Tea or Consequences

by KC Burn

  Riley nearly scoffed aloud. There would be no plan agreed upon until everyone’s lawyers were satisfied, and maybe not even then.

  “Oh, you do that,” Floriana sneered. “But my schedule is pretty full, Cody. I might not be available for the foreseeable future. Since François and I will have to do mother’s work as well.”

  “Ah, no. We’ll all three be sharing that burden. Remember? I’m your equal. And until we unanimously agree on a new CEO, we’ll be working together.”

  Unanimous agreement between these three? Not in a million years. Riley sighed. If this kept up, Gautier Cosmetics would be nothing more than a memory in a year, no matter how well received their new product was. The product reviews had been inextricably linked to Gabrielle’s death, but on the whole, Invigorate appeared to be successful, although Riley was hardly the best judge of such things. He had seen an article or two speculating on the possibility Gabrielle had been poisoned by her own product, but it had smacked of sensationalism.

  “In your fucking dreams, usurper.”

  Floriana rose and turned with a flourish, ready to storm out.

  “If it’s easier, you can just call me Dad.”

  Riley glanced at Mattie in horror. They were both expecting immediate bloodshed, but aside from another angry shriek from Floriana, the Gautier siblings left without another word. François did slam the conference-room door shut behind him forcefully enough to rattle the picture frames on the walls.

  All of Cody’s bravado seemed to disappear, leaving him shrunken and not nearly so commanding. “Thank you both. I appreciate your support. However, I guess I should get back to work.”

  “I’ll leave you to it.” Mattie swept out, probably thankful this skirmish was over.

  “Is there anything I can do for you now?”

  Gone was confident Cody. In his place sat a beaten-down man. “I said a lot of shit I shouldn’t have said. But I was serious about getting time on Frank and Flo’s calendars.”

  Riley refrained from rolling his eyes. François and Floriana weren’t averse to going by Frank and Flo, but their mother hated it, and they were fussy about who was allowed the privilege. Undoubtedly Cody didn’t make the cut.

  “Are you sure?”

  Wearily, Cody waved a hand. “Yes, unfortunately. If I’m going to do what Gabby wanted, I need them to work with me, even though it’s going to be an uphill battle. Do your best. I’m sure they’ll decline, but we’ll just have to keep at it. At some point there’s going to be something they need my consensus on, and then we’ll see. I’ll have some other work soon, including scheduling interviews.” Cody smiled, but it was weak and watery, like viewing him through the surface of a pond. “Got a department to build.”

  Riley gathered up the cups and returned to the desk outside Gabrielle’s office. Soon he’d have to move to the desk outside Cody’s office. The first thing he did was put in a requisition for IT to move his phone and computer. It was getting a trifle morbid sitting where he was when Gabrielle was gone, and Riley would have long since moved on by the time the remaining Gautiers squabbled their way into appointing a successor.

  Riley sat at his desk and did his best to look busy. He’d heard a number of suggestive things, like the fact Floriana suspected Cody and Cody suspected either of the siblings, or possibly both, of bumping Gabrielle off.

  Interesting, to be sure, and filed away for later perusal, but nothing of enough significance to justify calling Tad.

  Riley was already at the point where he wanted to see Tad every day. He was especially ready to pick up where they’d left off at the door of his condo. He’d enjoyed getting to know Tad as a person and interacting with him one-on-one, which he’d never done before. Didn’t hurt that the kissing was hot enough to scorch the sun. If only they’d met in a different way, Tad might just be perfect for Riley.

  As it was, the need for secrecy made him a ridiculous target for Riley to fixate on.

  He whipped out his phone and texted Shaun.

  Dancing this weekend?

  Seconds later, his phone buzzed with a response.

  YEEESSS! ’Bout fuking time! Saturday night, Anaconda. 10pm

  Ten? He was thirty-one now. Couldn’t they start earlier? Riley didn’t bother asking, because he knew Shaun would tell him only the old farts showed up early and the sexy guys wanted to party all night. At some point Riley was going to have to ditch the twink act, because he wanted a real relationship that factored things like working and errands and brunch into the equation. And he didn’t mean “so hungover I have to wear sunglasses inside” brunch. He meant a relationship where talking was at least as important as fucking.

  ’K—can I bring Alisha?

  Yup. Since u never bring nice men home to meet me, I cn meet ur work wife ;)

  Riley snorted out a laugh. He’d be more than happy to introduce Tad to his friends, but that wasn’t quite in the cards.

  Step one: go out and meet eligible men instead of isolating himself. Check. Fucking was out of the question, at least until whatever it was with Tad had run its course, but it wouldn’t do any harm to look. Maybe meet someone to date. Nice boyfriend-material men must exist out there somewhere, and if Riley wanted to find one, he should get started, no matter how abysmally it had ended in the past.

  Besides returning messages and attempting to set up meetings for the three VPs, Riley didn’t have much to do, so he busied himself indulging more insatiable curiosity. He wanted to compare some of the files for previous launch parties and similar events. Something was nagging him about the particular typos in the estimated costs.

  A COUPLE of hours later, Riley messaged Cody.

  Heading out for lunch—can I pick you up anything?

  No thanks. I’ve got an appointment. Back in the office around 2.

  An appointment? Riley pulled up Cody’s calendar. Sure enough, the time had been blocked out without any details. Had to be recent, because he hadn’t seen it when he was setting up meetings earlier. Maybe he was meeting with a funeral home.

  Given the tug of war between the Gautiers and Cody, Riley wasn’t sure which one would have responsibility for setting up services or final disposition of her remains. Then again, he also hadn’t heard if the coroner had released her body.

  He’d really like it if someone could make a decision soon, since most of the messages now pouring in were requests for information about services or flowers or donations and he didn’t have any choice but to let them know that all information pertaining to that topic was still pending.

  A grumble from his belly reminded him he was supposed to be getting some lunch. Riley took a look at the files on his desk. Nothing terribly confidential, but nevertheless he gathered them up and tucked them into his desk drawer, which should be good enough to deter prying eyes.

  Most prying eyes were more interested in Gabrielle’s office these days, not completed files for past launch parties.

  A few people stopped him along the way, inviting him to lunch. He smiled gently and turned them down with the excuse of having other plans—and he did. If Alisha wasn’t free, he’d be eating on his own, with a book on his phone to keep him company. Making friends—or just being social with coworkers even if they’d never become friends—wasn’t a terrible thing, but the timing was incredibly suspicious. They probably wanted to “subtly” dig for more information about Gabrielle and possibly where the police were in their investigation. Which Riley should know absolutely none of, if Tad hadn’t been so bizarrely forthcoming over their two… meals.

  Even in his head, he’d started to think of them as dates, and that was mighty dangerous. At least the email about Cody’s new marketing department and Riley’s shift to Cody’s department hadn’t shown up yet. The employees who didn’t beat down Mattie’s door would likely mob him in an effort to get inside information.

  If he were Mattie, he’d hit Send about thirty seconds before walking out the door at five, and hopefully any panic would recede overnight.

&
nbsp; He waited by the desk for a moment while Alisha finished up her spiel and redirected the incoming call.

  “Lunch?”

  “Yes. And you’re buying.”

  “I am? Why is that?”

  Alisha rolled her eyes. “As if you don’t know. But come along. I’ll explain when we get there.”

  Riley wasn’t opposed to buying Alisha lunch, but he did wonder why she thought he was supposed to.

  The sidewalks were busy enough with people taking advantage of the long-missed sunlight that they couldn’t really speak. Alisha led them to the food court, where they quickly ordered and found a free table way at the back.

  Alisha stabbed a french fry in his direction. “One. Seriously? Gabrielle was murdered? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me I was right?”

  “I don’t think anyone has actually said ‘murder.’” Not even Tad, but Riley wasn’t about to use that as proof. The last thing he needed was to try to explain exactly what Tad was doing when he didn’t understand it himself. And unless he discovered something else funky and unusual, he wasn’t sure he’d have the nerve to call Tad again.

  “Oh really? Then how come there hasn’t been any notice of a funeral? How come the police keep showing up?”

  “The police keep showing up?” Why hadn’t Tad…. Riley gave himself a vicious mental slap. Tad had no damn reason to come seek him out, whether he’d been spending time at Gautier Cosmetics or not.

  “Yeah. They keep asking for access to records, access to the lab, access to personnel information. As far as I know, though, the lawyers have kept them stymied. But it all points to murder, and even on the news, they’ve been calling it ‘death under suspicious circumstances.’”

  Riley shrugged. He didn’t think she was wrong, but he wasn’t sure Tad would be happy about him discussing this. “I guess it could be, but I’m hardly in a position to know. I’m just the temp. You do realize that almost no one tells me anything.” The other admins were social but reticent. Riley was slowly winning them over.

  “Puh-lease. Besides the caterers, you were one of like half-a-dozen people detained by the police Friday night. You still haven’t given me any details about that, and I was nice enough not to pester you about it.”

  Riley laughed ruefully. “Thanks for the less-than-a-week reprieve.”

  She smiled wickedly. “I wouldn’t want to give you time to forget.”

  “Fine, fine.” Riley gave a quick rundown of the tense few hours Friday night after he’d found Gabrielle’s body, and his medication-induced sleep, but avoided mentioning the penicillin thing—he was sure Tad hadn’t meant to tell him that—and the fact that he’d had two meals with Detective Tadeo Martin since. Two very enjoyable meals where he’d learned a number of new things about his longtime crush, including how well he kissed, but that were completely irrelevant to this discussion.

  When he was done, Alisha slumped in her chair. “This is so fucked-up. I mean, we know someone who was probably murdered. And if she was, we probably know the murderer.”

  “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. It could still be just an accident. Or a bad reaction to food poisoning or something.” He didn’t think that, though. That one tiny piece of information about penicillin had influenced his thinking, just as it had Tad and his partner’s.

  “Sure. Sure. Whatever you say. But I’m pretty sure the police don’t push so hard for information when they’re expecting a verdict of accidental death.”

  Riley couldn’t answer that. After all, the sum total of his exposure to police methods came from television and the couple of nerve-racking hours Friday night.

  “I’m not sure this qualifies you to a free lunch, though.” Riley had already paid for it—and many other lunches; he didn’t begrudge the expense. Receptionists didn’t make a lot of money, especially when they were also trying to put themselves through school and keep themselves in a decent apartment.

  Alisha laughed. “Oh, you’re not off the hook yet, monsieur. Want to tell me about Cody Rosenberg and how he works for the company now?”

  “Jeez, Alisha. How do you know that? I only found out, like, just over twenty-four hours ago.”

  That earned him a mock glare. “Exactly. And I still had to find out about it from Heather in HR. What is he going to be doing? Why are you going to be his official assistant?”

  This was something he could probably share, or at least partially share. Mattie had confirmed the welcome email would be out at some point today, and if Alisha already knew a portion of the story, others might as well. Maybe even some of those others who’d asked if he wanted to get lunch with them.

  It took the rest of their lunch to go over the development of a new department and the extremely tense meeting with the Gautiers, although he carefully excluded the mutual accusations of murder. They also discussed what sort of situation had to occur to allow Cody any sort of power, especially with the company, but together what they knew about Gabrielle’s plans for the company wouldn’t even fill up a mosquito.

  “Seems weird, though, doesn’t it? I mean, Gabrielle was all over her shit. She didn’t miss a trick; she knew everything. I can’t believe she would have ignored such a vital thing like a current succession plan.” Alisha sucked back the last of her lemonade.

  “I know. But thinking about death has a funny effect on some people. I’ve met a lot of people who seem to think that death is something for other people.” Riley, for example, had no will. He wasn’t ready to put that admission down on paper, even though he knew all too well how unexpectedly death could occur. But Gabrielle had had a will, one that had been updated when Floriana joined the company. She wasn’t entirely against them, and Riley assumed she’d been planning to update it again. But that was also information he hadn’t shared with Alisha and wasn’t going to.

  “François and Floriana must be losing their minds. This has to be a bit of a slap in the face.”

  Riley nodded. “Uh, yeah. And I was afraid Floriana was going to slap Cody’s face right there in the conference room.”

  Alisha laughed. “Oh my God. That would have been something to see. She can be such a snobbish bitch, you know?”

  He wasn’t going to say anything about one of the VPs, but he agreed. He didn’t find François any more sympathetic, from that perspective. “I do feel bad for them, though. I mean, they all lost someone close to them not even a week ago, and they’re all back at work and trying to deal with an extremely difficult situation.”

  Alisha responded with a loud, wet raspberry. “I don’t know if any of them cared as much about Gabrielle as they pretended.” A sad, pensive look crossed her face. “I’m pretty good at picking out when someone’s pretending to care about you.”

  “I’m sorry.” Riley patted her hand. He could sympathize.

  She shook herself. “Men. They can be assholes.”

  Riley didn’t take offense; he was well aware she meant men she’d dated, and he had to agree. A lot of the men he’d dated, or been interested in, were assholes.

  “On that cheery note, I’ve decided I need to get out there and meet some eligible men.” If he considered Tad one of those eligible men, well, he’d cut himself some slack. His brain told him it was a bad idea, but his heart and his cock couldn’t help but hope.

  “Oh yeah? So I get to hear details about your date yesterday? Or are you ‘getting out there’ because he was a total dick?”

  What Riley wouldn’t give for a chance at Tad’s total dick. Tad might refuse his offer and Riley would never see the man naked. He sighed. “It was a very nice dinner, but it’s not going to go anywhere.” No matter how many times Riley had hoped and prayed to whatever deity looked out for horny gay boys. “No, Shaun and I are going to a club Saturday night. Did you want to come?”

  “Yes, I do. Gay bar? Eh, doesn’t matter. I’m okay if there aren’t any eligible men for me, because as we’ve agreed, most of them are giant dicks.”

  “Shaun is looking forward to meeting you.” H
owever happy Riley was to introduce Alisha to his best friend, he sort of wished—okay, he wished a lot—that he could also introduce Tad. At least he could use Alisha as an excuse not to get picked up. By Saturday night, he hoped to have Tad in his bed, but a night out with his two friends might distract him from his dismal love life.

  “Ha. Me too.”

  They gathered up their garbage, threw it out, then headed back to the office.

  RILEY STOOD on the sidewalk outside a dilapidated little semidetached house on Ossington. Judging from the mailboxes on the front, the right half had been converted into three apartments, one on each floor. A couple of doors down, a silver Mercedes sat by the curb, looking a little out of place. The location wasn’t bad—close to restaurants and public transit. But the faded, chipping paint and scraggly lawn told of a landlord’s neglect. This was hardly the only place on the street that could benefit from some TLC.

  God. Was he doing the right thing? Was he overstepping? He’d been totally convinced this was the right thing to do, but now that he was here at Aaron Brown’s address, his certainty had fled along with his courage.

  Then he remembered what had brought him here in the first place. He’d have hated to find out about his boss’s demise through an impartial news report.

  And if Riley was practically invisible at Gautier Cosmetics, Aaron had almost been erased. No one mentioned Aaron; no one asked when he’d return. It was weird. Most of the contracts Riley worked had people asking him about the welfare of the person he was replacing, and usually the baby pictures for maternity leaves were shared with him. Sometimes he was responsible for distributing them throughout the office. Once, he’d even attended a baby shower when the assistant’s leave started early for her to go on bed rest. Her wife attended the shower in her place, and Riley had set up a Skype session so Amy could see the cake and the presents as Sarah opened them. Granted, Aaron wasn’t on maternity leave, but it was weird how just about the only things Riley heard about Aaron had been Gabrielle denigrating him.