Dylan straightened James’ collar. “You are important too. And I think he’s just trying to avoid me taking photos.”
“Quite possibly. But I’m sure there are going to be plenty of photos on the net by tomorrow morning.”
Dylan was still scowling when there was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it.” Dylan rushed to the front door while James tried to work out how to stick his wallet and keys into a pocket without it causing strange lumps. In the end he just yanked out his driver’s license, cash card, and house key and slipped it into his phone case. The ultra slim P22X was nearly invisible as he slipped it into his jacket.
Jared stood in the living room in his own flawless tux. “Hey, James. Looking good.”
“Thanks. You look nice too. And thank you for coming up here. I’m sure boyfriend collection isn’t exactly in your contract.”
Jared grinned. “Don’t worry about it. I owe Gabe a couple. The boss was pretty damned pissed that he couldn’t come up himself, but some big family-related ball of shit hit some fan somewhere. Do you need help with that?” Jared pointed to the tie James was still holding.
“I am ashamed to say, but yes.”
Jared took the tie from his hand. “My first unit commander taught me how to do this.” James barely had time to tilt his head back before the tie was secure around his neck.
He gave a little cough. “Here’s to military efficiency.”
“One sec.” Dylan pulled out his own phone. “Dad, smile.” James smiled, and the phone beeped. “Perfect. Now go, have a good night. And yes, I’ll be good, and I won’t have girls over.” Dylan made little shooing motions.
“Okay, I’ll go. Be good,” James added, despite Dylan’s assurances.
The car was parked in front of the building. James let himself into the front seat once it was unlocked. It felt too weird riding in the back with Gabe not there.
“So. Army?” James asked. He and Jared had never actually had a conversation.
“260th Quartermaster Battalion. Our job was mainly to get fuel where it needed to go. Areas where there aren’t exactly gas stations on every corner.”
“I can see how that would be vitally important.”
“I’ll take this gig over that any day. For as bad as Bay Area traffic gets, there’s usually no one shooting at you.”
Gabe hung up the phone for hopefully the final time just as Tamyra slid into his office. He took half a second to look her over. She might be a lesbian and he might be gay, but he was gay, not dead. Her hair tumbled down her back in a mass of carefully styled curls. Her floor-length, black, backless dress hugged her body, drawing the eye to all the right places, and she moved in it like a runway model. She looked ready to walk down the red carpet at the Oscars, as elegant as the biggest stars.
“Come on, Boss. The GPS on the car says your boyfriend is about ten minutes away.”
“Oh, good.” Gabe picked up his tie from the desk and held it out. “Do you mind?”
She took it from his hand. “One of these days, you’re going to have to learn to do this yourself.”
“Why? I’ve got you.”
“Yes, yes, you do.” Tamyra gave the tie a yank, and Gabe choked a little.
“Hey, since we’re on the topic, I have something for you. A sort of ‘Thank you for putting up with my shit for so long’ gift.” He pulled a small box out of his desk drawer and handed it to her.
“You didn’t have to.”
“No, really, I sort of did.”
She flipped the lid open, and her jaw dropped. Gabe decided it was worth the cost for that expression alone. He’d found three perfect teardrop rubies that were just walking the line between large and tacky. He’d had the largest one set as a necklace and the two smaller ones as earrings. He was particularly happy with the settings. They were in the early art-deco style that appeared in a lot of Tamyra’s design and jewelry choices.
“Do you like them?”
Tamyra just nodded.
“Oh, good. I wasn’t sure.”
She nodded again, then her brows came together in thought. “Who helped you pick this out?”
“You don’t think I’m capable of buying jewelry for a woman without help?” She leveled a disbelieving look at him. “I asked Dylan for some advice.”
“Smart move.”
“Here.” Gabe picked up the necklace, and Tamyra turned around. He fiddled with the tiny clasp for a moment before getting it around her long neck.
She turned back around. He seemed to have gauged the length right, as it hung neatly above her cleavage. She looked down at it. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
He gave her a peck on the cheek. “Only the best for the world’s greatest PA.”
She picked up the earrings and traded them for the gold ones she’d been wearing. “Sara and Christine are going to be jealous.”
“That’s Frank and Nate’s problem. And neither of them have put in a decade yet.”
“They’re getting close.”
“Again, Frank and Nate’s problem.”
Tamyra did a quick spin around. “How do I look?”
“Like a million bucks.”
“That’s chump change around here.”
“Okay, a billion.”
“That’s better.” She grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and held it up. “Come on now. We don’t want to keep James waiting.”
“No, we really don’t.”
Gabe tried to calm himself down before hitting the main party. When they had built the new TechPrim campus, he had the huge lobby designed so it could hold everyone plus partners for the birthday party. Tables brimming with food and drink lined the vast multilevel space, along with some chairs, a dance floor, and a small stage for the band. Large screens were mounted all over the lobby, showing parties in progress at other TechPrim outposts across the globe.
The space had already begun to fill with smiling people in gowns and tuxes. It gave the room sparkle and elegance but without the slick air of snobbery that permeated the majority of formal events Gabe was forced to attend. As he headed toward the main doors, he smiled, nodded to employees as they passed, and shook hands with some of the VPs and higher-level executives. Then he saw James step through the main doors. James instantly looked up at the lobby’s cathedral-like arches of formed golden wood and a ceiling of glass. Gabe had wanted that reaction, for people to look up like they were stepping into a great church, but instead of seeing saints or arches of stone, he wanted them to see the vastness of the sky.
James lowered his head as Gabe walked up to him. “You like the view?” The sky was a gradient of blues flowing into lavender from the last hints of the setting sun.
“I like it.”
Gabe gave him a peck on the cheek. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t come up to get you. Believe me, I wish I could have. There was this stuff with my cousins and—”
James took his hand. “It’s okay. I got here, and you’re here. That’s what matters.”
Gabe gave him another quick kiss, unbelievably grateful for James’ understanding nature, and looked him over. He made a mental note to send a thank-you note to his tailor. James looked just stunning. The tuxedo highlighted his slim figure, making him look taller, and Gabe was willing to bet his backside would look great. The urge to take James straight up to his office, lock the door, and totally ruin the couch was hard to fight.
“You look great, by the way.”
James looked down at himself. “You picked it out. You look very nice too.”
“Thanks. Come on.” Gabe held out his elbow, and James took it. The band had finished setting up. The canned music faded down before the lead singer started on some Rat Pack standards. James kept craning his neck to look around the vast lobby.
“So, this is TechPrim?”
“I like to think of TechPrim more as a nebulous concept brought to form by the hard work of loyal and dedicated employees.” James looked at him smiling but with his lips pinched tight like he was t
rying not to laugh. Something that pretentious-sounding deserved a laugh, and Gabe tried not to laugh at himself. “Yeah, this is TechPrim. When we were just laying out the groundwork for all this, one of our main competitors was also working on their campus. We got ahold of the blueprints for their lobby.”
“And you went and built a bigger one.”
“We were going to do it anyway. Of course that company crashed and burned about three years ago, got split up and sold off bit by bit. We scraped up their entire design department and use their campus as overflow space.”
“I’m incredibly ashamed to admit it, but I might be just a little bit turned on.”
Gabe grinned. “TechPrim treats their employees very well on the benefits and working-conditions front. I figure that’s got to get us a bit of good Karma every time we envelop a competitor.” He grabbed a couple of glasses of champagne off a table. It wasn’t Veuve Clicquot, the company wasn’t doing that well, but it was still of a decent quality. He handed one to James. “You do look very nice tonight.”
James tried to pull down his cuffs a little. “Thank you.”
Gabe watched a bubble loose itself from the inside of his glass and race to the top. “What shall we drink to?”
James stared at his own glass. “To good Karma.”
Gabe raised his and clinked the two together. “To good Karma.”
James sipped his champagne and did his best not to just openly ogle Gabe. He always dressed well in custom-tailored suits, but there was something about the tux Gabe had chosen for that night. He wondered if it was the Bond effect, if the fact that it was a tux suddenly gave Gabe an extra level of cool with a hint of danger.
Maybe it was the way Gabe strolled through the crowd. He didn’t even have to say “excuse me.” He was the boss, and they parted before him. Gabe gave him a flirtatious little smile at the same time James saw a couple whispering over Gabe’s shoulder. They could have been talking about anyone, but eyes flicked his way.
James shifted, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to spending time in anyone’s, even secondhand, spotlight. Gabe looked over his shoulder at the couple that had been talking, then took his hand. “Hey, I sign the paychecks. If anyone has a problem, they are going to keep very quiet about it.”
The couple who had been whispering looked away and joined some other couple in conversation. James took another sip of his champagne, just as Frank, Nate, and Margaret approached. A tall woman in a slinky red dress, whom James didn’t recognize, came with them. Margaret was particularly elegant in a sleeveless dress of midnight blue that swept along the ground.
“James.” She gave him a hug. “Don’t you look nice tonight.”
“Thank you. You look good too.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’ve met Frank’s wife, Cassandra.”
There were quick handshakes. “Pleasure.”
James had hoped that Margaret would be around. He had gotten along well with her and they had the comfortable common ground of trying to raise teenagers.
She leaned toward him. “Overwhelmed yet?”
James sipped his champagne, trying to look cool. “Nice little shindig.” He got a few chuckles off that one.
“Have you eaten?” Gabe asked.
“Not really.” James had spent the afternoon trying to tie his tie. Food had slipped his mind.
“Let’s grab something before the interns hoover it all up.” There were nods and smiles as everyone separated to mingle. The tables set around the edge of the party groaned with what looked like enough food to feed a small army. James looked over his shoulder at the still-growing crowd. It looked like small army was exactly how many people it needed to feed. He eyed two punch bowls full of chicken wings. In one they were swimming in sauce; the others were fried.
“We used to go with elaborate themes for the food each year, but a few years back we finally realized that after a couple drinks, most people just wanted to scarf chicken wings and crab puffs.”
James grabbed one of the fried wings, well aware of the pristine white shirt he was wearing. “I think I can appreciate that.”
Gabe gave him a peck on the cheek and grabbed a fried one himself. James felt himself flush. Gabe had kissed him on the cheek plenty of times, but he was acutely aware of the steadily growing crowd behind him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” James shoved the bite of chicken in his mouth as Gabe squinted at him. It was easily the best chicken he’d ever tasted. He wondered just how much effort some fancy chef must have put into two bites of chicken. He washed it down with a sip of champagne.
“I have to do at least one spin around the room, saying hi to everyone. That all right?”
“Your party.” James was eying up more chicken wings.
“Great.” Gabe took his arm again, and they waded into the crowd. James was startled. He glanced over his shoulder at the wings. He had thought Gabe would leave him by the wall while he went and talked to people. Instead he found himself introduced to VPs, department heads, and team leads. He smiled, shook hands. It felt a bit like that first proper date at the country club again, except these people actually tried to make small talk with him, and didn’t give him so much as a sideways glance when Gabe introduced him as his boyfriend.
As each new person smiled at them with unfailing politeness and deference, it began to sink in that Gabe wasn’t just the boss. He was a prince, and TechPrim his vast, imperial kingdom. Yet he didn’t lord himself over anyone. He had equal time for a silver-haired VP or a pimply faced junior engineer, but when he moved, the crowd parted before him, stopping just short of a bow and curtsy. He caught a glimpse of Frank or Nate a few times, and while everyone was polite to them as well, neither radiated the raw charisma that Gabe embodied.
And James was locked to the hip of that charisma, with Gabe often swinging an arm low around his waist, even as he had light conversations about R&D ideas and strange market trends. He couldn’t figure out if it was the attention or the champagne that was making him a little dizzy. He was intensely relieved when he saw Tamyra step out of the crowd, looking stunning.
“Hey, Boss. James. You look good.”
“So do you.” James tried not to stare, but it was hard to ignore real beauty, even if there was no physical attraction.
“Boss, you and the guys need to get ready to go on stage. And I’m going to borrow James for a minute.”
James looked around, wondering what Tamyra could want him for. “Um…. Okay?”
Tamyra snaked her arm around James and led him away before Gabe had a chance to comment. She dragged him over to one of the smaller food tables.
“What do you need?” James asked.
“Nothing. But you looked like you were about to pass out if you had to shake hands with one more department head. Here.” She handed him a minipirozhki. “Eat something.”
“Thank you.” James was aware he’d had more champagne than solid food.
“Don’t worry about it. He’s gotten used to this place just getting bigger every day. I don’t think he gets what it’s like to jump into the deep end.”
“It’s… um… a little intense.”
“Somewhere in his head, this place is still a start-up with ten employees, and this is all just a stack of pizzas and a case of beer. As a result it is perfectly reasonable to say hi to everyone and know all their names.”
James looked over his shoulder at the crowd that still seemed to be growing. “I don’t think I could tell you the name of a single person I just met.”
“You better believe they all know your name. I’ve worked for Gabe for ten years now, and while he’s never been in the closet, he’s never exactly been public with anyone.”
“I kinda got that impression.” James looked over the crowd again and noticed a small group of quite attractive young men looking his way. He didn’t think Gabe would be the type to date an employee, but he certainly had options if he wanted. “Not sure why me but—” James stil
l didn’t know what had possibly made him stand out to Gabe.
“Seriously?” Tamyra stared at him incredulously. “Gabe has…. Okay, not bad taste in men, usually, but lazy taste in men. Either pretty and dumb or guys that already have one foot out the door and one eye on his bank account. I don’t think he even particularly liked half of his boyfriends. You, he likes. A lot. You’re a good person. You confuse the crap out of him some days because you don’t react the way his one-week wonders reacted, but frankly that’s good for him. He needs to take time out for something other than the company. He needs to put some effort into someone other than the company.”
“I wouldn’t want him to—”
Tamyra shoved another pirozhki into his mouth, cutting off any objections.
The music died down, and everyone turned toward the stage.
Gabe, Frank, Nate, and Margaret stepped up onto the stage to loud applause. Gabe waved his hands, and the crowd settled down. He stepped up to the microphone, grinning broadly.
“Thank you all. Is everyone having a good time this evening?”
There were some cheers from the crowd followed by delayed applause from the screens.
“Good, good. I’m going to try to keep this quick, but for those of you who haven’t noticed, in the last year we’ve added many new faces to the TechPrim family, all over the world, and I’d just like to say welcome to all of you having your first birthday celebration here with us tonight.”
There was another round of applause followed by a good deal more from the more far-flung outposts of the TechPrim empire.
“I know one of the sayings punted around these days is ‘corporations are people.’ Now as far as I’m concerned, that’s a whole load of horse droppings, but corporations are made of people, and in the case of TechPrim, good, honest, loyal people with whom it is an honor and a privilege to work.”
The crowd applauded again, and Gabe plucked the microphone from the stand.
“Now I’ve told this story before, but we have a lot of new people this year, so bear with me if you’ve heard this one. Many years ago, two nerds and their poor put-upon dorm-mate decided to start a company. Due to a typo on the trademark registration application that was being filled out at three in the morning, the company was called TechPrim. Our first office was smaller than this stage and was in a basement. It had an air conditioner that leaked, only two phone lines, and the power went out at least once a week. Our reception area consisted of a sofa, and our dear Margaret would show up once a week and pretend to be our receptionist.”
Bowerbirds Page 13