Chapter 138: CHAPTER 139

CHAPTER 139

KNOX

I sat at my desk in Yael’s dorm, staring at the lines of code on my laptop screen. My eyes were burning. I had been working for hours, but the app still was not coming together the way I wanted it to. Everything had been so chaotic lately with Grey, the hospital, the cabin trip, and trying to keep Yael safe that I had fallen way behind on my own work. I used to be the guy who stayed on top of everything, the one who took his studies seriously. Now I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water. I had not even spoken to my mom in almost two weeks. That thought made my chest feel tight.

My phone rang on the desk. It was my sister. I answered quickly.

“Hey, sis. What’s up?”

Her voice was bright and full of energy. “Knox! I have a surprise for you. You’re going to love it.”

I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my eyes. “A surprise? What is it? Tell me.”

She laughed. “Nope. Not telling you yet. You’ll see soon enough. Just know it’s good. Really good.”

“Come on, don’t do this to me,” I said, smiling despite how tired I was. “Give me a hint at least.”

“No hints. You’ll have to wait. I love you, big brother. Talk soon.”

She hung up before I could say anything else. I stared at the phone for a second and shook my head. That was typical of her. I put the phone down and went back to my laptop, trying to focus on the code again. The app I was building was supposed to help small businesses manage their inventory and sales in one simple place. It had a lot of potential, but right now I was stuck on a major bug that kept crashing the whole system.

A few minutes later the door opened. Yael walked in carrying a couple of grocery bags. She looked tired from her day but she smiled when she saw me.

“Hey, you,” she said softly.

I stood up immediately and pulled her into a hug. She felt so good in my arms. I held her close for a long moment, breathing in her scent.

“I missed you,” I said against her hair. “How was your day?”

She hugged me back tightly. “It was okay. Long classes again. I brought stuff to make dinner. You look like you’ve been working too hard. Let me fix something for us.”

I nodded and kissed the top of her head. “Okay. That sounds really good. Thank you.”

She pulled back and looked at me. “You’ve been staring at that screen for hours. Take a break while I cook. Please?”

“I will in a minute,” I said. “I’m just trying to fix one last thing.”

Yael set the bags down in the small kitchen area and started pulling out ingredients. I sat back down at the desk, but my focus was gone. I kept glancing over at her as she moved around. After a while she came over and stood behind me, looking at the screen.

“What are you working on?” she asked.

I leaned back in the chair. “I create apps. This one is for small businesses. It helps them track inventory, sales, and orders all in one place. It’s supposed to be simple and cheap for people who don’t have big budgets. But I’m stuck right here. Every time someone tries to update the stock, the whole system crashes. I’ve been trying to fix it for days.”

Yael leaned in closer and studied the code. “Oh wow. You really make apps? That’s so cool. Can I see what it’s supposed to do?”

I showed her the basic layout and explained how it was supposed to work. I pointed out the problem area and told her what I had already tried.

She was quiet for a moment, then said, “What if you added a temporary cache here so it doesn’t try to update the main database every single time? That might stop the crash while still saving the data.”

I stared at the screen. Her idea was simple but brilliant. I had been overcomplicating it for days.

“Damn,” I said, amazed. “That might actually work. You’re a genius.”

I quickly typed in the change and ran a test. It worked. The system updated smoothly without crashing. I turned to her with wide eyes.

“You just fixed something I’ve been stuck on for almost a week,” I said. “How did you see that so fast?”

Yael smiled shyly. “I took a couple of coding classes last year. It just popped out at me.”

I stood up and pulled her into another hug. “You’re incredible. Thank you.”

We were still hugging when there was a loud knock

on the door. Yael pulled away and walked over to answer it.