“Wait, James. Wait. Can we talk, please?”
“Are you getting on?” the driver yelled out.
“He’ll catch another one,” Gabe snapped over his shoulder. James folded his arms, giving Gabe a very annoyed and paternal look that was causing his spine to quickly shrivel. “I understand what you’re saying. Please… just.” It had been a long time since Gabe had made the effort to try to talk someone out of leaving him. He needed to stall for time. “Dinner? I promised you dinner.” James’ look didn’t falter. “At least let me drive you home. The buses on the weekends are full of weirdos.”
For the first time in his life, Gabe prayed for red lights as he made his way slowly through San Francisco traffic and toward the bridge. James sat silent next to him, staring out the window. It wasn’t the “I hate you, and I’m giving you the silent treatment” silence he’d gotten from past boyfriends. This silence seemed almost sad.
Sugar daddy. Those were the words James had used. Those words twisted around inside him, turning his stomach, and driving out nearly every other thought. He wanted to argue it, but on some sick level, it fit. He’d just wanted to get James a new phone. It had been as self-serving as anything else. And wouldn’t he have looked like a cheap bastard if he’d gotten one of their stock standard phones? He was the CFO. What was the point of a chronically busy lifestyle if you couldn’t get your hands on the newest toys first and give them to your boyfriend? Your boyfriend who had flat-out said he didn’t want things.
But there’s a difference between wanting to get things for yourself and accepting gifts. Right?
Sugar daddy. Gabe’s grip on the wheel tightened, and he slowed to five below the speed limit. He couldn’t think of what to say. Every idea that popped into his head sounded patronizing, needy, mean, or weird.
The lights on the freeway went by too fast as they neared James’ exit. He needed more time. He pulled up in front of James’ building. James didn’t jump out right away, and Gabe took it as the first good sign of the trip.
“Can I call you later?” Gabe kept his voice low.
“Gabe, I—”
“Please? Just a call? That’s it. I promise.”
James took a deep shuddering breath, gave a tight nod, then jumped from the car, all but running to the security gate, not once looking back.
Dylan was out for the night, and the only light in the apartment came from the streetlamps outside. James didn’t bother turning on the lights as he made his way across the living room and down the hall. He was glad Dylan was out. He’d be able to tell something was wrong; he’d want all the details on what happened. He’d want a conversation, and James really wasn’t interested in what Dylan would have to say on the matter.
Actually, he knew exactly what Dylan would say. “Why didn’t you take the phone?”
Dylan didn’t understand. He’d been too young to notice judgmental looks and whispers, or the scraping for pennies at the grocery store. “Why didn’t you take the phone?”
First it would be the phone, but Gabe was rich. He wouldn’t understand. There was nothing stopping him from getting them a new computer, new clothes, a car. It would be too easy to get used to it. Too easy to get reliant on it. He hadn’t made it this far only to put his and Dylan’s upkeep into someone else’s hands. Hands that could vanish as quickly as they arrived.
Why had he even told Gabe he could call? It was just leaving the door open. Leaving himself open.
James walked into the bathroom, shoved a washcloth in his mouth, screamed, then went to bed.
4
Fabric rustled softly against fabric and wooden hangers occasionally clacked against each other as Gabe went through his closet. He was supposed to be picking a suit for some formal evening function. He couldn’t even remember what it was despite having been told just hours earlier. And in all honesty, he didn’t care.
He hadn’t called James. It had been a full day, and he still didn’t have a clue as to what to say to get James back. He had driven home as slowly as possible the night before, hoping James would call, invite him back, and he wouldn’t be too far away when it happened.
When previous boyfriends had walked out, and there had been plenty, he let them walk out, and if he could be bothered, he bought forgiveness with something nice. Like a new phone. Not that he was trying to buy James off. He just wanted him to have a phone that would pick up calls when the humidity went above 50 percent. And James had gotten angry.
His own emotions had been swinging between confused, depressed, and briefly angry. He’d thrown up when a dark little voice deep in his mind, that sounded like a nightmare, had whispered, “He should be grateful.”
His hand landed on the shoulder of a blue suit jacket that had been shoved to the far end of the closet. He took it out. Double-breasted, blue but a half shade too bright, and more than a decade out of fashion, especially in Silicon Valley.
He had complained the whole time he’d been fitted for it. He’d felt like a pincushion or a chalkboard. His eyes had watered at the price of a necktie in that little shop that was down some San Francisco back alley. Gregory had promised him he’d look great. Gregory had made him a lot of promises.
Gabe ran his fingers down the lapels, a little too wide, really. Gregory had been the one who looked better in wide lapels. A European cut, making his shoulders look a little too broad. It was good fabric. Wool. The thread count could have been higher. Not that Gabe had known that at the time. He’d glimpsed the bill a second before it went into Gregory’s wallet. It shocked him that someone would pay that much for a suit just for him.
He glanced back into his closet. The suit that had hung next to the blue one was a dark charcoal wool with a subtle herringbone weave. He’d bought it the previous November in London for a couple thousand pounds. He’d been introduced to the tailor by one of the members of the House of Lords, whom he had met while negotiating TechPrim’s first major international deal. That had been six months after Gregory left town. Six months of Gabe flying the company solo once again.
Gabe stepped from his bedroom onto the balcony surrounding his penthouse condo, holding his slightly too-bright blue suit. The wind was cool, but it tasted clean. He took the jacket off the hanger and chucked five hundred dollars of tailoring down to the sidewalk below. Someone would pick it up. Maybe it would be a good color on them.
He went back inside, grabbed his phone, and dialed James’ number. It rang seven times, and Gabe was about to hang up, not wanting to leave a message.
“Hello?” James’ voice was tentative, and Gabe was so happy to hear it.
“Hi. It’s me. Look can we talk for a second? That’s all, talk.”
Tamyra dropped several binders in front of Gabe with a heavy thud. He winced and listened carefully for any crack or creaking of the wood. He did love his desk, with its mother-of-pearl inlay and climbing vines carved into the legs. It stood as a daily reminder of his first major victory in the business world.
“These came up from the fifth floor. Why do you want to buy Solar Flare, other than the fact that it pisses off someone you hate?” She’d been cranky at him since Monday when he refused to discuss his own crankiness, even if her guess that he and James had fought was spot-on. Gabe was admittedly less cranky since he’d talked James into seeing him again, but that was still several days away. Plenty of time for James to change his mind.
He flipped open the top binder. It was a rundown of everything Solar Flare owned and held, from employee contracts to the pens in their stationery cupboards. He’d half forgotten the whole reason he’d gone out on that disastrous dinner. Luckily he’d sent a memo down to fifth before heading to see James.
He had to give his teams credit. They could do their due diligence and still cut a check in record time. At this point they were probably grateful to buy up a company where everything was in English, and one that had been sold so often half the work was already done. He dug through the binders until he found the patents. Without saying a word,
he pulled two from the stack and handed them to Tamyra.
She read them over, then read them again. “Will this actually work?”
“I showed it to R&D. They nearly wet themselves. You get more power out of a square foot of those solar cells than an entire bank of the ones currently on the market. And that other thingy will charge batteries, even at the low voltage you get from solar, with only a tiny fraction of lost power. We figure out how to miniaturize it, and we can have our phones charged in five minutes.”
She gave the patents one more read over before smiling at him. “You are a complete bastard. This has been your game plan the whole time.”
Gabe grinned. It was a rare thing to ever get a step ahead of Tamyra. “No. This is just the really awesome chocolate buttercream frosting all over the cake.”
“Have you eaten lunch yet?”
“No. But now I really want cake.”
Tamyra slid the sheets back into the binder. “Why don’t you grab a couple boxes of donuts, take a ten-minute drive, and tell the good people of Solar Flare they have a loving new owner? You can personally explain their new contracts.”
“I do get a lot of hugs when I do that.” And Gabe felt like he could use some hugs, lots of hugs, even ones from strangers. It was one of the few real feel-good things he got to do. When he handed someone a contract that let them make their mortgage payments, they got very happy. Throw vision and dental coverage on top of that, and he had ended up in the middle of some very weepy spontaneous group hugs over the last few years. And as a group, engineers didn’t cry pretty. There was usually snot involved.
“And then you can come back here and work on your Russian.”
That killed the hint of a good mood he’d worked up. “Why am I doing that to myself?”
“I have absolutely no fucking idea.”
Gabe made his way carefully up San Pablo Avenue, navigating the thick Thursday evening traffic. People were trying to bypass the rush-hour jams on the freeway, clogging the surface streets as they did, but Gabe was in no great rush. It had taken considerable time, effort, and every drop of his negotiation skills to talk James into a second try at dinner. He was determined not to screw this one up.
As they left Berkeley, the canopy of large trees shading the organic cafés and coffee shops vanished. It became rows of little ethnic restaurants, muffler repair shops, minimalls, and second-string fast-food joints, all looking dusty and worn.
Gabe made a point to double check that the restaurant he wanted to take James to was still in business. He hadn’t been in several years despite it once being a favorite. It was one of those tiny places with excellent food that always seemed on the verge of going under. He’d even called ahead for a reservation despite never having seen it filled on a weekday.
As they neared the Potrero Avenue intersection, Gabe pulled over right in front of a neon sign advertising Thai cuisine.
“Here?” James asked, looking at the small weathered brick building attached to a boarded-up pawn shop.
“Here.”
The little bells that dangled in front of the door chimed. Gabe looked around, glad that nothing had changed. There were plastic flowers on the tables, and Thai soap operas showing on a mute TV. It was light-years from the Michelin-starred minimalistic elegance of their last failed meal. He felt himself relax as the smells from the kitchen and some nice memories rolled over him.
They were immediately approached by the smiling elderly lady who ran the place while her husband did the cooking. He never managed to learn her name, even when he was a semiregular customer. She sat them by the window and quickly took their drink orders.
Gabe looked over the menu as the BART train rumbled by nearly overhead, completely drowning out the sound of the restaurant music and the traffic outside.
James had yet to make any proper eye contact and looked intently over the dinner menu. The dishes on offer probably hadn’t changed since the mid ’90s. “What’s good here?” he asked, still not looking up.
“Anything. The larb gai is the best in the Bay.” It was, but he also knew James nearly always went for the chicken salad. Cheapest thing on most menus.
“Okay.”
Gabe waved to the waitress, who took their order with a smile. James ordered the larb gai, while Gabe got the nam sod.
James looked around at the little tables and Thailand tourism posters on the wall. “How’d you find this place?”
It was an obvious attempt at polite conversation on James’ part, but it was a good enough place for Gabe to start. He hadn’t planned out exactly what he was going to say but knew what he wanted to get across.
“I grew up about fifteen minutes from here.” James turned his head slightly toward the hills with their big suburban houses and million-dollar views of the city. “Other way.” James gave him a questioning look. Gabe took a deep breath. “I grew up in Richmond, on the wrong side of 23rd. Hell, we were on the wrong side of 9th, right down near the refinery. There were ten bullet holes in our garage door, and if you put your thumb over the top one, the rest looked kinda like Virgo. I’ve got two cousins in Quentin, one for assault with possession and the other for assault with intent, and both of those were plea-bargains. Only one of my sisters was over eighteen when she had her first kid. And… I forget all that. I try my damnedest to forget all of that. I surround myself with people who help me forget that. I have a bottle of prescription migraine medication that I only take when talking to my cousins’ lawyers. I try to convince myself that I was born fully formed just the way I am. And I am sorry. I didn’t think. I forgot. When I was eighteen, I turned down a scholarship for low-income Latino kids because the academic requirements were only 3.5, and I had a 4.2. It felt too much like charity, and I’d fought too damn hard to get where I was on my own. If someone had tried to hand me something like that phone, I would have walked away too.”
Gabe closed his eyes and lowered his head, even as the words came out of his mouth.
“Actually no, that’s a lie. There was someone who I let give me things and take me places, make me promises, and I should have turned and run as fast and as far as I could. He spun me around so hard I didn’t know who I was or which way was up anymore or who I was even supposed to be. And when I finally got out of that, I swore I would never become like him, but here I am now, dancing on the edge of it. I honestly didn’t think about… I just made a note to myself that you needed a new phone, and I didn’t even think about how you might feel about it or if you even wanted one. It was selfish and presumptuous on my part, and I am really sorry.”
James traced his finger around one of the tropical flowers printed on the plastic tablecloth, staying silent for nearly a minute, his eyes fixed to the table. “I’ve… I’ve had to justify to someone, often myself, every decision I have ever made since I was fourteen, because if I don’t, someone with the ability to make that decision will take it away from me. Defensive is sort of a default setting.” James took a deep breath and finally looked up. “And I do need a new phone.”
Gabe reached over and gently placed his hand over James’, trying not to show the absolute shattering relief that slammed into his system. He wasn’t on stable ground yet, though. “Your phone is an 8A-37X Phantom. That phone was recalled, in total, within three weeks of hitting the market. It was the biggest fuckup in TechPrim history. If we were on a stock market, our share price would have tanked. People got fired, departments got restructured, entire chapters of our best practices guide were rewritten, we broke off contracts with major partners, and we gave a full refund or new phone to everyone who bought one. I checked the records, and only a couple of hundred, globally, didn’t get returned. Legally TechPrim owes you a refund or a new phone. I don’t even know how you got that one.”
“It was secondhand.”
Gabe gave James’ hand a small squeeze. “Please. Whatever is between you and me is between you and me, but on a company pride and legality level, I can’t let you keep that phone. Please? And I pro
mise, if we keep going, I will consult you before ever trying to give you anything else. I swear.”
James stared at him, his face unreadable, while Gabe pleaded with his eyes as much as possible. “Okay. But that’s it. Don’t try to get me a new car or something.”
Gabe cringed a little. “Your birthday?” He tried to make it sound like a joke.
“No,” James said firmly. “There is nothing wrong with the Lemon Drop.”
“I have been in your car.”
James’ expression hardened. “It’s a perfectly good vehicle.”
Gabe wanted to open his mouth to argue, but the ice below him was still too thin. He was tempted to have a cousin steal James’ car so he could “help” James get a new one. It was so many miles past its use-by date; he thought of it as automotive botulism, and it was probably just as lethal. He moved his jaw a few times while James’ hard look did not let up.
“Fine. But when it dies, you better get a new one before I find out, or I’m getting you a hybrid with the best safety rating I can find.” Gabe tried to make it sound like a joke again.
James’ expression began to soften. He wasn’t out of the doghouse yet, but at least he wasn’t working his way further into it.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
An uncomfortable silence enveloped them. Thankfully the waitress showed up with a plate of spring rolls before it got too bad.
“Dylan wants to know how the Russian deal is going.”
Gabe had seldom been so grateful for an obvious subject change. “I’m sure he does. If he ever decides to go into business, I’d be very scared. I think he’s got the brain for it.”
“He’s always been smart. He started kindergarten in the bluebird reading group.” James gave a proud little nod.
“That’s good, I take it?”
“He already knew his alphabet and could count to twenty. He could even tie his shoes.”
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