by Hayes, Lane
“Yes. Fuck me, Wes—oh fuck! Yes!”
I tried to keep my volume down but it wasn’t easy. I bit his shirt and groaned into the fabric as he licked my neck and nibbled his way up to my ear, whispering nasty sweet nothings designed to drive me insane. Between my bobbing cock and his jeans chafing my thigh, I was on edge. Close but nowhere near close enough.
He bit my shoulder then kissed it as he slowed down and pulled out. I turned around and lay on my back with one leg propped over the sofa and watched the show. Wes shoved his jeans down his legs and kicked them off with his shoes.
“Lie on your stomach.” He captured my foot and kissed my toes then licked the arch. I shivered and shook my head.
“No. Like this.” I had to look like an ad in a raunchy movie starring as the office ho with my legs spread wide, one hand on my dick and the other fingering my hole.
Wes growled as he grabbed my ankle and pushed my legs closed, turning me onto my stomach in an effortless maneuver. He lifted my shirt and buried himself inside me before I could think of protesting. Not that I would have. I sighed with a mixture of pleasure and relief as he rolled sideways and took me with him, lifting my left leg and wrapping his arms around me protectively while he moved.
I was sure I’d never felt quite so connected to a lover. Even to him. This bond was getting stronger every time we were together. In and out of bed, Wes held nothing back. He had thirty years of experience. He knew what he liked, and he wasn’t afraid to give or take accordingly. And I was the lucky son of a bitch floating in a blissful subspace happy to be sharing this with him. Our bodies spooned with arms locked and legs entwined. We’d become a perfect circle.
The second the thought came to my mind, I was gone. I pumped my fist in time with Wes’s steady hips and fell apart. Wes held me tightly, nuzzling his face into the crevice of my shoulder and my neck when his orgasm hit him a second later. We clung to each other until the trembling subsided. I was sure I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I was wrecked. Completely and utterly spent. Like pieces of me were lying next to pieces of him. We might never find a way to separate the fragments again.
I might have fallen asleep again. I felt disoriented like I’d been woken from a long hibernation. I lifted Wes’s hand from my stomach and kissed it.
“Thank you.”
He hummed as he nuzzled my neck. “There’s no reason to thank me. But if you insist, you can buy breakfast. Please tell me you have your own bathroom in here.”
“Yeah, that way.” I pointed to the door to the left of my flat screen TV.
“Nice setup,” he commented as he crawled over me. “No wonder you’ve survived a few nights here so nicely. Sofa, TV, bathroom and coffee. If you looked like you actually got some sleep, I might not think you needed to be rescued after all.”
“I didn’t. And what’s this ‘breakfast’ talk about? Isn’t it after noon?”
“Breakfast is an all-day meal. Clean up and put your wrinkled Armani on, lover boy. I’m hungry.”
I scowled at his retreating back then raked my hand through my hair and glanced around my office. I was hungry too and flustered and in desperate need of a shower. But there were no numbers taunting me in my periphery, reminding me that every moment without a solution spelled failure. Wes had chased them away. I didn’t care about the answers now. I only wanted him.
* * *
The strains of an Elton John classic played in the background as Wes drove through the flat terrain of Silicon Valley. If I’d been in a chattier mood, I might have asked about the years he’d spent out here with Westell. There’d been a ton of growth in the area since then. I would have been interested to know what looked different and if he had any regrets about selling his business. Then again, his timing was spectacular. He’d made a fuckload of money getting out when he did. The firm that bought Westell didn’t fare as well. If I remembered correctly, they’d renamed it and sold off various branches of the company until there was nothing left. I’d have to ask him about it someday. At the moment, I didn’t really care. I was bone-tired. The farther Wes drove from my building, the deeper my exhaustion pulled me under until I felt like I could melt into the car seat and disappear. I closed my eyes and let “Tiny Dancer” lull me to sleep.
“Hey, Nicky.”
I woke with a start and looked out the window. We were parked in a mostly deserted lot in front of a kitschy-looking diner with a pancake mascot on an old sign welcoming us to the Pancake Parlor. The plain stucco façade was spruced up with a colorful hand-drawn decal on the glass doors circa 1970. If there was a cigarette vending machine in the entry, I might be convinced I’d woken up in a bygone era. Or in my hometown. Talk about a nightmare.
“Where are we?” I asked, turning to find him closer than expected.
“We’re at the best breakfast joint in Northern California.” He kissed me quickly then pulled back with a wink. “Prepare to be amazed.”
A friendly middle-aged hostess dressed in an orange polyester top with a pointy collar and plain black slacks greeted us at the door. The bedazzled nametag pinned to her ample bosom read, Janet “from Spokane.” She immediately escorted us to a red vinyl booth with cracked upholstery and gestured toward the plastic-covered menus at the far end of the table next to a mini-jukebox.
“Roylene will be by to take your order shortly,” she assured us with a smile.
Wes thanked her then grabbed two menus and handed one to me. “Everything is good but if you’re really hungry, I’d go for the lumberjack special. A stack of buttermilk pancakes slathered in butter, two eggs over easy and more bacon than the FDA approves in a single serving. You can’t go wrong.”
I chuckled as I plucked a paper napkin from the dispenser next to the jukebox and then used it to turn the menu to face me. I glanced up when Wes snorted derisively.
“What? I don’t have any Purell with me and this thing looks like it has fifty years’ worth of grubby fingerprints on it.”
“It probably does, but that’s what makes it awesome. Everything has been yuppy-ized around here. People pay top dollar for probiotic juices and fancy lattes without thinking twice. They talk about gluten issues and lactose intolerance with a straight face like they’re sure everyone wants to know what’s going on in their digestive tract. So-called old fashioned diners are represented in stylized versions at theme parks with slack-eyed surfer boys posing as wholesome young men in their pressed uniforms. But this”—he smacked his hand on the faded-gold laminated table top—“is the real thing!”
“Whatever you say. It looks like every other dive back home. When I was a kid, we used to go to Sammy’s. It was just like this. The waitress would hold a small green pad of paper and grab a pen from her hair to write down our orders. Then she’d hang it on a circular rack for the cook who you could clearly see sweatin’ bullets over the food he was preparing. The cups were plastic, the napkins were paper thin, and every dish was garnished with parsley. Waffles, burgers…it didn’t matter. Everyone got parsley. My mom gave my sister and me nickels to feed the jukebox. We didn’t know most of the songs, but we’d listen carefully to hear the ones we chose played on the overhead speakers. My favorite was ‘The Candy Man’…because it had the word ‘candy’ in it,” I commented, idly pushing the menu aside when Roylene “from Pleasanton” stopped by our table with a pitcher of ice water.
When she set the aluminum container down and pulled a tiny pad from the pocket of her apron, Wes and I exchanged an amused look before placing our order.
“Just like home, eh?”
“Yeah. I loved that place. Everyone was so nice. They probably felt sorry for me but back then, I didn’t notice or didn’t care.”
“Why would they feel sorry for you?”
“I think I’ve gone into explicit enough detail about my nerd status for you to get the general idea.”
“Okay, but grown-ups aren’t usually as judgmental about nerdiness.”
“True. Except I wasn’t just a nerd. Everyone though
t I was disabled on top of being high-strung. Add a loser parent and a trailer park address and hey…I would have felt sorry for me too.”
Wes thanked Roylene who showed up again to pour coffee into our mugs. When we were alone again, he leaned forward with an unreadable expression. “Why would they think you were disabled?”
“They didn’t know how to label me, so they threw me under the broadest category, brushed their hands and walked away.”
“Then they were fools. You’re one of a kind, Nicky.”
I smiled then stifled a yawn as I picked up my cup and sipped the surprisingly tasty brew. “This is good.”
Wes nodded in agreement and gave me an expectant look. “Tell me what’s going on. What are you doing to yourself?”
I frowned. “I’m not doing anything. I’ve been working.”
“How many days have you been wearing that suit?”
“Two. Maybe three.” I shrugged with faux nonchalance.
“How many days have you slept on your office sofa? How long has it been since you ate a proper meal, listened to your voice messages or hell…when was the last time you took a shower?”
I glanced around at the other five occupants in the restaurant, none of whom seemed particularly interested in a disheveled looking man in an expensive suit or his more polished companion dressed in worn jeans, a plaid button-down shirt, and leather jacket. “I don’t remember,” I admitted in defeat.
“What can I do to help?”
“Tell me what I’m missing. I can’t understand why I can’t see it. I plug in the numbers then I code and recode but it’s not working.” I peeled a stack of napkins from the holder then waved Roylene over and asked to borrow a pen. I shifted excitedly as I scribbled a complex problem on the wispy paper. Wes looked on, sipping coffee while I jabbered about fabric layouts and compatibility issues between modems. When our breakfast arrived, I smiled distractedly and pushed the plate away. Wes shook his head, swiped the pen from my hand and stuffed the napkin into the front pocket of his shirt.
“No more. Eat,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that went straight to my cock.
I narrowed my eyes but dutifully picked up my fork and cut into the side of the ginormous mountain of pancakes in front of me. “Fine. But then I want you to look at it and see if you can spot an anomaly. None of my engineers can see it either. I just don’t get it.”
“Neither do I. I have no idea what any of that scribble means. You’re speaking a foreign language.” Wes pointed at my plate. “Don’t you want syrup?”
I stared up at him in confusion then down at my pancakes. “Uh…yeah. I thought I put some on.”
“You didn’t. In fact, you just ate a forkful of melted butter.”
I licked my lips and frowned. He was right. Gross. I reached for the carafe of maple syrup Roylene had set in the middle of the table then drizzled it over my stack, painstakingly lifting a couple of layers to cover as much as possible. Then I carved out another bite and smiled at him before digging into my breakfast with gusto. I stopped after my third bite with my brows raised. “My handwriting is a little wonky. I’ll go slower and write out the equat—”
“It wouldn’t matter. I can’t read it anyway.” Wes smiled as he lifted his fork to his mouth.
“I know your discipline wasn’t the same, but it’s basic code. You can read it.”
“No, I can’t and I never could.”
My fork clattered noisily onto my plate. “But you owned Westell.”
“Yes. So? I hired talented people who were capable of following my vision and translating it into x’s and o’s. But I was never the guy writing it down. My degree is in business, Nick. Not computer science. My talent with numbers is in the bottom line. How do you think I went from an internet startup to owning a winery? Neither occupation was a hobby. Both times, I’ve wanted to take something from the ground up and see if I could make them thrive. And both times, I succeeded.”
“Are you going to sell the winery too?”
“Eventually.”
“Why? You love it. Don’t you?”
“I do, but I want to do other things too. I never want to be complacent. I don’t want to stand still. When you stay too still, you begin to place importance on inanimate objects. Got to make a salary to pay for the house, the cars, and the expensive vacations. I never wanted to be that guy.”
“Who did you want to be?” I knit my brow in confusion. I wasn’t sure where we were going with any of this. And now that I’d eaten, I was getting anxious all over again. I had to get back to work.
“Jack Kerouac,” he stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
“You wanted to be a beatnik poet but founded a dot-com company instead. Well, one certainly pays better than the other.”
“That’s the cruel truth, my friend. I know what it’s like to be hungry, cold and unsure about where you’re going to sleep from one night to the next. I took stock of the barren scenery on the 5 freeway from the back of the bus on my way to San Francisco. I watched the colors change, the clouds change and with every passing mile, I gained a sense of freedom. I was scared as hell, but I was a free man on the road. There were no cell phones back then. No one was after me. I certainly wasn’t counting on it anyway. I had my first blank page and I swore it wouldn’t be my last. I’d fallen to a low point most fifteen-year-olds thankfully never sniff. But the fall is worth it in the end because when you’re scared as hell, you know you’re alive.”
“Okay, but…why are you telling me this?”
Wes paused with his fork in midair and cocked his head. “Because making your Armani suit into pajamas isn’t living. It’s crazy.”
“I’m crazy.”
“ ‘The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.’ That’s Kerouac, but I feel the same way.” Wes winked then added, “But that’s a different kind of madness. That’s madness to be alive. To feel. You’re not crazy, Nick. You’re a live wire. You short circuit and trip over yourself in an endless cycle you hope will quiet your mind, flatten out the creases and give you the clean slate you think you want. You’re obsessive-compulsive and most likely have a mild form of Asperger’s, but there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“I can’t believe you said that,” I whispered.
Although I knew it was all in my imagination, The Pancake Parlor suddenly seemed to go silent and all eyes turned our way. The country song playing softly in the background was so damn loud it hurt my ears. I slumped noticeably in my corner of the booth like I had more times than I cared to admit in a booth just like this one back home when I was a kid.
“Look at me, Nick. Don’t be ashamed of who you are. There’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing that sleep, sex, and a few good meals won’t cure. Banging your head against a monitor won’t magically produce answers.”
“I know but I’m running out of time. I have to get to the lab and—”
“You haven’t been listening. I’m kidnapping you, hijacking your life…call it what you want. No computer, no phone, and no game or activity that requires strategic maneuvering. In other words, yes to Chutes and Ladders. No to chess. Understood?”
I stared at him for a moment then threw my head back and laughed. “You almost had me.”
“I do have you. It’s a present-tense deal. I have you and I’m keeping you. Now eat up before your eggs get cold.”
I ignored the eggs and speared another bite of pancake instead. “On the off chance I agreed to play hooky for a day or—”
“Four.”
“Right. That’ll never happen, but assuming I agreed…what would we do?”
“I told you. We’d play kid games.”
“You have Chutes and Ladders?”
“No. We’ll have to go shopping. Better yet, we’ll cruise around the city, play Frisbee in Dolores Park, walk through Chinatown, take a ferry to Sausalito. We’ll be tourists in our town and let the world melt away for a few days.”
I studied his
profile when Roylene returned to refill our coffee mugs. He was so damn handsome, but it wasn’t his square jaw or expressive eyes that made him appealing. It was the way he engaged with people. Like right now with the waitress. He didn’t know her, but he stopped to make eye contact when he thanked her and smiled in a way that made his request for more water sound like he was giving her a compliment. He wasn’t overly boisterous. He didn’t walk into rooms looking for attention. He garnered it by being…kind.
I didn’t get it. And I wanted to. I didn’t want the Cliff’s Notes version of Wes Conrad. I wanted to know everything. From the beginning.
When Roylene moved on, I kicked his shin lightly under the table and leaned forward. “If you’re planning on kidnapping me, I should know more about you. Fill in some holes for me. What games did you play when you were a kid? What were you like?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“You asked me and now I’m asking you.”
“That was months ago.”
“So? I’m interested.”
“You? This feels like a breakthrough moment of incredible proportions. Did Nick Jorgensen just ask a question about someone else? Just because?”
“Fuck off. I’m not interested anymore. You know the problem with people? They talk. Pay up and take me back to the office where I can hang out with my binary peeps in cyber land,” I snarked.
I cradled my warm cup and stared out the window while Wes cackled at me across the table.
“I was quiet like you were and no longer are,” he said with an amused huff.
“I’m not interested, remember?”
“Video games were relatively new when I was a teenager and compared to what’s out nowadays, they were extremely unsophisticated. My favorite ones had a dimensional shift from one level to the next. The graphics weren’t anywhere near as exciting as they are now, but they got my imagination churning. My dream job was to make my own video games. They didn’t have computers in my school, and we didn’t have one at home either. Video games and MTV were my connection to the changes I knew were happening somewhere outside of my conservative town where dyeing your hair was considered borderline scandalous.”