by KC Burn
His lingering crush on Will, newly intensified by proximity, didn’t blind him to the fact Will looked exhausted. If you didn’t come back from the weekend rested and rejuvenated, it had to be because you were exhausted from a wild weekend. Will was exhausted, but not in a good way. More like he’d been trapped in an endless, hellish cycle of errands and sleep deprivation.
“I’m going to lunch now,” Kyle announced.
Dallas dragged his gaze away from Will so fast pain streaked through his temples. The last thing he needed was to get caught mooning over his boss.
Will grunted in response, and Dallas gave Kyle a little wave, hoping Kyle wouldn’t notice how flushed his face was. Not that Dallas could see his face, but the heat in his cheeks told the story.
Alone again, Dallas could swear the tension amped up in the room, like it had on Friday. He’d been reluctant to attempt any conversation with Will while Kyle observed. It was hard enough getting shot down without any witnesses.
“Busy weekend?”
The silence stretched out. Surely Will wasn’t going to pretend he hadn’t spoken.
“Why would you say that?”
Since there was no good answer to that question, Dallas went with the truth. “You look tired.”
One cotton-clad shoulder lifted. “Worked. Played video games. Nothing too strenuous.”
Work. If only he’d share the damn burden. Maybe he couldn’t before, but Dallas had more than adequate skills to do what needed to be done. The big idiot. But that wasn’t the part of Will’s response that interested him. Nope. It was the tiny bit of personal information that Will let slip, and Dallas pounced.
“What video games do you play?” Whatever it was, Dallas would pick it up this week with his first paycheck—along with the casual clothes he was going to need for the bachelor auction on Saturday.
Will stared at him as though he’d asked what color of underwear Will had on. Instead of answering, Will stood. “I’m going to grab some lunch. See you tomorrow.”
“Oh, are you taking the afternoon off?” That would be good. Give Will a break and give Dallas the chance to show Will shit wouldn’t fall apart with Dallas—and Kyle—minding the store.
“No.” Will frowned. “But you’ll probably be gone by the time I get back.”
Dallas pasted on his sunniest smile. “Did I forget to tell you? I’m going full-time this week.”
Will’s mouth opened, then closed before he stalked out of the room, letting the heavy door slam behind him.
Dallas rubbed at his forehead, letting his smile fade away. He was starting to enjoy needling Will, but could he have been blind to Will’s extreme social ineptness when they’d last worked together? He shook his head. There was no way Will would have been promoted to lead the department at Savron Dynamics if he wasn’t capable of carrying on a simple conversation. The upper echelons of Savron Dynamics were mostly an old boys’ network. Just being gay would have been a disadvantage, even if no one would admit to it.
Dallas knew Will had been super discreet about his love life, but Will would have had to work extra hard to overcome that stigma. The man Dallas had worked with since he’d arrived in Florida wouldn’t have been hired as an intern. The workload had to be fraying Will’s good nature—since Dallas hadn’t seen any evidence of it—but perhaps there was something else going on. Something personal.
Dallas had enough problems of his own, but that didn’t stop him from wanting Will to confide in him. Ask for help, whether it be personal or professional. Preferably both. Chipping away at Will’s prickly shell would take time and persistence. If this were any other workplace, with any other people, Dallas would wonder why they didn’t have enough work to keep them busy, but Will had ensured that he didn’t have enough work to keep him busy. Which meant Will was his new project, and just the thing to distract him from his own issues.
Tackling such a thorny project wasn’t for the faint of heart, or those faint from hunger, so he pulled out his lunch and started munching.
Midway through his lunch, a soft knock sounded at the door. No way that was Will, even if he’d somehow forgotten his code. Dallas got up and opened the door.
“Hey, Joanie.”
“Oh, Dallas, honey, is Will here?”
“Sorry, he went to lunch.”
Joanie pursed her lips. “That man. I swear, he must have slipped out the side door to avoid me.”
“Why would he do that?” Dallas couldn’t imagine such a thing. Joanie was one of the highlights of his day.
“I’ve been after him to get me a couple of invoices so I can get them paid. It’s become harder to get him to give them to me before we incur late payments, and when I try to… uh….”
Dallas grinned. “Nag?”
She glared at him, but it was a soft glare. A grandma glare, the one that said he’d get ice cream—eventually. Or at least, that was how he imagined other people’s grandmas were.
“Fine. Nag. But it’s harder and harder every month to get his paperwork.”
Dallas snorted. “I’m guessing it’s because his desk looks like a propaganda bomb exploded over it.”
Joanie laughed. “That’s true. I guess I’ll just have to keep my eye open for when he gets back.”
“Which ones are you looking for? I can try to find them.” Not like he had anything else to occupy his time.
“Oh, honey, Will wouldn’t like you going through his desk.”
Ha! Was there anything Will did like? Because so far, he didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word.
“I’d be doing it for a good reason.” It was, too. Will’s lack of organization shouldn’t stand in the way of someone else being able to do their job.
“Don’t you worry about it. I’ll get on him sooner or later.” She patted his cheek. “No sense in getting in trouble just yet.”
Dallas nodded, but for the first time since he’d started on his brother’s payroll, he had a purpose. It was so tiny as to be microscopic, but it was a task all his own.
“I’m not afraid of Will. Which ones do you need?” His words sparked a mini epiphany. He really wasn’t afraid of Will, or anything else at the moment. Being disowned meant he no longer feared failing in front of his disapproving father. He wasn’t afraid of having nowhere to sleep, or afraid he couldn’t pay for medical care. He wasn’t even afraid of being outed. Already the worst had happened and he’d come out the better for it, even if it would still be an upward climb before he was completely back on his feet.
He wasn’t under the constant threat of losing his job, and he wasn’t afraid of his brother or his new boss. Not that he intended to fuck anything up, but doing his job to the best of his ability? Helping other employees perform their jobs better? Stefan wasn’t going to fire him for that, no matter how much Will blustered.
Joanie was silent for a moment and her eyes narrowed. “I think you might just be what that man needs.”
Dallas’s cheeks burned, because that statement could be taken in more than one way, and Dallas knew exactly how he’d like to be needed by Will. It didn’t involve defying him over paperwork, but getting Will to recognize his value was going to be an uphill battle, and this was the first skirmish.
After a quick perusal of the gaps Joanie identified, Dallas got started. His sandwich could wait.
FORTY-FIVE minutes later, Dallas hadn’t located the missing invoices, but he had started on sorting and organizing the disaster of Will’s desk.
Maybe this would be a little more than a skirmish. His intentions had been good: a targeted search mission where he sifted through the papers until he found the ones he needed. But there had been zero rhyme or reason to the dates or subjects. Dallas suspected some of the shuffling occurred when he’d caused the paper avalanche the previous week, but the fact that Will hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss nor had he attempted to rectify anything spoke of a bigger issue.
This absolutely had to be symptomatic of Will’s excessive workload. Dallas mi
ght never have gotten an up-close glimpse of Will’s desk back at Savron Dynamics, but there was no fucking way crap had been piled up in this haphazard fashion. The filing rules in systems administration had been almost as strict as the guidelines governing what had to be documented and how. He was also under the impression that a lot of those procedures had been developed by Will when he was first hired into the manager role. By comparison, Will’s desk looked like the haven of a man who’d had a complete personality transplant with a hoarding pack rat.
In the corner, a large file cabinet hulked, virtually untouched. Inside were the beginnings of a proper filing system, the same one Dallas had learned at Savron Dynamics and continued to use until the day he’d been so ignominiously turfed out. There was nothing Dallas could do—yet—about the electronic filing, but dealing with the backup paper filing he could do. The very presence of all the paper reassured him that underneath, Will was still the same Will, with his old-school insistence on paper corroboration.
A few moments later, he located the invoices Joanie had asked for, and he set them aside on his own desk before tackling the rest of the paper mountain.
“Dude. What are you doing?” This time, Kyle’s voice didn’t startle him into any unwise movements, although he allowed himself a tiny smile at Kyle’s continued use of the word “dude.” Of the three of them, Will looked most likely to drop that word in to casual conversation, but Dallas had yet to hear him utter it, unlike Kyle who called everyone that, even Joanie.
“Filing. What does it look like?” Perhaps an unenviable task, but a necessary one. Dallas turned to look at Kyle, whose eyebrows had risen so far they were practically hidden in his hair.
“Filing? Isn’t everything kept electronically?”
With effort, Dallas bit back a sarcastic comment. The mere fact Dallas didn’t know what the top of Will’s desk looked like should have made it obvious Will didn’t just keep everything electronically. But he shouldn’t be surprised by Kyle’s lack of awareness of a filing system. Kyle didn’t have access to any potentially sensitive electronic files, and the paper files were almost a year behind. Kyle was only about a month into a six-month contract. And despite his apparent qualifications, he’d already learned so many bad habits under Will’s indifferent tutelage, Dallas wouldn’t be inclined to renew his contract, if he had any say in the matter.
Kyle’s customary lackadaisical expression returned as he shrugged a shoulder. “It’s your funeral.”
Dallas didn’t bother responding as Kyle sat down at his desk and presumably started working, although he probably was just fucking around.
Although he continued working, Dallas was more aware of the time ticking away. He didn’t know if Will was going to try avoiding him for the rest of the afternoon, but if he’d become as much a workaholic as Dallas suspected, he’d come back for his laptop before taking off again.
A little smile stretched Dallas’s lips. At the very least, Will hadn’t worked through his lunch hour today, which, judging from the number of fast food napkins he’d discovered between sheaves of paper, happened with alarming regularity.
Either way, he’d be returning soon, and Dallas needed to gear up for battle.
The now-familiar sound of the server room door opening made Dallas freeze for just a moment.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Dallas had never heard Will roar before, and his knees quailed for a fraction of second before he took a deep breath and turned to face the irate hermit of the cave. Begin as you mean to go on and all that.
Like flapping a red cape in front of a bull, Dallas tweaked his blue paisley tie, then brushed off the front of his suit jacket before responding. “Filing.”
Will sputtered for a moment at Dallas’s matter-of-fact, flat delivery. “You have no right to go through the stuff on my desk. That’s private.”
Okay, that irked him, just a bit. “Actually, the top of your desk isn’t private. That’s what locked drawers are for. And while it’s not exactly polite to have done so without permission, it’s not entirely unprecedented either.”
“Everything on that desk is potentially sensitive, and you should not have been pawing through it.”
“Oh, really? Those Chipotle and McDonald’s napkins are potentially sensitive? Ridiculous,” Dallas sneered.
Will’s nostrils flared as he flicked a glance at his desk. “Where the fuck did you put everything?”
Dallas pointed at the languishing file cabinet. “Surprise, it opens. And there’s plenty of room for files inside. Who knew?” He didn’t know where this biting sarcasm was coming from. Maybe he’d been suppressing so much for so long, all it took was a fight with Will to send everything boiling over. But he kind of liked this no-nonsense, take-no-shit side of himself.
Will’s ears went red, but there was no indication Dallas was about to get thumped or anything.
“Everything on my desk was organized perfectly well for me to find everything.”
“Oh, bullshit.” Dallas’s face went hot, because he’d never sworn in the office before, but he wasn’t as uptight as Will assumed. And frankly, Will started it. If Will felt swearing in the office was appropriate, there was no reason for Dallas not to follow suit. “If it was organized, your workflow wouldn’t be preventing someone else from doing their job. If it was organized, you wouldn’t have been avoiding Joanie. I found the invoices she was asking for, by the way. You’re welcome.”
“I’m welcome? Well, you’re fired.” Will turned on his heel and stomped out of the room, presumably in search of Stefan.
Dallas took a deep breath and realized he was half-hard. He’d never gotten riled up in that manner before, but then, he’d never had an argument with someone who was too damned attractive, even when he was pissed off.
At that moment, Dallas remembered they’d had this little confrontation in front of an audience. He turned to Kyle, who looked freaked out.
“Dude. He was really pissed. I’ve never heard him yell at anyone.”
Then he was probably due. Yet another thing Will should thank him for. Dallas didn’t think Kyle was expecting a response, so he returned to what he was doing.
“Hey, why aren’t you packing up your desk?”
“Why would I do that?”
“He just fired you.”
Dallas shrugged. “I’m not fired.” Not that Stefan’s nepotism would extend to keeping Dallas employed if he’d well and truly fucked up, but this situation was nothing in the grand scheme of things. “Will was just blowing off steam.”
Kyle made a strangled sound in his throat, a look on his face like Dallas was an escaped mental patient or something. Although he didn’t feel like trying to convince Kyle otherwise, when time would tell the truth, Dallas decided maybe this would be a good opportunity to get Joanie her files.
WILL PAUSED out in the corridor to catch his breath. His heart was racing, and his emotions were all over the place. He’d come so close to laying hands on Dallas, either to shake him or do something more carnal. The fact that he was even thinking about fucking Dallas when he was so furious he could feel a tic pounding in his temple defied belief.
The kid had to go—he was turning Will into a raving lunatic. A raving, lust-ridden lunatic. The job was stressful enough without adding Dallas to the mix, every day, all day. Perhaps he could have been more tactful when he terminated Dallas’s employment, but there was no alternative Will could see.
With a shaky leash on his temper and renewed determination, he headed straight to find Stefan.
Took a bit of looking, because he wasn’t in his office, and Will didn’t know what was supposed to be shooting today.
Finally he ran across a thoroughly nude Beck in the big break room.
“Well, well, look who popped out of hiding.” Beck sidled up close enough that his cock brushed the pocket of Will’s cargo shorts. There was a musk about him that said Beck had recently finished a scene, and God help him, it didn’t do anything to cool his agitated
arousal, even though he had no intention of succumbing to Beck’s blatant invitation.
“Hey, Beck.” That guy was permanently on the prowl, and Will had learned long ago it was easier to ignore his overtures than acknowledge them with a refusal. Even if Will was inclined to fuck around at work—and until Dallas he’d never even considered such a thing—Beck was just a kid. Legal, of course; Stefan ran a scrupulously law-abiding operation. But he was so much younger than Will’s thirty-two. More so than Dallas, even, and just the lingering arousal Dallas had spawned made him feel like a dirty old man.
“What brings you out of the cave?” Beck rubbed a palm over Will’s bicep.
Normally, he’d let Beck touch to his heart’s content—above the belt—but he didn’t have the time or patience for it today. He grabbed Beck’s hand and removed it, taking a step back.
“Where’s Stefan?”
Beck frowned at him. “At the park room.” There was a bite in his tone, and Will would probably have to do some damage control later, although he hardly ever ran into any of the models. Beck would get over it.
“Thanks.” It took a few minutes to get to the anteroom for the park set. When he got to the room, Stefan appeared engrossed in the action of the three writhing bodies, which made sense since he was directing them.
Will paced the small area, trying to keep any noise to a minimum, but he wanted to get this over with. Waiting was going to kill him.
After several interminable minutes, where not even the athletics of the very naked, very aroused men could fully distract him, the three men came on command.
Once the cameras stopped rolling, Will waved to get Stefan’s attention, who came jogging over.
“What’s up, Will? Is something wrong?”
Will glanced around. What he had to say shouldn’t be said in public, and all evidence to the contrary, Will mostly remembered how to be a good manager. “Can we talk somewhere more private?”