So do you think the next CTO would be someone from outside Sun Steer?” I focused back on the subject.

“Most likely,” Zaid confirmed.

“Maybe I should tell Leo to apply again,” Mary shifted in her seat to lean forward again, making me turn to look at her, “Since you losers considered him over-qualified for the role he applied for last time.”

“That’s because he was, from what Nikhil told me,” Zaid’s brow furrowed again in thought, “Now that you mention it…your cousin isn’t a bad person to consider as my replacement…”

I widened my eyebrows, “Oh god, yes, please hire Mary’s hot cousin.”

Zaid’s lips flattened a little as he turned to give me a heated look with a lifted eyebrow, “Mary’s hot cousin?”

I lifted a shoulder, trying not to be too aroused by the sight of Zaid in sunglasses, driving, “He’s very pretty to look at. I wouldn’t mind filing reports for him, if you know what I mean.” I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively, making Zaid shake his head at me.

“Maybe we should hire someone else then,” Zaid’s lips twitched like he was enjoying teasing me about this.

“Signe,” Mary’s hand smacked my arm, “Keep it in your pants. I’m trying to get my cousin a job here.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I held my palms up defensively, “I won’t say anything else about—what the hell are you doing?”

Zaid had just flicked the handle that shifts gears on his car again, and after a low beep from the car in response, he took both of his hands off of the steering wheel to reach into his glove compartment and pull out a bag of peanuts. In the middle of the freeway.

He lifted an eyebrow at me when I immediately grabbed either side of my seat and held on for dear life as Zaid seemingly forgot he was driving.

“I put it on autopilot,” Zaid chuckled a little at my nervous reaction as he tapped his index finger on the wheel before using both of his hands again to dig into his bag of peanuts, casually tossing a few in his mouth.

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool,” I felt my hands clench in response as cars zoomed past us on our left, and we zoomed past cars on our right. I glanced down at Zaid’s feet and noticed that neither of them were on the pedals.

“Signe, calm down,” Mary squeezed my shoulder, weirdly, not helping me calm down.

“I’m still aware of the road, Signe,” Zaid’s voice was low and calm, but I could see his jaw twitch like he was enjoying seeing me like this, “I have to grip the steering wheel every couple of minutes to reassure the car that I am paying attention.”

“But…” I slowly tried to pry my hands off of my seat, and settled for one hand releasing its grip instead, “the car is still doing this by itself?”

“Yes,” Zaid nodded, “If it makes you feel better, the auto-pilot technology is fascinating, because—”

“I believe you!” I blurted before holding my breath as our vehicle turned on the blinker all on its own and proceeded to change lanes on the freeway to pass a car going five under the speed limit.

“Do you want me to turn it off?” Zaid asked. He reached out a hand for me before stopping halfway over the console. He quickly put the bag of peanuts down and flipped the car out of autopilot, putting both of his hands back on the wheel.

“Signe, the technology is mostly safe, and as he said, he’s still paying attention to the road.”

“Sorry!” I slammed my hands over my face, feeling more embarrassed that I freaked out so easily over the thought of something like an autopilot, “It’s just my first time in a space car. I wasn’t prepared for the hands-free experience.” I mumbled behind my palms.

Zaid just released a low laugh at my words.

“If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t use autopilot.”

I parted my fingers to look at him in the driver’s seat, one of his arms resting against the car door while the other gripped the steering wheel confidently, his eyes on the road behind his dark sunglasses.

He looked like a movie star.

“Just give me a minute,” I inhaled through my nose, “We can try autopilot again. I just wasn’t prepared before.”

“We don’t have to—”

“I trust you.” I interrupted him, “It’s my first time in a robotic space car—”

“It’s just a Tesla—” Mary added before I ignored her.

“And I want to experience it, now that I know what to expect.” I inhaled through my nose before calmly folding my hands in my lap, and sitting straight in my seat, “Give me a minute, and we can try again.”

“No rush,” Zaid responded as he turned to give me a reassuring smile, “I can wait.”

I glanced over at him, feeling something in his words that I couldn’t quite identify. He quickly faced the road again, though. Nothing but casual confidence in his posture as he drove us out of Orange County towards LAX.

Perhaps it was the romance author in me that wanted to add more weight to his words.

Maybe it was because I was harboring a very inappropriate crush on him.

Possibly even the idea that he might be feeling this tension between us, too.

Whatever it was, I forced myself not to focus too much on it as Mary asked Zaid a question about programming that I tried to keep up with but immediately became lost as the conversation continued. The rest of the drive went smoothly, and when we eventually arrived at LAX, all we focused on was getting through TSA and getting to the gate where Brandon was waiting for us, having already driven to the airport himself instead of carpooling with the rest of us.

* * *

“What do you want?” I asked Zaid as we stood in line for dinner. We had about forty-five minutes before our flight boarded, and we all agreed that we were hungry. Brandon was busy thumbing away on his phone and basically ignoring us, and Mary was FaceTiming Jamie.

When Zaid and I asked them what they wanted, we all looked over at the pizza place just a couple of gates down. It had a long line, but it looked the most delicious. So here we were.

“I like a plain cheese,” Zaid replied. We stood next to each other in line, but the queue for it wasn’t designed for people to comfortably stand side by side. I was a step ahead of Zaid, but I turned my body so we could still converse while we waited. It looked like we would be here a while.

“Isn’t your dad a literal chef?” I asked, stepping forward once when the line moved. Zaid followed me, his arms folded across his chest and standing tall. When I slouched, and he stood straight like that, he felt significantly taller than me. Even though normally I barely had to look up at him to meet his eye. He was only three inches or so taller, so while he was a big guy, I never exactly felt small in comparison. But watching him stand with his feet shoulder-width apart, in the middle of the queue, ignoring the line of people desperate to get one more step closer, I felt small.

I couldn’t remember the last time all five feet and eleven inches of me felt small.

“Yes?” Zaid asked, raising a dark brow at me and shoving his glasses farther up his nose. God, I loved those glasses on him.

“So shouldn’t you like fancier pizza or something?” I countered, trying not to stare at his exposed clavicle under his plain t-shirt for too long. His muscles popped on his arms when he folded them like this, and I was a simple woman.

“I don’t understand your logic,” Zaid’s lips twitched with amusement while his gaze studied the menu above the crowd of people, “Because my dad is a chef, I’m not allowed to like cheese?”

“No,” I shook my head, “It’s just weird that you don’t like other things with it. Like anchovies or spinach or whatever fancy people put on pizza.”

“Pizza isn’t a fancy person dish,” Zaid shook his head and stepped forward, crowding my space for half a second before I realized I needed to step forward too, “It’s made with whatever your heart desires before getting tossed in the oven.”

“And your heart desires cheese?” I pressed.

Zaid lifted a shoulder, “Among other things.”

I raised my eyebrows, “Like?”

He lowered his gaze from the menu for a moment, his dark eyes locking with mine directly and making my breath catch in my throat. I felt my skin heat under his stare, and while his expression didn’t inherently look sexual, my body reacted as if he had just told me to get on my knees.

Zaid held my gaze for one, two, maybe three moments, before shaking his head once and murmuring, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

I grinned, “I see how it is.”

And then Zaid smiled while biting his bottom lip with his teeth, and I thought my pants were going to burst into flames from the image.

This was getting dangerous.

By the way his eyes drifted over to me while he gnawed on that plump lip, how his hooded gaze dropped the slightest degree towards where my mouth was, I was moments away from convincing myself that he was just as into this as I was. That he was right there with me, experiencing this chemistry between us.

How he and I would be so, so good together.

“The line moved,” someone said behind Zaid, shattering the heated moment I could have sworn we were both experiencing just then.

My heart was still racing, and I used the excuse of being surrounded by dozens of people also desperate enough to wait in this line for pizza to fan myself with the collar of my t-shirt. I turned to study the menu, deciding that saying something would be the best way to move on from whatever that was a few seconds ago.

“…I’m getting a cheese slice, I think,” I finally added.

I heard Zaid chuckle next to me before he replied, “Sounds like a plan.”