by Con Riley
Noticing that Joel was about to butt in again, Theo smiled and said he would ensure that a vegetarian option was available. Joel’s answering grin was wide.
As they filtered out of the break room, Evan held back until just he and Theo remained. He still looked incredibly tense, nervously pushing his long pale bangs out of his eyes. When he blurted out that his mom had cried when he told her that he got the spot, and that his older brother, Aiden, said to say thanks on his behalf too, Theo shook his head. Honestly, it was nothing. He said he was sure that Evan would do fine; in fact, he’d be bored witless, so maybe he should save his thanks.
Evan shook his head. Theo caught a glimpse of that steely determination again—such a contrast to his outwardly slight image—as he grasped Theo’s wrist. Evan thanked him once more, then said, “If there’s ever a way I can pay you back, you’ll let me know, right?”
Theo smiled and nodded while thinking that, apart from administrative help, there was nothing he needed that this kid could do for him.
“Just learn quickly, try not to think of better ways to file—they never are in practice, there are reasons why we have a system—and make some new friends. Then leave. Escape. Go back to college and do what you like.” It was Evan’s turn to nod.
Before he left the break room, he grasped Theo’s wrist one last time. “Look, it’s probably not for me to say, but honestly—” He paused, then pressed on. “—you need this more than me.”
When Theo looked down as Evan left to catch up with the others, he was amused to see that the silk tie Evan had loaned to Joel was coiled in his palm. He took it out to Maggie, who agreed wholeheartedly, saying she had wondered if he’d been struck down by color blindness lately. In her opinion, helping Theo to dress himself needed to be written into her job description.
He almost argued.
Ben had always made sure that he looked good, but as he looked down, noticing for the first time that he was wearing a dress shirt with a faint plaid pattern along with subtly pinstriped trousers, he could see her point. Maybe the bright paisley-patterned tie he’d selected that morning hadn’t been the most inspired of choices, but to Theo it had at least looked cheery.
“There,” Maggie said, making a final adjustment to Evan’s dark-gray silk tie. “That’s better. Almost….”
“Stylish?” Theo guessed, thinking that the tie was exactly the type that Ben had favored on him.
Maggie stood next to him as they both looked into the break-room mirror.
“Almost back to normal.”
THE next few days passed in a flash. Theo had never been so behind at work, nor felt so resigned in the face of imminent disaster. It wasn’t that he’d lost his work ethic. Not at all. He still carried home files every night. It was more that he saw the impossibility of maintaining his department’s output. Much as he refused to panic, he couldn’t help worrying for his staff.
His attitude had shifted somewhat over the last year. He recognized that, and was starting to think that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. He used to worry about work a lot, and maybe took on more than he should have. If it hadn’t been for Ben’s organizational skills, he figured that he wouldn’t have done any socializing, or traveled so extensively on the weekends and holidays. Left to his own devices, Theo guessed that work would have sucked up all his free time too back then.
Yes, he probably would have filled his downtime with extra work, just like his own dad used to before he retired.
Instead, Ben used to inform him midweek what their weekend plans were, and then just made things happen. Without him, Theo found that weekends seemed endless. Work filled the void initially, but after the cutbacks and the way he’d been forced to fire people—good people—he couldn’t make himself care too much anymore. He took work home to make his own life a little easier. The interns needed a lot more guidance than usual, and Theo had taken something of a personal interest in their progress, which had cost him work hours.
Not for the first time that week, he found his thoughts drifting to Morgan. His messages and chats had gone unanswered, and even though he had asked on the politics forum, no one had the faintest idea what might be up. Theo couldn’t help feeling disappointed, and a little worried.
He had lots of people to talk with on the forum. After Morgan’s threads asking after Theo, he certainly felt part of a real community rather than just an Internet voyeur. But Morgan had taken an interesting and harmless pastime—something that had kept Theo’s mind off the way his own keystrokes echoed in his empty apartment—and turned it into nothing but fun.
It was true.
Without Morgan to point out online idiocy, spending time on the forum seemed pointless. Theo guessed that the Internet was just like the rest of life—better with someone to share it with. He so wished that Morgan had been online this past week, if only to share intern stories with.
He would love the interns.
The business majors were a godsend, getting on with their tasks and causing few issues.
The others were comical.
Ridiculous.
Wonderful.
Theo had lost count of the times he’d had to turn away to hide a smile. Even Maggie found them amusing. Eventually she took Heather under her wing, supervising her closely and demonstrating endless patience for her never-ending, repetitive questions.
But the other two…. There was something about them that fascinated Theo. It was true. By Thursday he was getting up in the morning—still taking things slowly—looking forward to whatever the workday would bring. Joel and Evan were pure entertainment.
Evan hadn’t been stretching the truth when he said he was good at fixing things, which was just as well because Joel broke pretty much everything he touched. His clumsiness seemed strange, given how good he’d been with his hands at Theo’s apartment. Joel said he didn’t intend to break things, and he couldn’t fault the younger man’s honesty at owning up every single time he put the copier out of action. In fact, the first few times it had happened, Joel’s cheeks had flamed.
But as the week went on, Maggie came up with her own observations. Not much slipped past her, and her desk outside Theo’s office put her in a perfect position to observe the interns’ behavior. When she came in on Thursday afternoon and sat on the edge of Theo’s desk, he paid attention.
“So,” she began. “What are you going to do about that boy?”
He didn’t need to ask which boy she was referring to. Theo guessed that Maggie wouldn’t have come in without already formulating her own answer, but he humored her anyway. “What do you think I need to do about him, Maggie?” He smiled as she flipped open her notepad.
“Well, boss, I’m not exactly sure, but something needs to happen soon before the whole office falls apart.” Theo raised his brows, fairly sure that a broken copier wasn’t exactly the end of the world. “I asked Heather to take notes for me yesterday, and by take notes, I mean spy.” Maggie smiled, saying it was the most fun she’d had since Curtis kissed her while they were in the elevator.
“I’m intrigued at your use of intern resources, Maggie. Please, do continue.” Theo got as comfortable as he could while Maggie stood at his office whiteboard. Writing quickly and neatly, she talked over her shoulder as she presented Theo with her evidence.
“There are several ways I could do this, Theo. For now, I’ll just list all of the—” She paused, thinking hard, before saying, “—incidences of contact.”
Theo leaned forward.
Contact sounded ominous.
Contact didn’t sound like appropriate office behavior at all.
“If you like, I can draw you a map also, just to highlight the office contact hotspots.” Theo blinked, waiting silently for her to continue. Maggie wrote quickly, then fished in her pocket for her favorite toy. Theo tried not to smile as she switched on her laser pointer.
“See here?” She circled some writing on the whiteboard, lips pursed, looking all business. “Between 9 a.m. and noon, Mr. Hudson
broke the copier four times.” Theo shook his head; the kid was hopeless with hardware. He figured it was good that Joel was tall, because at least he was useful for reaching all the old paperwork on the archive room’s highest shelves.
“And here—” She circled between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. “—he broke the vending machine, the water dispenser, and the copier again, twice. Really, if he wants to be an eco-warrior when he grows up, he’ll be fabulous at it.” She turned toward Theo, looking triumphant. “He’s a spy. An industrial spy. It’s the only explanation. One of our competitors must have heard about the ‘corporate difficulties’ we’ve had and has sent him in to cause more trouble.” She nodded emphatically.
Theo shook his head. Maggie glared at him.
“What other explanation can there be? No one is that much of a klutz, surely. How does he survive?”
Reaching out his hand, Theo gestured toward her pointer. She gave it up eventually. Reluctantly.
Pointing the red beam of light at the first set of timings, he asked her, “What happened when the copier broke this morning?”
“Oh, Evan fixed it, no problem. It was just a paper jam.”
“Uh-huh.” Theo stood carefully, then took the whiteboard marker and printed Evan’s name in large letters at the top of the board. “And the other times it broke? What happened then?”
Maggie frowned. “Well, Evan had it all fixed up again in no time. He’s very good with his hands.”
Theo smiled so broadly he felt the stretch in his cheeks.
He circled Evan’s name with the laser pointer.
“Uh-huh.” He sat down slowly before asking, “Now, what happened with the vending machine?”
“Joel got his hand stuck in it.”
“I see. And the water dispenser?”
“Same thing.”
“Really? How?” Theo was incredulous. How was that even possible?
Maggie was pure exasperation as she answered. “I don’t know, Theo! That’s kinda why I’m telling you about it all. I didn’t see it happen. I just heard him calling for Evan.”
Theo tried really hard not to smile. Then he turned the laser pointer back to the board. “Maybe there’s some other reason Mr. Hudson needs so much assistance.”
When Maggie turned back to the whiteboard, she watched as Theo drew laser-red heart shapes around Evan’s name.
“Oh.”
“I think we should test my theory before we call security in to remove your industrial spy.”
Maggie whacked him lightly on the arm before huffing, “Go on then, you big know-it-all.”
Five minutes later, he and Maggie spied through a crack in his blinds as Evan stood outside, reading Theo’s urgent request for a file from the archive room.
Maggie grumbled, “This is ridiculous.”
“Just watch.”
So they did.
Evan moved back to his desk and placed his pad and pencil down precisely before rolling up his shirt sleeves. At the start of the week everything about Evan had seemed angular. Now he seemed so much more relaxed. He half smiled as he made sure his cuffs were rolled equally.
“He’s seriously cute.” Maggie wasn’t wrong, Theo thought. With his sharp edges slightly softened, Evan looked like a different person. They observed covertly as he headed for the archive room, passing Joel’s desk, exchanging a casual “Hey.”
“Theo, that proves nothing!” Theo could almost hear his assistant rolling her eyes.
“Patience.”
The moment the archive room door shut, Joel moved frantically. First he stood and tucked his shirt in somewhat neatly, then he pulled it back out. Theo lip-read as Joel cursed before tucking it back in again.
Next he delved in his desk drawers. They watched as he pulled out papers, pens, and various other office supplies before holding up a comb as if it were something precious. They both stifled laughter at his muffled curses as his tangles fought back. When he stood outside the archive room door, visibly giving himself a pep talk before plastering a confident smile on his face, Maggie said, “Damn,” dragging the word out as if it had three syllables.
Yes, Theo thought, young love in his office.
Damn indeed.
Chapter 8
WHILE watching the interns was a spectator sport that both he and Maggie could get behind, it didn’t take long for Theo to see potential downsides. He guessed that the behavior which Maggie described as too cute could be viewed as workplace harassment. It seemed obvious to him that Joel was drawn to Evan Daly, but he truly had no idea whether it was an interest Evan reciprocated.
Honestly, it was probably none of his business. That’s what he said via e-mail to Peter later on Friday evening. They’d given up on texting after consistently missing each other. Instead, they e-mailed from time to time, and Peter had turned out to be an interesting correspondent. He had a knack for taking serious subjects and reducing them to amusing anecdotes.
He didn’t take life too seriously.
It wasn’t that he was flippant, or took pleasure at poking fun at others’ expense. No, if anything, Peter’s views were saturated with understanding. Theo wondered if that was a result of seeing some of the worst things that could happen to people. Maybe dealing with distress and pain on an almost daily basis in his professional life meant that Peter’s laid-back, live-and-let-live point of view was a coping mechanism. Either way, his response to Theo’s concern about the interns was typical.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” he asked Theo. “They’re both adults, and from the way you described the smaller one it sounds like he can stand up for himself. Are you concerned because you don’t know if he’s gay? Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it for the moment. If he’s straight he probably hasn’t even noticed the other kid at all.”
Theo sat in his study, almost smiling. Peter probably wasn’t wrong.
“If he is gay, then I guess he’ll notice eventually, if the other dude is being as obvious as you suggest. Then they can either fuck like bunnies in your archive room, or have a fistfight in the office. Just make sure to video it for me. I’m so bored with hotel pay-per-view porn.”
That was Peter through and through: straightforward and just a little irreverent.
It wasn’t quite that simple for Theo.
Firstly, if Evan felt uncomfortable about Joel’s increasingly obvious interest—the taller kid could not be subtle to save his life—he might not feel able to raise the subject at the office. It worried Theo more than a little that Evan might be coming to work carrying the weight of his mother’s expectations on his narrow shoulders, and then was also having to deal with Joel’s enthusiastic crushing. Secondly, it didn’t really matter if Evan was gay or straight, or even if he was interested in or unaware of Joel’s fascination. The fact was that Joel was acting unprofessionally.
It was as simple and as complicated as that.
It wasn’t that Theo was unsympathetic. He remembered what raging hormones felt like. He’d been older than Joel—approaching twenty-six—when he met Ben, but even so, they had both been crazy in love and couldn’t keep their hands off each other. He’d had his own unprofessional moments at the office. It wasn’t until he watched Joel follow Evan into the archive room, while he and Maggie spied on them from his office, that he remembered one of the best.
Back in the day, office parties actually happened at work, in the break room. Instead of decamping down to the nearest bar or restaurant for a drunken holiday celebration, there would be a potluck dinner arranged across a few tables, or pizzas delivered that they would eat while someone played terrible mix tapes on a boom box brought in from home.
Ben loved office parties.
Actually, Ben loving parties at the office was somewhat of an understatement.
He lived for them.
Theo used to waste hours on office-party days, clock watching until time slowly tick-tocked toward evening. Ben would appear, looking so handsome—all sleek dark hair and wicked smile—and would charm hi
s way around Theo’s colleagues. He never forgot wives’ and husbands’ names, or who had kids graduating from kindergarten or high school. He made being sociable so easy. While Theo wouldn’t describe himself as shy, maybe his upbringing as an only child of quiet parents had left him with an inner core of reserve.
Ben didn’t suffer from shyness. He loved parties and people. But most of all he loved Theo’s office parties because they gave him access to the archive room.
It was true.
Theo read Peter’s e-mail, then paused mid-reply, eyes closed as he recalled time he’d spent being inappropriate at work.
Ben had brought a case of good wine to the first office party he attended and—more used to lite beer—the younger members of Theo’s team were soon more than a little drunk. The music got louder, as did the laughter. Instead of the usual polite standing around while food was eaten before people made excuses to leave early, frantic calls were made to babysitters, begging them to stay for just a few hours longer.
When the dancing started, the party spilled out of the break room and into the office. Theo had mingled a little, taking his new almost-management role seriously, drinking less than the others. He’d found it so hard to drag his eyes away from Ben, who danced with anyone who looked half willing. With his jacket off, Ben had looked good enough to eat—all toned torso in a tight white shirt and deep, devastatingly attractive dimples—as he smiled and swayed to the music.
Before too long, the bass was echoing through the outer office. The old building’s vaulted ceilings created amazing acoustics, and once they’d turned off the bright fluorescent lighting, the place seemed less office-like and more shadowy—full of hidden corners. Ben had grabbed Theo as he passed close by, then slipped his warm hand under Theo’s jacket until he had a covert handful of ass.
One huge glass of red wine later, and Theo had Ben pushed up against the inside of the archive room door.
