Love in Tandem

by Natalie Arden

  “You look fantastic,” Scott said. “I almost feel bad about these eggs now.”

  “You don’t think I can eat eggs?” Eamon asked, shedding his suit jacket and hanging it neatly on the back of a chair.

  “I just don’t want to crumple you, you look so perfect,” Scott replied fondly.

  “It’s just work clothes,” Eamon said, dismissive.

  Scott whistled again. “You used to look like this every day? I take it back: I don’t think you should go back to work. My heart can’t take it.”

  “You’re just flattering me.” Eamon waved him off and sat down. “Where’d you even find all this stuff? I don’t think any real cooking’s been done in here in years.”

  “I could tell,” Scott teased. “But it was all there, waiting. I had to go through some cupboards, of course, but I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “Sure, be my guest.” Eamon waved a hand, taking in the entire kitchen with a single swipe. “Everything I have is at your disposal and so forth.”

  Scott turned away from the stove to regard him with soft eyes. “That’s a lot of declaration for first thing in the morning.”

  “I’ve been saying it for months,” Eamon said. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Guess not.” This smile was soft, playing over Scott’s lips like he was stuck between two emotions and unable to decide between them.

  “I’ll say it better next time,” Eamon promised him.

  “Next time?”

  “Every time.” Eamon laughed. “All the times.”

  Scott blew him a kiss.

  Despite Eamon’s urge to draw it out, the two of them ate quickly, readying themselves for the day ahead, and all too soon, they were done.

  “I guess I’m off,” Eamon said, dumping dishes in the sink.

  Scott leaned over and kissed his temple. “Do you know what you’re going to say?”

  “I’ve got a lot of time in the car to practice.” Eamon shrugged into his jacket, smoothing down the lapels. “I just have to remember not to get thrown out by security this time.”

  “That’s a start,” Scott agreed. He looked Eamon over closely, and Eamon began to wonder if he’d forgotten something, or perhaps dropped egg down his front. “I want to kiss you, but you look too good to crumple,” he said finally.”

  Eamon laughed, heart full to bursting with affection. “I can take a little crumpling. We’re not that formal of an office.”

  “You’re the CEO,” Scott said, pretending to be shocked. “Next thing you’ll tell me is that you don’t wear a tie.”

  Nervously, Eamon fingered his open collar. “Should I?”

  Scott reached for his hand, drawing it away from his neck. “You look great.” He leaned down to peck Eamon on the lips. “Now go get rid of that asshole.”

  Eamon sketched a salute in the air. “You’ve got it.”

  They walked out the front door together, pausing by Eamon’s car.

  “Good luck kiss?” Eamon said.

  Scott leaned in for a peck and Eamon grabbed him, hauling Scott down to his own level with a hand fisted in Scott’s jacket. Their lips crashed together, taking Eamon’s breath away as their mouths sealed together. Scott’s hands on Eamon’s were gentle as they parted, loosening his fierce grip with careful fingers.

  “Come home soon, okay?” Scott said. He grinned. “But tear them up first.”

  “I will,” Eamon promised.

  Scott touched his back lightly, still careful not to crumple Eamon’s suit. “You’ve got this.”

  And as Eamon sped away towards the highway, flicking on his Bluetooth headset, he was pretty sure that he did.

  He had some calls to make and Kevin wasn’t going to know what hit him.

  44

  Eamon

  Pulling up into his usual parking spot at CarreSys, Eamon braced himself for the fight ahead. Was he even going to be able to get into the building or would security stop him? Whatever happened, he wasn’t going to leave. He was going to make Kevin see him, going to find him on his home turf and settle this once and for all.

  He stalked into the lobby, nodding at the security guard there. His back was too stiff, his movements jerky, but he couldn’t stop now, not when he was walking unimpeded to the elevators and heading up to CarreSys’s main floor.

  The receptionist, Jerry, looked a little startled when Eamon strode into the reception area, but he didn’t call security or anything. “Mr. Carrell,” he said, recovering quickly. “It’s been a while.”

  “Good to see you, Jerry,” Eamon said. “Is Kevin in?” He smiled ingratiatingly. “I want to surprise him.”

  Jerry clicked away at his computer for a moment. “He has a meeting at eleven, but he should still be in his office now.”

  “That’s perfect,” Eamon said, calm as anything. “I’ll only be a minute. You don’t need to let him know: I’ll just drop in.” He’d thought that he’d be angrier in this moment, that he would be struggling for calm, but calm seemed to settle over him like a cloak as he strode down the hallway towards Kevin’s office. He’d had enough time in the car, perhaps, to think over every possible permutation of this argument, or maybe it was simply time to sort things out once and for all.

  Kevin’s PA looked even more worried to see Eamon, but Eamon swept past her before she could push the intercom button on her system, and was opening Kevin’s door in an instant.

  “Kevin!” he said cheerily as he shut the door behind him.

  Kevin looked up from his computer, did a visible double-take, and reached for his phone.

  “There’s no need for that,” Eamon said. He leaned on the enormous desk, sweeping the phone off to the side and out of Kevin’s reach. “I thought I hadn’t seen you in a while, and we should talk again.

  “It’s good to see you,” Kevin said. His brief moment of panic was smoothing over into a perfect facade that Eamon couldn’t wait to destroy.

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Eamon smiled insincerely. “You’ll be shocked at security here. Letting banned people go right in. Jerry didn’t even try to call security.”

  “Ah, well–” Kevin’s mouth opened moved silently. “You know you’re always welcome in our offices – your offices! – any time you want. It’s simply that the board thought a reduced role would be good for your health, you know.”

  “No, I think you did mean ‘our offices’, didn’t you?” Eamon said. The words were kind, but there was a core of steel underlying them that Eamon hadn’t even known he could produce. “That’s how you’ve been running the place, isn’t it? Since you got rid of me?”

  Kevin looked up at him blankly. “No, Eamon,” he said slowly. “That was the board–”

  “Was it the board?” Eamon said. He could feel his trap sliding gently into place, smooth and unyielding. “Because I was having some very interesting conversations with board members this morning.”

  “Oh?” To his credit, Kevin looked no more than normally interested.

  “They told me some very funny stories,” Eamon said. “Funny stories about you, in fact. That you’d been telling them some interesting things about me.”

  “I endeavored to pass on your messages to the best of my ability,” Kevin said. His tone was firm, but his hands were clasped too tightly around the arms of his chair, his knuckles whitening as his grip tightened.

  “You must have misunderstood,” Eamon said, equally calm. “Because somehow they’d heard from you that I was considering stepping back? Taking a smaller role in the company? Even thinking of selling the company on?”

  “They’re lying to you,” Kevin said. He leaned forward. “Eamon, you know me. Would I have done this to you?”

  “The funny thing is,” Eamon said, leaning back against Kevin’s desk. “I don’t really think I do know you. I’ve worked with you for a long time, but you’ve got some unexpected sides to you that I hadn’t seen before.”

  “What do you–?” Kevin began.

  Eamon held up a hand. “I
saw the interview, Kevin. And then I dug a little further. That wasn’t the first time you told the trade mags we’re up for sale, was it?”

  For the first time that afternoon, Kevin looked taken off guard.

  “In fact,” Eamon pressed on. “You’ve been telling me this whole time that someone on the board wanted to sell. And they did. You just didn’t mention it was you.”

  “Me?” Kevin put a hand to his chest. “You’ve misunderstood something, Eamon. I would never–”

  “Save it,” Eamon snapped. “I spoke to Harris this morning. I spoke to Kowalski. I spoke to Tupman. They all, surprisingly, said the same thing. The person who’s been talking up a merger in the meetings is you. Only you. Funny, that.”

  Kevin’s jaw clenched, his mouth becoming a straight line.

  “Except of course, for me, in absentia,” Eamon continued. “Apparently I argued very strongly for the merger, to everyone’s surprise. Including my own, actually.” He regarded Kevin coldly. “Care to explain?”

  “I don’t–” Kevin began.

  “Save your excuses,” Eamon said. “What I really want to know is why. Why did you do it, Kevin? Why did you lie to me like this?” He laughed, a faint sound that was barely a laugh at all. “I thought we were friends.”

  “Friends?” Kevin spat. “Is that what you call it?”

  “I thought we worked well together,” Eamon said.

  “With you?” The words seemed to disgust Kevin even as they came out of his mouth. “You must be joking.” He rose from his chair to meet Eamon face to face, looking him right in the eye. “I can’t stand you.”

  “I’d realized that,” Eamon said. Up close, he thought he could see sweat beginning to bead on Kevin’s temples. He had the upper hand here, and Kevin had to know it. He just needed to find out why. “But I’ve done so much for you. I don’t know another VP with as much leeway as you’ve had. I’ve tried to compensate you fairly. What exactly is your problem here?”

  “Do you know what this company could be without your micromanaging?” Kevin spat. “We could be massive. But no, you want to oversee everything. To keep this company small to feed your ego. The only way for us to live up to our potential is to get rid of you. And if we need someone bigger to do that, then I’m on board.” He laughed, the sound harsh in Eamon’s ears. “Do you know what they’d pay me to get your product line in their lineup? What they’d pay you? But no, you always had to be too good for that, too good for them.”

  “You’re doing this...for the company?” Eamon shook his head in confusion.

  “You didn’t think I took this job for my health, did you?” Kevin snorted, his face contorting into a sneer. “I wanted what I could get out of it, what it could be if it wasn’t tied down to an asshole like you.”

  “So you do hate me personally,” Eamon said. He felt light, as if he was floating away. It was as simple as that: Kevin hated him. Nothing else had to explain it.

  “You hired me to go talk to people while you sat in your office fiddling around with the details of programs that should be beneath your notice,” Kevin snapped. “And then you micromanaged me while you were at it. And called it friendship.” He made a low noise under his breath, almost a growl.

  “You could have left,” Eamon said. “I wouldn’t have stopped you.”

  “But then, how would I have gotten the better of you?” Kevin said, leaning in close. His laugh was an ugly, grating sound. “I couldn’t just take my piddly salary and move on. I wanted to destroy you. And if I could make a few bucks doing it? All the fucking better.” He pushed away. “Do you even understand how much money this company is worth if you sell it on? Stop keeping such a tight fucking hold on the product and let someone else handle it?”

  “That tight hold is why the company is worth so much,” Eamon snapped. “We make a good product here.”

  “A good product,” Kevin said, mocking. “That’s all I’ve heard for years as you turn down chances to make the both of us rich. We don’t all have the money, Eamon. We can’t all afford to turn down good money for the world’s most idiotic principles.”

  “I earned everything I have now,” Eamon said, furious. “Those principles are how I built myself into what I have now. I thought you understood that. That core at the heart of CarreSys.”

  Kevin yawned. “Pathetic.” He cracked his neck back and forth. “So, why are you even here, if you’ve figured me out?”

  “I wanted to see what you’d say,” Eamon said regretfully. “We’ve worked so hard together, Kevin. I can’t believe you’d do this to me.”

  “Can’t believe someone you trod upon would want to rise up against you?” Kevin practically shouted. “Then you’re fooling yourself, Eamon! I’m not the only one who sees how your methods are driving us into the ground.”

  There was a tap on the door. “Everything okay in there?”

  “Just fine,” Eamon called back. He turned to Kevin with a smile. “I let you lie to me because I didn’t understand you, that was all. But the funny thing about finding one lie is: you keep digging. The company isn’t having the worst year of its life at all. We’re headed along the same path we’ve always been. You’ve been keeping me on an information drip and twisting the facts to suit this game you were playing.”

  “We are failing!” Kevin yelled. “Failing to get something out of this shitheap and move on.”

  Eamon sighed. “So you’re not willing to be reasonable.” He looked up into Kevin’s gaze, surprised at how calm he felt now that it came down to it. “I was willing to hear your side of things. See the bigger picture. Maybe there was something in this merger after all. But you’re not rational about this anymore, and I’m going to have to let you go.” He shrugged. “If you’d called me on my temper earlier, on my tendency to micromanage, something might have been done. But instead you let it get this far, and now.” He smiled, fake as could be. “Now you’re gone.”

  Kevin sneered at him. “That’s not how my contract works, idiot. Enjoy paying my severance while I move on.”

  “I’ve been looking at the numbers,” Eamon said smoothly. “And however much severance might be, it won’t be anywhere near as much as you’d have gotten if that merger had gone through, is it? I’ll have to be satisfied with that. Knowing how much money you could have had and lost out on.”

  “How fucking dare you–” Kevin began, raising an arm to hit Eamon, just as Eamon slammed his hand down on the security buzzer on Kevin’s phone.

  He got in a few decent punches before security actually arrived, but as Eamon explained the incident through an ice pack over a rapidly swelling eye, it was worth it to be rid of the guy.

  Hitting the CEO was definitely cause for a firing, after all. Which made his severance null and void.

  45

  Scott

  “You let him do what?” Scott shrieked into the phone line as Eamon recounted the story of his confrontation with Kevin.

  “It was just a little punch,” Eamon said soothingly. “Or two, I guess. I’ve never had a black eye before! It’s kind of exciting.”

  “It’s kind of painful is what it is,” Scott told him. “Or it will be once the adrenaline wears off.” He’d had a couple of black eyes in his time, though rarely from something as exciting as this. He’d done some stupid things as a teenager. He didn’t want to think about them. He wanted to be sure Eamon was okay. “I’m coming over there.”

  Eamon laughed. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I promise. I’ll let you fuss when I get home.”

  “I’m not fussing,” Scott hissed into the phone. “I’m just concerned – like a normal person! – that you let him injure you just because you didn’t want to– I don’t know! Pay him severance?”

  “There was more to it than that,” Eamon said. He laughed, smug as hell. “Who’s got the temper now, asshole?”

  “You let someone punch you just to be petty later?” Scott said. He leaned on the counter, grateful for the first time in his life that there was no one el
se in the shop. As ridiculous as Eamon was being, he was starting to relax a little. Eamon was fine. Apparently he had to deal with the cops now and a whole bunch of paperwork and probably some lawyers if he was going to press charges against the asshole who’d socked him in the face, but if he could make smug jokes and laugh about it, he was probably going to be fine.

  It didn’t prevent Scott from wanting to rush out the door and drive for an hour and a half just to check up on him, but it did remind him that he’d probably be out of place there, just hanging around while Eamon talked to lawyers and did his fancy big-shot stuff.

  “I didn’t let him punch me,” Eamon said. “It all happened pretty fast, okay? I didn’t encourage him to do it: he decided to all on his own.” He cackled. “That’s why it’s so funny.”

  “You have a strange sense of humor,” Scott said, feeling fond. “So, when will you be home tonight?”

  “Uh, about that.” Eamon made some vague noises. “I kind of have to sort out a lot of things here, so... Maybe next week?”

  “What?” Scott said, standing up straight for the first time. “That’s it, I’m coming over there.”

  “I told you, you don’t have to,” Eamon laughed. “Don’t worry about it. What about the shop?”

  “The shop can look after itself for a bit,” Scott said. He opened his calendar, clicked around a bit. “What a surprise. No appointments in October as it pours with rain.” His voice softened. “You got punched today, hon. I want to check up on you.”

  “Oh!” Eamon sounded genuinely shocked. “Well, okay. If you’re sure. I’ll text you the code to guest parking at my building.”

  “And the address,” Scott said stiffly, taken aback by the casual way that Eamon tossed these things around.

  “Oh, wow, yeah!” Eamon replied. “And the address.” He blew a kiss into the phone. “Can’t wait to see you!”

  A small part of Scott wondered what he’d gotten himself in for. The larger part couldn’t possibly wait to scold Eamon for letting someone punch him, and that part won out.