The Seattle drizzle had settled in by the time Maya pushed through the door of Brew & Byte the next morning, her hoodie damp and her mood damper. She'd stayed up until 2 a.m. refining her pitch deck, only to wake up to an email from one of her developers: a bug in ArtVibe's backend was causing user profiles to glitch. Perfect timing, with the investor pitch less than 48 hours away. She needed coffee, Wi-Fi, and a miracle—preferably in that order.
Her corner table was occupied, of course. Ethan was there, his laptop open and a half-eaten croissant on a plate beside him. He looked up as she approached, his grin as infuriatingly bright as ever. "Morning, Maya Chen. You look like you wrestled a bug and lost."
She dropped her bag onto the table with a thud, ignoring the way his voice made her stomach do a traitorous little flip. "Don't start. I'm one server crash away from a meltdown."
"Rough night?" he asked, leaning back and crossing his arms. His T-shirt today had a pixelated heart on it, which was annoyingly on-brand.
"Rough *life*," she muttered, opening her laptop and connecting to the Wi-Fi. It was sluggish again, and she shot Ethan a pointed look. "Seriously? You're killing me here."
He held up his hands, all innocence. "Not me this time. I'm just tweaking a logo. Low bandwidth, I swear."
Maya sighed and ran a hand through her damp hair. "Whatever. I've got bigger problems. My app's got a bug that's eating user data like it's a buffet, and my pitch is tomorrow. If I don't fix this, I'm toast."
Ethan's playful expression softened, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Okay, talk to me. What's the bug?"
She hesitated. Spilling her tech woes to a graphic designer felt like admitting defeat, but the stress was clawing at her, and Ethan's steady gaze was weirdly grounding. "It's the user profile module," she said finally. "Some accounts are showing up blank—names, bios, all gone. My dev team's freaking out, and I'm supposed to be the one with answers."
Ethan nodded, like he was actually following. "Sounds like a database sync issue. You using Firebase or something custom?"
Maya blinked, surprised. "Firebase. How do you—"
"Freelance life," he said with a shrug. "I've worked with enough devs to pick up the lingo. Have you checked the Realtime Database logs? Could be a write rule screwing things up."
She stared at him, her irritation giving way to grudging respect. "Okay, who *are* you? Since when does a graphic designer know database rules?"
Ethan grinned, but there was a flicker of something shy in it. "I may have dabbled in coding back in college. Dropped out of a comp sci program to chase art instead. Still tinker sometimes."
Maya shook her head, half-impressed, half-annoyed. "You're full of surprises, Bandit."
"Gotta keep you on your toes." He paused, then slid his chair closer, peering at her screen. "Want me to take a look? Not saying I'm a genius, but I might spot something."
Her first instinct was to say no—her app, her problem—but the clock was ticking, and her team was stretched thin. "Fine," she said, turning her laptop toward him. "But if you break anything, I'm invoicing you for my therapy."
"Deal," he said, his fingers already moving over the keyboard. He pulled up her Firebase console, scanning the logs with a focus that made Maya's chest tighten in a way she didn't want to analyze. For a few minutes, they worked side by side, her pointing out the problem areas while he asked sharp questions about her data structure. It was… nice. Collaborative. Like they were a team.
"Got it," Ethan said after a while, pointing at a line in the logs. "Your write rules are too restrictive. New user data's getting blocked because the client-side isn't syncing properly. Loosen the rules here—" he tapped the screen "—and you should be good."
Maya leaned in, her shoulder brushing his as she studied the code. He was right. It was a simple fix, but she'd been too frazzled to see it. "Okay, you're officially not useless," she said, her voice softer than she meant it to be.
"High praise," he teased, but his eyes lingered on hers a beat too long. The air between them crackled, and Maya pulled back, clearing her throat.
"Thanks," she said, busying herself with saving the changes. "I owe you one."
"How about a coffee?" he asked, his tone light but his gaze steady. "Or, you know, dinner. If you survive your pitch."
Maya's heart stuttered. Was he… asking her out? She opened her mouth to deflect with a joke, but her phone buzzed, saving her. It was a text from her lead developer: *Bug confirmed on our end. Fix pushed. You're a lifesaver.*
She exhaled, relief flooding her. "Looks like your fix worked," she told Ethan, holding up her phone. "Crisis averted. For now."
"See? I'm not just a pretty face," he said, winking.
She rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at her lips. "Don't push it."
They settled back into their work, but the vibe had shifted. Every time their knees brushed under the table or their eyes met, Maya felt a spark she couldn't ignore. It was like a packet loss in her carefully coded life—data slipping through the cracks, threatening to disrupt everything.
As she packed up to leave, Ethan looked up from his sketchpad. "Hey, Maya. Nail that pitch tomorrow. You've got this."
She nodded, her throat tight. "Thanks, Ethan."
Stepping out into the rain, she pulled up her hood and tried to focus on the pitch, the app, the plan. But all she could think about was the guy at her table, and the way he was starting to feel less like a glitch and more like a feature she didn't know she needed.