Love at the Electric

by Hughes, Jenn

  Lillian laughed. “I know, right? I love dogs, but when something is so small and quiet it can hide in a purse without detection, it’s a little disconcerting. But you’re not getting out of this, Sam. Terrifying teeny dogs or not.”

  “What difference does it make if I date women I have no intention of seeing seriously? They know it’s only temporary. I make it very clear I’m not interested in anything serious and, let’s face it, once they saw this . . . ” he said, pointing at the cracked plaster on the ceiling and then the stack of old game cases serving as an end table, “ . . . they wouldn’t have quite the same opinion of me.”

  Lillian looked away, over at the cycling colors on his gaming rig next to the TV. “Maybe it doesn’t make a difference, but you’re missing out. There’s nothing wrong with this apartment. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, either. Why hide? How are you going to get close to anyone if you never show them who you really are?”

  She pushed his buttons so hard he felt like one of the six or seven cracked controllers he’d tossed out over the years. Every word inched him dangerously toward telling her exactly how close he wanted to get to her. Share things with her. Stop hiding with her . . .

  Nope. Preston, remember? And Rik and contracts and careers. If you care, back off.

  “What makes you think I want to get close to anyone?”

  Lillian frowned. Then she sat up straight like she had a titanium spine. If she’d thought she’d been getting through to him, his cocky little remark snuffed out that possibility altogether. It was written all over her posture.

  “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about me,” Sam pointed out. “I think I deserve to ask a question or two.”

  “Like what?” she sighed.

  “You never answered me about how dinner went with Rik.”

  Her cheeks flushed red. “It went as well as I expected.”

  Suddenly, she stood up. Sam nearly tried grabbing her hand, but held back when she walked around the sofa and over to the door. Lillian took her coat from the rack, gripped the doorknob . . .

  But she stopped short of turning it. She looked down at the floor and bit her lip. He wanted to bite it for her then. A little nibble to drive both of them crazy and keep her in his apartment for as long as possible . . .

  “There’s something I think I should tell you, Sam.”

  “Okay.”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “I’m a big boy, Lillian. If you need to say something, say it.”

  She looked over at him. “I didn’t only negotiate for dinner and getting back at Emily with Richard. I also asked him to drop that last infringement case Origin brought against Mythos. He agreed. And I’m sorry about that. The case would have been thrown out of court, but if I had any idea Preston Lavery deserved to be litigated from here to kingdom come I never would have suggested—”

  Sam held up his hand. “Hold up. Did dropping that case free up some of your time so you could come to The Electric?”

  Lillian’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I mean, I guess so.”

  “Then it was totally worth dropping it. But I appreciate the honesty.”

  “Same,” she said with a faint and relieved smile. “I should go. It’s late.”

  Sam jumped over the back of the sofa, landing next to her as she pulled on her coat. That undone top button gently suggested he ask her to stay a little longer. Undone buttons tended to do that to him. Pushy little bastards.

  “Thanks for stopping by to check up on me. If you ever want to play a few levels of Firespawn, you could come over again. I’ll make a profile for you, and you’ll be able to pick up where you left off—”

  “We’ll see.” She opened the door, and then stepped out into the hallway. “Good night, Sam.”

  The door slammed in his face. Sam’s stomach gurgled with an unsettled feeling.

  “Can’t blame bad Chinese this time.”

  Alone again, he locked the door, and then fell back against it with a thud. Lillian Walker had entered his inner sanctum. She’d unmasked him. Left him exposed and with the truth flowing out of his mouth like drips from a leaky faucet. The ugly duckling might have been a swan on the outside, but it had terrible hair and braces on the inside.

  He felt ill. Achy and sweaty and miserable. Definitely not bad Chinese, though. The effect of letting Lillian leave came on stronger and hit harder than E. coli dreamed, and all due to one pesky, irritating little fact—he didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want to get close to any woman but her.

  And by being the Sam Owens, he didn’t have a chance in hell at it.

  Chapter 14

  Free-Range, Cotton-Veiled Threats

  I before E except after C. Except with weird. Or eight. Or . . .

  Lillian continued correcting her email before the spell checker crashed from all the errors. Email and reports consumed nearly all her time at work, and a good portion of that went to checking and re-checking for mistakes to avoid appearing illiterate.

  But there were exceptions to any rule. The more time Lillian spent at Mythos, pretending she didn’t work for a criminal, the more she considered breaking Preston’s golden one.

  Who is he to tell me who I can and cannot see? He’s a thief, that’s who he is. T-h-e-i . . . No, that’s not right.

  She continued scrolling, catching an extra word at the beginning of a sentence. She pressed the delete key—

  Suddenly, the door to her office glided open. No knock. And there was her boss, standing in the doorway in tree pose. Totally normal.

  Preston Lavery didn’t believe in knocking. Or the use of doors. They inhibited the exchange of creative energy or some utter bullshit like that.

  “Lillian,” Preston said in a low, breathy voice.

  She paused, catching herself before calling him Mr. Lavery. Preston also didn’t believe in titles.

  “Preston.”

  He brought his hands down from above his head and scanned the room. Then he slowly walked along the outskirts as though he were taking a stroll through the park. While she waited for him to decide what he intended to do after barging in, Lillian took a good, long look at the guru of Mythos.

  No two men could have been more different than Sam and Preston. Night and day. Dark and light. Sex on a stick versus prison-deserving soap on a rope . . .

  Although nearly Sam’s height, Preston was slim. His slight frame made his hemp shorts and organic, free-range, whatever-the-hell-else cotton T-shirt hang loosely. Shaggy blond hair hung in his brown eyes, and he habitually brushed it away.

  She noticed his feet. No shoes. That and his bronze complexion, in her opinion suspicious for Maine in the winter, made him look like a surfer—although he probably boycotted surfing for disturbing the fish or something similarly asinine.

  Preston walked behind her—so not creepy at all—and finally came around to the other side of the room. He stopped, then clasped his hands behind his back and gave her a very white, brilliant smile.

  “Lillian.”

  “Preston.”

  “A little bird told me Rik Bryant dropped that sad infringement case you were working on. I came here to tell you I’m aware, and I’m grateful,” he said softly. Then he bowed, his hands in a prayer pose.

  Don’t roll your eyes. Don’t roll your eyes. “Thank you, Preston. But it is my job to handle those sorts of things.”

  He gasped. “Oh, no, Lillian. No, no, no. This is more than a job. You’re more than my employee. We’re a team. We all have something special to contribute, and that’s what makes Mythos great.” Another blinding smile spread across his lips. “Origin will never succeed in bringing us down if we all work together.”

  Lillian’s eyes narrowed. There was more to Preston’s impromptu pep talk than business. “Well, I’m not ex
actly sure Origin is actively trying to bring down Mythos. I think they’re filing countersuits to combat our countersuits. And so on, and so on.”

  “Don’t be fooled. Sam Owens is desperate to see me fail, and the fact that Mythos keeps rising to the top has really muted his aura . . . which is why I have everyone sign that little nonfraternization policy.” Preston sighed and took a seat in one of the chairs in front of Lillian’s desk. “I know how silly it seems, telling my team not to have contact with the CEO of a rival company. I mean, what are the odds it would actually happen? Right?”

  Shit. He knows.

  Aside from the intense look on his face replacing his usual Buddhist calm, Preston had no other reason to bring up the contract. Somehow, he knew about her and Sam and The Electric. Even though she wanted to explode, she kept calm. There was no reason to be anything but calm. She’d done nothing wrong. She wasn’t in a romantic relationship with Sam—

  Dum-dum-dum Daa da-dum Daa da-dummmmm . . .

  Her ringtone, the dramatic theme to Quasar Crusades, sounded off at full volume. Terribly appropriate. Lillian flinched. She grabbed her phone from the top of the desk and muted the volume. Preston stared at the phone—her Origin Seven—with a weird little smile. Flustered, she set it back on the desk and ignored the call.

  “Sorry,” she said, her throat suddenly tight. “So, you were talking about odds. I imagine the odds are incredibly slim. But even if they weren’t, it would be difficult to legally enforce your contract. I thought it leaned more toward being a suggestion than an executable measure on your part.”

  “I’m afraid it’s a little of both. You see, I’m trying to protect the team. I don’t want any of you getting in the middle of this tiresome vendetta Sam has toward me, and I definitely don’t want his negative energy impacting Mythos. Like, for instance, if someone on the team gave him information they shouldn’t, then it would hurt everyone. And I can’t have that.”

  Threats went down with Lillian about as well as warm wine or ghost peppers. Not. At. All. But before she could even consider slicing him with a cutting retort, Preston jumped up from the chair. Without a word, he strolled back through the open door. Lillian thought she’d seen the last of him, but as she slumped back, Preston stuck his head around the corner.

  “Good talk, Lillian. Great energy. Namaste!”

  Then he disappeared again. After several seconds and with no more Preston Lavery guest appearances, Lillian finally rolled her eyes. Hard. It hurt a little. But it felt better than admitting Preston’s impromptu drop-in set her nerves on edge . . . and left her ever-so-slightly intimidated.

  Sam’s revelations on his history with Preston forced Lillian to take her boss a bit more seriously than she had before. Preston Lavery had no boundaries. Nothing to make him pause. And so if he wanted to destroy her career over her involvement with Sam, he could. Easily. Illegally.

  Lillian rubbed her throbbing temples and tried to ignore her racing heart. She looked over at the photos on her desk, the one of Tessa looking typically chic and the other of her parents sitting on the front porch steps of the family farmhouse. Suddenly she wanted to go home. Drive to Connecticut and hug her mom. Hide her tears from her dad. And then lock herself in her room for a month . . .

  Or maybe I could hide somewhere else for a little while. Somewhere strange came to mind. A den of geek. Blue plaster walls and video game lights reflecting in old glass window panes and a wounded soul she wanted to heal. Sam’s history and resulting transformation got to her. Until Preston’s arrival, she’d barely thought of anything else. Hence the inability to master basic spelling.

  The pain returned, and she stared at the open door, jaw clenched. She wanted to find Sam. Shake some sense into him. Tell him he was perfect, inside and out, and the world would agree if—

  A flash on her phone’s screen drew her attention. She tried picking it up, but her shaking hand promptly dropped it back onto the glass desktop with a clang. Lillian took a deep breath, commanded herself to calm down, and gave it another try. Success. On the screen hovered a missed call notification and a text from Richard. She tapped to read it.

  Richard Bryant: Don’t forget, friend - reservations made at Tabula Rasa for Thurs night at 8!

  Lillian groaned, loud and long. She needed a break. Desperately.

  She felt torn in a hundred different directions, pulled by the various men in her life. Her eyes focused on her laptop. Then on the massive pile of work to go through. Work was her constant. The one thing she could count on. Nothing else filled her time. She’d married her job. And it had become an unhappy, unholy union.

  She’d made no new friends since moving to Port Bristol. Phone calls to her parents had grown sparse, and a call every weekend had turned into one every two or three weeks. She didn’t have the time to listen to her mom describe in gory detail the births of new sheep or calves, or reassure her dad that Tessa did, in fact, make enough money to support herself in New York.

  It all came down on her in a crushing pile of guilt. Lillian had gone from loving, responsible daughter, who had at one point cared for both her ill mother and precocious baby sister while helping her father manage a fully functioning farm, to . . .

  A workaholic with no life. No friends . . . No more.

  She’d been living the same night, in one form or another, over and over and over again for months. Working until she’d turned into a zombie was no way to live . . . or die. Whatever.

  Lillian leaned over and flipped through the stack of documents weighing down the right corner of her desk. As she triaged folders, she plotted her next moves. First, she’d call her parents to check in and tell them she loved them, and then she’d tackle the cases requiring immediate attention. After that, she’d go home to . . .

  “What? Knit? No. Saturday is knitting day. Not tonight.”

  She refused to live her life avoiding something she enjoyed because of Preston Lavery and his threats. He didn’t own her and he sure as hell couldn’t steal her. Lillian reached across the desk and grabbed her phone. A quick search brought up The Electric’s festival list of films, and she scrolled down to the night’s showings.

  “Frankincense and Myrrhder . . . ” she said under her breath. “Oh, that’s a classic. I can’t miss that. Home by eight thirty, swallow the rest of that leftover Chinese food, then get changed . . . Yes. I can make it to The Electric in time.”

  Honestly, though—time to see the movie, or time to see Sam?

  Chapter 15

  Hot Mess of Cocoa

  From the line for Frankincense and Myrrhder at The Electric, Sam watched with dread as carolers congregated in front of Wolcott’s General Store at the end of the street.

  One of the oldest buildings in Port Bristol, Wolcott’s had flourished as a throwback to the past, and a steady stream of customers flowed in and out of its peeling hunter green doors. The owner had the forethought to invest heavily in electric-heated snow shovels, learn-how-to-fish tackle kits, and the biggest selection of old-fashioned candy in the state of Maine. So whenever a nerd had to shovel snow or decided to get in touch with the great outdoors while nursing low blood sugar, Wolcott’s was the place to go.

  But Mrs. Wolcott’s business was about to take a beating if she didn’t have those carolers forcibly removed. They gleefully crossed the midway point of their second rendition of “Deck the Halls.” Sam prayed they knew better than to jump into a third, or more than the halls might get decked.

  Despite the clean fragrance of fresh-cut pine boughs wrapped around nearby lampposts, his frayed nerves felt ready to snap. The happy, upbeat melody and enthusiastic fa-la-la-ing were only a portion of the problem. The whole idea of Christmas antagonized him. Now more than ever.

  It meant togetherness, whether it was with family or friends or significant others. Everything about the holidays was screaming at him to be a par
t of something when the one thing he wanted to be a part of couldn’t or wouldn’t have him . . .

  The screaming turned out to be the carolers’ soprano soaring obnoxiously above the others. He jammed his hands down inside his pockets and imagined the headline for tomorrow’s Bristol Beagle: “Tech CEO castigates cacophonous carolers, community thanks him.” Sam smiled. At least something made him smile that day.

  Work had dragged on. In between making legitimate business decisions, he had replayed the events of Lillian’s drop-in at his apartment. He’d gutted himself in front of her. Exposed the insecurities and regrets and geekery inside . . . and she’d listened. Really listened. No judgments for what he’d said to Preston at MIT or making fun of him for his Koowiee robe or geeked-out apartment. She even went so far as to give him a little advice on working through his self-inflicted fear of committing to one woman. A fear Lillian Walker rendered nonexistent.

  But Lillian still worked for Preston. Both Rik and Preston had declared Sam contractually off-limits. And the late-night conversation and revelation combo brought back a familiar feeling, long buried but apparently waiting until the right woman scratched the surface. Suave Sam folded like a pathetic but attractive napkin under the pressure of real honestly.

  Maybe if I’d told her how I felt . . .

  The line moved forward. Sam pulled his hands out of his pockets and blew on them to warm them up. He couldn’t wait to get inside. Get a shot of bourbon and a good seat. The forties ghost story all the online reviews raved over would take his mind off—

  “Save me a seat?”

  Sam looked over and straight into a pair of brown eyes so cozy and comforting he forgot about the cold. Lillian. “Hey! I was wondering if you’d make it.”