by Sarina Bowen
“But that’s the point!” Renny yells from the bedroom. Clothed now, he emerges to dance over to his son, scooping him out of Missy’s arms. “Anything can happen in a parallel universe. My little man can fly. Whee!” He supports the baby on his palms and flies Matthew around.
“Won’t that make him spit up?” I ask, preparing for the worst.
Missy takes the baby back from her goofball boyfriend. “Let’s roll. Good to see you, Nate. Go easy on my sister. She spent the whole morning freaking out about missing work. But she’s not supposed to touch a computer until…”
“Missy,” I warn.
“Well, you’re not!” Wisely, she opens the apartment door and disappears outside.
Renny grabs the baby’s sling, and then a blanket, too. Even if he’s kind of an idiot, he’s actually a good dad. “Later, Nate Kattenberger and Becca!”
The sound of the door shutting behind him is the best sound I’ve heard all day. My embarrassment factor lowers from 100 to, oh, a 97.
“Wow,” Nate says.
“They’re a little much,” I mumble.
“No…” He’s staring at the giant brown, velvet roses on The Beast. “Your sofa is really quite…”
“Hideous?”
He laughs.
“Would you believe that it’s super comfortable, though? Georgia and I thought about having it reupholstered, but we weren’t sure it would fit through the apartment door.” I plop down in one corner. “Sit. Try it for yourself.”
Nate drops into the other corner. He lifts his hands behind his head and stretches back. “Yeah, okay.”
“Not only is it comfortable, but when you’re sitting on it you don’t have to look at it.”
Nate laughs again, and I study his profile, as I’ve done a thousand times before. It’s objectively handsome. More than handsome, actually. Hot. Today he’s wearing his trademark black hoodie and a pair of four hundred dollar jeans.
These days he wears suits to his Manhattan office tower. But the hoodie used to be his uniform. Though he didn’t wear expensive jeans or designer sneakers back then. He didn’t have the office tower, either.
When I joined the company, there were 17 employees. Now there are more than 2000.
For five years I worked at Nate’s side as his personal assistant. Then, two years ago, he bought the Brooklyn Bruisers hockey team. That’s when he asked me to leave Kattenberger Tech and manage the team’s office instead. Another woman—the frosty Lauren—took my place as his assistant in Manhattan.
Nate said it wasn’t a demotion, and I didn’t take a pay cut. I actually gained some benefits, because the hockey team is a separate corporation, with a slightly different structure. And I still see Nate several times a week, at least during hockey season.
The move still bothers me, though. I wonder what I did to fall out of favor with Nate.
And now I realize I’m staring at him. But he’s staring at me too. “Are you really okay?” he asks, his face unreadable. Nate is famously stoic. The magazine profile pieces about him love to use the word “inscrutable.” The truth is that he’s actually a bit socially awkward.
“I will be okay.” I clear my throat. “God, it was the stupidest fall ever. I don’t think I even hit my head very hard. I’ll go into the office tomorrow morning, okay? I’ll just take it easy at work for a day or two…”
He’s already shaking his head. “No way. A concussion takes at least two weeks to heal.”
“Two weeks!” I squeak. “But I don’t need to play hockey, Nate. It’s a desk job.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He folds his hands like the CEO that he is, and then he drops a bomb. “For the next two weeks, Lauren is leaving her Manhattan seat to cover the Bruisers’ office. Until you’re really back on your feet. It’s already decided.”
My heart slides into my gut. “That’s really not necessary.” Not Lauren! It’s déjà vu all over again. “Lauren hates hockey, anyway.” She’d said so herself a dozen times.
Nate just smirks. Most men can’t pull off a smirk. But most men aren’t Nate Kattenberger. If you’re as smart and attractive as this guy, you can do pretty much anything. “Lauren will just have to deal.”
“Is there really no way I can talk you out of this? I’m just going to sit around this little apartment, bored.”
“You’re benched, Bec. It happens. The players bitch about the downtime, too. We need your brain, okay? We don’t fool around with concussions.”
I don’t point out the obvious difference—Nate’s hockey players get their head injuries while doing great things for the team. I got mine being an idiot.
Yay me.
“Thank you for the flowers, Nate.” My voice is so low I can’t be sure he heard it.
Our eyes meet, and the years fall away. I see the twenty-something guy I used to know, the one with a scrubby office and a big dream. Back then we worked late, eating leftover Chinese at our desks, and competing to see who could throw wadded-up napkins into the waste can from across the room. He was the guy with the knowing smirk and the big brain. And I took care of the little things so he had time to reinvent the way your mobile device connects to the internet.
Now Nate smiles at me, showing me his dimples. The dimples don’t fit the rest of the Nate Kattenberger package. They’re too boyish for such a serious face. They soften him. I smile back instinctively. And for that moment, everything is okay.
It’s a funny thing to be so familiar with this powerful man, and yet still aware that he holds my whole life in the palm of his hand. I trust him. But I also really can’t afford to let him down.
“Alternate universe theory is a thing,” he says suddenly.
“Wh-what?” As always, I’m a couple of paces behind Nate. Even when I don’t have a concussion.
“Alternate universes. The multiverse. It’s a legitimate theory in physics.”
“Pfft. Renny just reads science fiction.”
Nate’s eyes brighten. “Because science fiction is awesome. The multiverse theory posits that infinity is large enough to simultaneously encompass every parallel chance. Every non-choice. Every possibility.”
“Well, that’s just scary! Please don’t send me to a planet where my brother-in-law runs your company.”
Nate smirks.
“But I do like the idea that there’s a universe in which I did not step out onto the ice yesterday and then mess up our end-of-season workflow.”
His smile fades. “It’s going to be okay, Bec. What’s a little more chaos between friends?”
“Right?” I ask, but my voice cracks. I’m so tired of chaos. I’m just suddenly so…tired.
“Hey,” his voice is soft. He stretches a hand across the ugly brown roses on the sofa and squeezes my hand. “Would you tell me if you weren’t okay?”
“Yes.” No. Probably not. “In a few days I’ll probably feel great.”
“I hope so. Besides—the team still has to get us there. My model predicts we’ll clinch our playoffs spot a week from tonight.”
“In this universe, right?” I tease.
“Listen, bitch,” he says.
And then we both crack up, because “listen, bitch,” is from a B-movie we watched once on a jet to…Brussels? London? I don’t remember the destination. The flight was delayed, and we ended up watching two aliens fighting, and the purple one said “Listen, bitch!” to the green one.
It’s been a part of our shared vocabulary ever since. That and palindromes. With Nate it’s just all dork humor all the time.
“Clinching the playoffs next week, huh?” I poke his foot with my toe. “I’d better chill the champagne.”
“That’s more like it.” His glance travels around my cramped living room, where a giant package of disposable diapers is wedged under the coffee table, and three discarded pacifiers dot the floor. “Are you going to be able to get the peace and quiet here that you need to heal?”
“It’ll be fine,” I insist. “We’re usually not all home at the sa
me time.” That’s true, but only because I’m the one who’s usually at work.
Nate stands up. “You’ll call me if you need anything?”
“Of course,” I lie, rising to my feet. Complaining to Nate isn’t my style. I wouldn’t want to ruin my Tough Girl cred. And he has enough to worry about right now.
He gives me a long look, and I try to smile. The man is observant as hell, and I don’t want him to know how scared I am. “Be well, Bec. Don’t try to do too much before the doctors say it’s okay.”
“All right. I promise.”
He gives me the world’s most awkward hug and then vanishes into the Brooklyn afternoon.
2
Seven Years Earlier
New York, NY
Once upon a time, a fair maiden walks into an office tower in midtown Manhattan. She’s nervous, which is unlike her. But the stakes are high.
It’s a short trip up to the fourth floor, so she doesn’t have much time to panic. She’s dressed for the job interview in an itchy wool suit. Her hair is swept up in a tidy bun. She sees her corporate alter ego reflected in the elevator’s steel doors.
Two months ago she’d been a mostly-happy college student, studying English literature. But then came a phone call from home. Her father had died suddenly of a heart attack. There was no life insurance, and his business was deeply in debt.
Rebecca had finished the college semester, but just barely. Shoring up her devastated mom and teenaged sister had been taxing.
Now it was January, and she was officially a college dropout, on the hunt for a job.
Rebecca’s palms feel clammy as the elevator doors part into a narrow, poorly lit corridor. This isn’t the shiny corporate environment she’d been expecting. But, hey—if this company has a job opening with a real paycheck, she can’t afford to nitpick the decor.
She finds suite 402 easily enough. There’s a sign for Kattenberger Technologies mounted beside the door. But it’s made entirely of—wait for it—Lego bricks.
Rebecca smiles for the first time in a week. Then she opens the door.
Inside, the office is just one big room. There aren’t even cubicles—just desks pushed against the walls and abutting each other in the center of the room. One third of the space has been allocated to a beat-up Ping-Pong table with a prominent gash in its surface. Two skinny guys in jeans and T-shirts are engaged in a feisty 10:30 a.m. championship.
There are three other men in the room, all tapping furiously on computer keyboards. They seem oblivious to the heated Ping-Pong game and also to Rebecca.
Tap-pop, tap-pop, tap-pop goes the ball.
Rebecca’s gaze travels the office, taking in the hockey poster taped up on one wall. The opposite wall is blue, with three speech bubbles painted on it. The quotes on them are odd, though. One actually says: Nate bit a Tibetan.
That one is unsettling, since she’s here to meet someone named Nate Kattenberger. Maybe it’s lucky she’s not Tibetan?
Another quote reads: Never odd or even. Maybe it’s a coding thing? Kattenberger Technologies is a software company. At least that’s what her father’s old friend Harry had said when he recommended her for the job. Harry is this building’s facilities manager, and he set Rebecca up with this interview as a favor.
She stands by the door, hoping someone will notice her arrival. But no heads turn away from those giant monitors. The computer equipment is the only thing in the room that looks new or valuable. Everything else looks secondhand. This is either a very new company or a poorly performing one.
Please let it be the first thing, she begs the universe. Not that the universe listens to her lately.
The world’s longest Ping-Pong volley ends suddenly when the ball hits the gash in the table and bounces erratically off the forehead of one of the players.
“Fuck!” he cries.
“Switch!” the other player calls, laughing. Each man walks in a counter-clockwise fashion around the table, the maneuver so smooth that they must do it fifty times a day.
That’s when one of them finally notices Rebecca, waving hello with his paddle. “Heads’ up, Nate! You have a visitor,” he calls to one of the typing men.
Nate’s back is to Rebecca. She watches, but there is no reaction from Nate, except for more typing.
The Ping-Pong player puts his racket down on the table, trapping the ball beneath it. He walks over to stand beside Nate, whose head is still bent forward in concentration. “Dude, you have a visitor.”
Nate lifts one hand off the keyboard, holding his index finger into the air, making the universal sign for just a minute. Weirdly, his other hand is still typing furiously.
The wait is long enough that Rebecca has time for a little extra panicking. What if Nate already hates her paltry résumé? What if Harry was wrong, and these guys aren’t looking for an office assistant at all? What if Nate isn’t even expecting her?
What if he never stops typing at all? Will she just walk out eventually?
Breathe, Rebecca reminds herself. These are just ordinary people. They hold no power over her. If this job doesn’t work out, she’ll find another. She is the sort of girl who always finds a way.
Just as she mentally writes off this entire interview, Nate sits back in his chair, lifting both arms to cradle the back of his head. Rebecca probably shouldn’t be noticing that he has nice arms for a computer programmer. He’s a lean guy, but his biceps are well defined where they emerge from his T-shirt. And his fingers are long, like a pianist’s.
“Holy shit,” the Ping-Pong player says. But Nate’s arms aren’t the object of his fascination. The guy takes a closer look at Nate’s screen. “Did you just write a shorter algo for determining the range of our… Holy shit! That’s epic.”
Nate pokes his coworker in the chest. “I just saved you about three days of coding. How about you buy lunch? It’s your turn, anyway.”
“Fine. But I’m in the mood for Chinese. Now greet your guest, you rude fucker.”
Nate swivels his head toward our girl. Finally. The first thing she sees is a set of intelligent eyes. They sweep over her, but not in a sexual way. He isn’t leering; he’s assessing. Also, he’s younger than Rebecca expected. Mid-twenties. Cute, too. His face is angular, but it works on him. His prominent cheekbones are balanced by a full mouth and wavy brown hair.
He has big eyes, and they’re an interesting shade of light brown. They blink once at Rebecca. Then he rises from his chair with surprising grace.
“Wait, you’re…” He pauses to shuffle through some papers on his desk, and a couple of sheets go sailing toward the floor.
“…Rebecca Rowley,” the other guy—the Ping-Pong player—says. He reaches down and plucks a sheet of paper off the floor. “Here’s her résumé.”
Thank you, baby Jesus. “Nice to meet you,” Rebecca babbles, meeting him halfway across the rug to shake his hand. “I heard you were looking for an office manager.”
Nate shakes her hand, then glances around the space, as if noticing it for the first time. Then a wince. “We aren’t very good at the corporate stuff. It’s time, I guess.”
“It’s past time,” his coworker says. He shakes Rebecca’s hand, too. “I’m Stew. You’re the one Henry sent over, right?”
“Right.”
“Good, good.” He pokes Nate. “Interview her. Ten minutes. We need this.”
Nate’s eyes flick over to his computer monitor, and Rebecca can almost feel the pull of it on his consciousness. Within weeks, Rebecca will figure out that Nate is truly special. A genius, really. And within a year he’ll do business with every mobile device maker on the globe. Just standing here in front of a young Nate Kattenberger will prove to be like watching history unfold.
Today it’s too soon to tell, though. She’s just a girl who needs a job. She doesn’t even care that he graduated magna cum laude from Harkness College, or that he’ll secure his first multimillion-dollar contract two months from now.
“Let’s find you a place
to sit,” he says, sounding distracted. He moves toward an empty desk. There’s nothing on it but old pizza boxes. These he sweeps into an overflowing recycling bin.
Someone should empty that, Rebecca says to herself. Do they even have a janitorial service come in at night?
“Have a seat,” he says, indicating the office chair that’s pulled up to the now empty desk. He perches opposite her, on the corner of the desk itself. “There are seven of us. Stewie handles all the money stuff. But the office itself is kind of a free-for-all. Phones aren’t always answered. People come and go. Our files are a disaster.”
Rebecca nods, wondering whether she’s supposed to know exactly what this little company does.
“We all work at least forty hours on-site, but not the same forty hours. It’s flexible,” Nate continues, and his big brown eyes never leave her face. “What’s your availability? You, uh, probably sent me a cover letter with this résumé but…” He shrugs, having the decency to look embarrassed.
“Full-time,” she says quickly. “I can take whatever hours you give me. And I’m available immediately.” She knows it sounds desperate.
“Awesome,” he says, flashing her a smile. The dimples catch her by surprise. Then he glances at her résumé again. “If I may ask…” He clears his throat. “Why the sudden availability? Seems like you were in school until last month.”
“Right,” she says softly. “My father died two months ago. It makes more sense for me to be working now.”
“Oh,” he clears his throat. “I’m so sorry.”
It’s terrible timing, but Rebecca’s eyes get hot. You will not cry in an interview! She wants to slap herself. “Thank you, but I’m fine and ready to work. Your messy office doesn’t scare me, mister.” She forces her mouth into a smile and hopes that bluntness has been the right approach, with Nate. Her gut said that it is.
And Nate Kattenberger rewards her with another quick smile. Those dimples! “We definitely need the help. It’s not a very structured environment. Maybe you could work on that.”
That’s when she notices the drawing on his T-shirt. Nine figures form a cheerleaders’ pyramid, but the participants are kittens, not people. The caption read: Stack Cats.
