And that man upstairs? He might have a thousand-watt smile and cheekbones chiseled by an especially talented god, but he was so far outside acceptable comfort parameters that—
WT-actual-F?
Shame sent heat rushing up Gideon’s neck. God, overreacting much, you drama queen? It’s not as if Half-a-Walker had made a pass at him, for pity’s sake. Hell, if they’d met someplace where they weren’t completely alone—in a club, say, or when he had his besties at his back—Gideon might have been the one to make the move. Set flirting superpowers on stun; charm all and sundry, then make a rapid—but fabulously smooth—getaway. Instead, thanks to the safety subroutine hard-coded in his psyche that day in the hospital, he’d acted like a giant douche bag.
Effing knee-jerk reactions. It seemed like no matter how hard he tried to get over the past, it still had a death grip on his balls. To this day—now, for instance—he broke out in an unflattering sweat whenever he remembered what a man that big could do to him. How easily he could be overpowered.
As he blotted the unsightly perspiration off his forehead with the hem of his T-shirt, the ping of an incoming high-priority email chimed on his laptop and phone simultaneously. Please don’t let it be Travis again. He snatched up his phone.
Not Travis, thank God, but HouseMatters, his new client. If they needed to move up the project kickoff meeting any earlier today, Gideon would have barely enough time to shower and dress. He opened the message.
Dear Mr. Wallace,
We regret to inform you that we have decided to postpone our website redesign indefinitely. Should we put the project back in our budget, you will be notified and allowed to submit a new bid at that time.
Wait. What? This was a done deal. Well, almost. He’d hammered out the contract details with the project manager. All that remained were the final signatures. Which now would not be forthcoming.
Gideon’s breath sped up. His knees gave out, and he collapsed onto the edge of his bed. No, no, no. This can’t be happening. This job had been his only option. His last resort. God, he was project-less again, the bane of the self-employed.
As he stared at the email, another message hit his inbox, this one from a referral service he’d used in the past. He opened it immediately. Please, please, please, be something that’ll keep the roof over my head and ramen in the cupboard.
An interview. Yes! As he read the project description, though, a weight settled in his middle as if he’d eaten lead pancakes for breakfast.
Network configuration. Hardware preparation. Server installation. What was the service thinking? He was a web designer and there wasn’t a single— Ah. There.
Upon successful completion of the hardware and networking phase, the contractor may propose on the web redesign and an e-commerce site for the company.
What the effing eff? They expected one guy to do everything—network, hardware, web design, and e-commerce? Good lord, IT wasn’t a one-size-fits-all designation. There were specializations, for pity’s sake, and his specialization covered exactly zero of the items in the main project.
Why had the referral service sent this job to him? Was it because of that one reference to web design, the carrot at the end of the hardware-installation stick?
The looming doom of rent and loan payments prompted him to scan the specification again. So the tasks were a lot more hands-on than his usual jobs—as in his hands on screwdrivers, needle-nosed pliers, and soldering irons—but how hard could they be? Guys who had nothing but vocational-school training did this stuff every day, didn’t they? He’d done a hardware practicum himself in school. Under extreme duress and with a high volume of creative bitching, but he’d done it.
Besides, he was Gideon Wallace, the man who could talk himself out of any given corner. It’d be a challenge, right? He never backed down from one of those. So what if he was a skosh underqualified?
“Close enough.” He crossed his fingers and accepted the interview.
Geekspeak: Bad Neighborhood
Definition: Websites/host servers engaged in questionable practices, such as spamming; other websites can be associated with a bad neighborhood by including outbound links to blacklisted sites.
Alex showed up at the jobsite a full hour and a half before his shift, mentally rehearsing his speech to the foreman. Extra shifts, Manny. I can handle as many as you’ll throw at me. No problem. He hoped it would sound better when he said it than it did in his head.
As he was about to step into the service elevator in the Haynes building parking level, someone punched his biceps.
“Dude.” Landon, his best friend since grade school, braced his hands on the doors, holding them open. “I’ve been yelling at you for five minutes. Your hard-on for power tools finally made you deaf?”
“Jesus, man. How tall are you to have an arm span like that?”
“Tall enough to reach the expensive spices on the top shelf.”
Alex shoved Landon’s shoulder. “Move. You’ll set off the alarm.”
“Then get your ass over here and talk to me.” Landon stood aside, gesturing for Alex to join him in the garage.
Since Landon never took “fuck off” for an answer, Alex sighed and stepped out, the elevator doors sliding shut behind him. “What are you doing down here anyway? You’re the head honcho. Aren’t you allowed to use the front door?”
“Had a catering delivery.” Landon gestured to the Downstairs Downtown van parked in the loading bay. “How long have you been on the job in this building?”
“Couple of weeks. Why?”
“Why?” Landon smacked him on the back of the head. “Because you haven’t dropped by the restaurant once.”
“I’m working swing. I start before dinner service and quit after you close.”
Landon crossed his arms. “That’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard. You get a meal break, don’t you? Besides, we’re here until after midnight every night. Would it kill you to stop in?”
“You own the hottest upscale restaurant in town, man. You don’t want me in there.”
“Why not?”
“Because I look like the guy you’d call in to fix a health department infraction.”
“Bullshit. We don’t have a fucking dress code. You’re always welcome.”
“You say that, but you’ve gotta think about your rep.”
“My rep can survive even you, but come in the back if you’re that paranoid.” He pointed to a pair of double doors across the loading bay. “Through there. First left. Hit the buzzer in our old morse code and you’re in.”
“Thanks, but—”
Landon gave him the Clint Eastwood squint-eye. “You can’t con me, Henning. I know what you’re doing. You’re battening down the hatches, just like you always used to. Whenever you got buried under a pile of shit, you’d turn ghost on me. No after-curfew visits. No plans to smuggle a goat into the principal’s office. No wild schemes to crash the latest party too exclusive to invite us.”
Alex squeezed the back of his neck. “Sorry, man. Don’t have a lot of extra time these days.”
“Shit, Alex. You might as well trade in that muscle car of yours for a used minivan, because you’ve turned into a pathetic old geezer.” Landon poked him in the chest. “If you don’t show up in the next three days, I’m siccing Caitlyn on you.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m saying. Gordon Ramsay’s got nothing on my baby sister.”
Alex punched the button to call the elevator. “No need to call out the big guns. I promise I’ll stop by, but now I gotta catch my boss before shift. Later?”
“You’d better.” Landon held up a fist, and Alex bumped it with his own. “I don’t want you to dis me because I’m a success. Reverse discrimination, dude. Not cool.”
“Bite me.”
“You wish.”
Unfortunately, the ride up to the sixteenth floor gave Alex the chance to obsess again about his speech to Manny. He hated begging. Fucking hated it. But he needed the goddamn money.
He passed under the hole in the ceiling where a new staircase would connect to the executive offices the next flight up. Half of this floor was masked with temporary walls, to protect the existing offices in the northwest corner from construction chaos. The other half was a forest of bare metal studs and mountains of building materials. Stacks of drywall, bundles of insulation, and spools of cable vied with mounds of debris from the demolition of the old office structures.
The ad hoc construction office was tucked in a corner that would morph into a storage closet in the last phase of the project. Manny was standing in the middle of the room, scowling at the clipboard in his hands.
Alex cleared his throat, and his boss glanced up.
“Ha. Perfect timing. Help me with this, will you?” Manny tossed his clipboard on a stack of boxes and nodded at a sheet of plywood leaning against the wall. Alex lifted one end, and the two of them maneuvered the wood over a pair of sawhorses.
Manny hefted the massive cylinder of plans and unrolled them on the makeshift table. “Why’re you here so early anyway? Got something on your mind? Other guys giving you crap?”
“Nah. We’re cool. Did you . . . ah . . . Did you get my request for extra shifts?”
Manny pushed the bill of his hard hat back with a stubby index finger. “Listen, kid—”
“I’m nearly thirty and I’ve got a foot of height on you. Don’t you think I’ve graduated from kid status by now?”
Manny’s eyes narrowed. “Wouldn’t matter if you were eighty and as tall as the Wells Fargo Center. Far as I’m concerned, you’re still the pain-in-the-ass kid who ate all the xiao long bao at every one of my Chinese New Year parties, while he waited for a chance to fleece the other kids out of their red envelope money.”
“Hey, I won that money fair and square. Besides, I always gave it back.”
“Yeah. I know.” Manny sighed. “You’re a good worker, Alex. Your father’s a good man, and it’s a damn shame what’s happened to him. And me? I’m not gonna be the guy who works his son into an on-the-job accident. Understand?”
Alex couldn’t help the resentment swirling in his belly. First his mom trying to babysit him, and now Manny. People should trust him to handle his own shit. “Sure, but—”
“I’ll toss you the odd OT, but extra shifts? Nope. Not gonna happen.”
Piddly random overtime wouldn’t do squat, not against the financial shit-storm gathering around his family. “Please—”
“Sorry, son, but that’s my last word.” Manny passed him a sheaf of papers. “Here. I was gonna have Cal take care of this, but since you want the time, go ahead and clock in early. Run this over to your fan club at the permit office and get them to sign off on it, okay?”
“I—” Alex dropped his gaze, the pity in Manny’s eyes unraveling his temper. It’s not his duty to fix our problems. That’s on me. “Sure, Manny.”
“Better move your ass though. They might like you better than Cal, but even you won’t be able to sweet-talk them into a signature if you get there past five.”
Take what you can get and shut the fuck up, Henning. OT is better than nothing. He forced a grin. “Care to place a bet on that?”
Every one of Gideon’s internal klaxons were blaring, getting louder every minute, until he was surprised he could hear a word the man across the desk was saying.
“This project has been listed since August, Mr. Wallace. Why respond now?” Haynes Industries’ CFO, T. Harrison Archambault, didn’t stop flipping through the multipage contract in his hands. A paper contract. Seriously? This was a technology firm, but this Luddite had stacks of paper lined up on his desk with geometrical precision, like an environmentalist’s nightmare Tetris game.
Gideon smoothed the sides of his narrow charcoal trousers in a way that he hoped seemed like straightening out a stray wrinkle and not wiping his damp palms. “Haynes Industries has an enormous footprint in the technology sector, so I noticed it of course.” Liar, liar. “Unfortunately, I didn’t believe I could fit it into my schedule. However . . .” He shrugged and pasted on his marketing smile in case the Luddite bothered to look at him. “I had a last-minute opening.”
“Yes.” The Luddite’s voice was as dry as the air in his glass-fronted office. “I’m aware of how you tech workers overestimate the time it takes to accomplish perfectly simple tasks. Well.” He finally raised his chin, his flinty eyes narrowing as if he could bore into Gideon’s skull. “That tactic won’t work here. Not only was Mr. Haynes Sr. a respected technical innovator, but Mr. Haynes Jr. is a worthy successor to his legacy. Plus, our consultant on this build-out has told us exactly how much time each phase should take.”
A consultant. Wonderful. “Will they be joining us? I’d like to discuss a few items on the specification.”
“Out of the question. The contract spells out everything explicitly.”
Considering the freaking thing was thirty-seven pages long, if this guy wanted to get any more explicit, he’d have to stage a porn scene. Yet it still didn’t have the information Gideon needed. He retrieved his copy from the corner of the desk and flipped to the seventh appendix. “The hardware manifest is referenced, but not included.”
“The consultant placed all the orders with our purchasing department.”
Of course he did, the moron. “I couldn’t help noting that the specification calls for a hard-wired network.”
“Yes.”
“There are a variety of more modern options, however, that would allow you greater flexibility should you decide to reconfigure your space in the future. I could spec out a few—”
“The consultant has laid out the requirements clearly. The cable is already in the hands of the construction crew.”
“Yes, but if we replace or enhance those wired nodes with wireless—”
“Mr. Wallace.” The Luddite set the contract on the desk. “Can you do the job or not?”
Gideon gritted his teeth and stretched his smile wider. “Absolutely.” God, he never took jobs that allowed him no input. He never took hardware jobs at all, damn it. But it was as if every one of his issues—personal, financial, professional—had been posted on WikiLeaks or served up like an oversharing FAQ page. As if the Luddite knew Gideon had no choice but to accept all the restrictive and humiliating employment conditions. Either that, or he was a douche bag to everyone. Gideon was inclined to vote for Door Number Two.
“Good. In three weeks, we can discuss the option for the web design in Appendix D. Assuming you succeed in bringing the network live on time.”
Gideon’s fingers twitched and the mega-contract quivered in his hands. “Three weeks? The job listing said the build-out period was three months.”
“It was—in August. If you’d responded to the RFP at that time, you’d have had the full three months. The go-live date is nonnegotiable. If we’re not up and running by the Monday following Thanksgiving, you’ll forfeit according to the liquidated damages specified in Appendix J.” The Luddite glanced at the oversized wall calendar hanging next to his desk. “Because of the firm’s holiday schedule, you’ll have no access to the building on Thanksgiving weekend, so please factor that into your plans.”
God. The holiday-that-must-not-be-named, lunging out to bite him on the ass again, stealing four days out of an already tight timeline. “Less than three weeks is—”
Another fish-eye stare pinned Gideon to his chair. “Do you have a problem with the deadline, Mr. Wallace?”
Visions of his dwindling bank balance danced in Gideon’s forebrain. “No. Of course not.”
“Good. You’re prepared to start immediately, I trust.”
“Certainly. I can begin by evaluating the site and—”
“No.”
“No?” What, first he couldn’t see the hardware specs and now he couldn’t tour the space? How was he supposed to do the job, by invoking the Force? “But—”
“Not for another half hour. All the construction is scheduled from five to midnight
so it won’t interrupt our normal business. Our clients expect a certain experience when they visit our offices—construction noise and grime are not acceptable. All evidence of your activities shall be cleared away each day. Your access is limited to the build-out floor only and will be strictly enforced. Security will patrol the jobsite at midnight and confirm that all work crews vacate the premises. I’ll expect you tomorrow at five.”
Another day gone from this insane schedule? I don’t think so. “I’m fully prepared to begin tonight. If that’s acceptable?”
The Luddite nodded curtly. “Check in with the receptionist for your key card and badge.” He swiveled his chair, turning his back to Gideon as he faced his computer monitor.
Guess I’m dismissed. Gideon glanced down at his designer trousers, plum merino sweater, and Italian-leather loafers. No way was he smirching this outfit with construction schmutz. He’d text Charlie to bring him some work clothes, because if he only had three weeks to set up a network by himself, he needed to start right freaking now.
Geekspeak: Eye Candy
Definition: Any decorative, aesthetically appealing, or attention-grabbing visual element in a computer display; may or may not be closely related or necessary to the underlying content of the page.
When he got back from the permit office, Alex passed through the de facto break room to grab his tools on the way to Manny’s hole-in-the-wall. Break room was giving it more credit than it was worth, considering the space had no walls, no flooring, no sink, and no fridge. It did, however, have a big-ass thermos—Manny had serious standards for the coffee that accompanied his nightly doughnut, and he was willing to share.
The rest of the crew were gathered around the coffee urn, laughing at something, and didn’t stop when Alex approached, so it had nothing to do with him for a change.
“You see his shoes? What idiot wears shit like that to a work site?”
Alex nodded at Tommy as he opened his tool chest. “What’s up?”
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