Confronted (Beauty And The Billionaire Geek Book 1) by E.E. Griffin Read Free Book Online Page B

table with their laptops. I’d missed the Wednesday night raid of Deepmine on our favorite MMORPG, Netherworld. 
    Daniel shouted for me to join them, but it barely registered. I had already missed the raid, and didn’t want to come in half way through. Daniel was almost as good a raid leader as I was, even if our guild had to pick up a different warrior to fill in for me. I had other things on my mind tonight.
    I slipped downstairs and into my bedroom. It took up most of the basement, sharing a wall with the narrow laundry room. No one else wanted to live down here, but it didn’t bother me. It was quiet, except when someone did laundry.
    Dropping my helmet on the ground, I sat in front of my computer. Spock brushed against my leg, meowing. The cursor blinked at the last line of code as the monitor came to life. My eyes grazed over the letters, numbers, and symbols.
    Mind racing, registering information.
    My fingers clicked over the keys, entering code like a composer pounds the keys of his piano. Everything came into sync, like a symphony. The idea had been in the back of my mind for months, like an ever present itch that wouldn’t go away––one website to integrate all social media, forums, and the latest news stories dedicated to the user’s interests. Instant access to all the best the web had to offer, in one portal, all at the user’s fingertips.
    If the user wanted to discuss knitting, my webcrawler would find the best knitting forums, articles, and would even introduce the user to other knitters in your area. You would have access through instant logins. No friends requests would be required, and all the latest trends would constantly update. 
    I was close. I could feel it. I just needed to further modify the open source webcrawler I’d used as a foundation in order to accelerate the download process.
    I hadn’t told a soul, even my professors. I was writing my Master’s thesis on the evolution of binary code, without one mention of my website. I didn’t want anyone to know until I’d completed alpha testing. I didn’t know if I could pull it off. I didn’t need anyone else telling me it was impossible to parse that much data without crashing servers. I already knew it might be true.
    Even with the slim chance that it was possible, I needed to pursue the idea until I knew for sure nothing else could be explored, until I knew for sure that I’d looked at it from every angle and had failed. Maybe we just didn’t have the technology yet. Maybe I wasn’t the guy to invent it.
    When I looked at my clock, it said 3 AM. I’d arrived home at just after ten. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. I really had to sleep. I had service calls for my freelance computer tech business in the morning, and doing them on four hours sleep would make them even more mind numbing.
    I heaved myself from my chair and stumbled face first into my bed. Spock licked my fingers as they hung over the bed. I moaned, fatigue taking over.
     
    My alarm blared, and I shot out of bed feeling as if I was late for a fire drill. I stared at my phone, my eyes still blurry with sleep. The world slowly materialized, and it occurred to me that I needed to get up and get dressed.
    I stood from my bed and tripped over a pile of dirty laundry. Laundry. When had I washed it last? It kicked up a rancid smell. I needed a shower. Upstairs, on the main floor, Maddie, one of my roommates sat on a stool at the kitchen bar eating a bowl of cereal.
    Maddie said good morning through a mouthful of cereal not looking up from her copy of Gray’s Anatomy. I grunted at her and poured a cup of coffee. After dumping cream and sugar in the brew, I drank deeply and drained the cup. With a satisfied sigh, I deposited the cup on the counter.
    After my coffee fix, I ducked into the bathroom and locked the door. I peeled off my shirt, scrutinizing my slim, naked chest in the mirror. At least I wasn’t overweight. Approximately half the other males in my computer science