Leaning Into Series: The Complete Box Set

by Hayes, Lane

  “Hmm.” I took another bite and nodded. “Too small sometimes. Where did you meet?”

  “Actually, we met at a party at Geordie’s house in Russian Hill. I think I met you for the first time that night too, Nick,” Ryan butted in with a smirk.

  I wanted to smack it off him, but I figured it was better to take my frustration out on the cookie. What the fuck was he talking about anyway? Finn was with Josh that night. This dude was unbelievable. There’s no way he wasn’t playing me somehow. I chomped on the coconut balls and narrowed my gaze at the “couple.” Wes had to think this was suspicious too. I glanced sideways at him just as he burst out laughing. Finn joined in a second later.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s rather distracting to talk to someone shoving a chocolate penis in his mouth,” Finn said with a snort.

  “You should try it sometime. It’s amazing,” I retorted, nibbling another coconut-covered section.

  Wes dabbed a napkin over my mouth and then leaned in to surreptitiously lick the rest before whispering, “Show’s over. We’re leaving now.”

  We said a quick round of good-byes then stepped away but halted when Finn called after us. “Shall I tell Norm you said hello?”

  I figured he was taunting me, so I did my best to quell the urge to rush back to smear the rest of my chocolate penis all over his obnoxiously handsome mug. Fucker. I huffed and kept walking but stopped when Wes turned around. He grabbed the front of Finn’s wool coat and got directly in his face. I hurried back in time to catch Wes’s menacing glare as he growled.

  “You want to tell him anything…tell him to fuck off. Got it?” Wes shoved Finn’s chest angrily then stepped away and strode purposefully up the street.

  I glanced at Finn, who looked as shocked as I was, before going after Wes. My mind was buzzing and the chocolate penis cookie was churning with one too many Mai Tais in my stomach. I may have had a slightly paranoid streak in me, but something was definitely going on.

  * * *

  Wes quietly seethed beside me on the ride back to the Marina. He wasn’t particularly talkative once we were back at my place either. I wasn’t surprised when he made a beeline for the wine. I watched him warily as he wrestled with the corkscrew. His grip was too severe, and the vein in his temple was more prominent than usual, making it obvious, in case I hadn’t caught on, that he was in a crappy mood.

  I tossed my jacket over his on a barstool at the island then took the seat next to it and smiled. He reciprocated with a tight-lipped upturn of one side of his mouth that was weak at best. I sighed heavily and rested my elbow on the counter.

  “I’m sorry I insisted on following them.”

  “No, you’re not,” he snapped.

  “You’re right. I’m not. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, only I’d come prepared with a list of questions for Finn like, ‘How many guys are you screwing at once?’ First Josh, then Norm, then—”

  Wes raised his hand to halt my speech. “Whoa. Norm?”

  “Yeah. Norm Wilson. That is who you thought Finn was referring to when you went back to wring his neck, right? That was…surprising.”

  “That was stupid. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. But hang on.…Were you referring to literal screwing or figurative screwing?”

  “Literal. Maybe. Miles told us he thought Norm and Finn were chummier than normal business associates, but—”

  “He’s wrong. Norm is straight.”

  There was an acerbic tone in his voice that made me uneasy. Wes was always mellow. Sure, I saw flashes of his serious “don’t fuck with me” side every so often, but not recently.

  “I thought you were sticking up for me when you went back to tell Finn off. But that was a personal message…from you to Norm. Am I right?” I waited for Wes to nod before I continued. “I didn’t know you had a connection.”

  “Knowing someone is hardly a connection, Nick,” Wes scoffed.

  “How long have you known him?”

  “Twenty years.”

  “Twenty—holy fuck. How?” I jumped up from my barstool like I’d dropped a cup of scalding coffee into my lap.

  “Norm was our silent partner at Westell,” he replied calmly as though that one sentence didn’t change everything. As though it was no big fucking deal.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why would I? I sold my company a decade ago. Sure, I have old contacts, some whom I’m friendlier with than others, but I told you I’m not involved in your industry anymore.”

  “When was the last time you saw Norm?”

  Wes let out an irritated huff and scowled. “Is this an inquisition? I feel like I should call my lawyer.”

  “That would be your call,” I said in a nasty tone I’d never used with him before.

  His nostrils flared as he cocked his and leaned over the island. I was reminded of the day I’d first met him. He’d been cool and collected until I’d said one thing too much, pushed just an inch too far. Then he’d turned icy and foreboding. A smarter man wouldn’t fuck with someone like him. But I wasn’t so smart sometimes. I sensed something was off, and though I doubted Wes was involved, there had to be a reason I felt like a cage was forming around me. He must know something. Or maybe be connected.

  “You’re out of line,” he said, pointing at the barstool I’d vacated, wordlessly commanding me to sit.

  I obeyed, but only because I wanted information. At least that’s what I told myself. “Well?”

  “I have nothing to hide.”

  “Then tell me. I just wanted to know about Norm and you and—”

  “There is no Norm and me. Fuck!” He slapped his hand down hard on the soapstone island and glared at me. “He’s less than nothing to me. But you might be right. It’s a little too convenient that Finn is working closely with my former business partner, sleeping with my employee and…did you say one of your friends too?”

  “I don’t think Josh has seen him in a while. At least, he hasn’t mentioned him in months. I’ll ask him but…what happened with you and Norm? Do you think he’s after you through me?”

  Wes snorted derisively. “Norm can’t touch me, Nicky. It would be the other way around. He’s messing with your head. Distracting you. Looking for weakness. He’s a viper. Stay away from him.”

  “It’s not that easy. We’re doing business with him.”

  “Well, you’ve been warned,” he retorted, lifting his glass in a taunting toast before taking a healthy gulp of wine.

  “What happened?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He stared at me as though willing me to retract the question before looking out the kitchen window at the city lights reflected on the Bay.

  “It’s old news, baby. It’s old and tired, and Mike’s gone now, anyway.”

  My heart thundered in my chest. I had a horrible feeling I’d asked for more than I could handle. But there was no going back now. “Tell me, Wes.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “At the beginning,” I urged in a low voice. I couldn’t help thinking, if my life was a movie, this segment would be where someone cued the music from Jaws or a horror film where some unforeseen evil was circling a bleeding man. I shivered at the image and licked my bottom lip. “Please.”

  Wes let out an exaggerated breath and closed his eyes briefly. “Norm is the reason I lost…everything. My lover, the company we’d built from scratch…everything. I let him in. I trusted him to help us grow and expand. He did, but then it all went to shit.”

  “How? Who was your lover? Mike?”

  “Yes. I told you we were lovers, but it didn’t happen until well after we’d started Westell. It wasn’t for lack of effort on my part. I was infatuated with him from the start, but he always had a reason to keep me at bay. I was too young, or he was in a relationship. We were five years into our business venture when one of our investors suggested we take on a silent partner with a better pedigree in the tech field than either of us had. He introduced us to Norm, and that’s
when Westell really took off. Norm’s expertise, Mike’s sales skills, and my business background were a lethal combo. Money rained from the sky. We had superior salesmen, engineers who knew their shit, and a great product line at a time when the phrase ‘dot-com’ made everyone open their wallets. It was magic. That’s when Mike and I finally became more than friends.

  “We were away on business in New York and no doubt had one too many celebratory drinks at the bar after signing another big contract. I don’t remember much about the trip other than it was when everything changed. I was thirty. Mike was forty-two. I’d known him for half my life. In my mind, we were supposed to happen. It was perfect. But it was complicated.”

  “Because of work?”

  Wes furrowed his brow and then shrugged as though he didn’t know how to explain. “Yes. Among other things. We weren’t out and proud. We couldn’t be back then and hope to be taken seriously in business. Nor would we have felt safe. The level of freedom and pride many gay people take for granted now didn’t exist then. Prejudice was rampant and vicious. If you wanted to succeed, you had to play straight. So, we kept quiet. We lived dual lives. Business partners and close friends to the general public. Lovers when we were alone.”

  “How long were you lovers?”

  “Five years.”

  I sucked in a breath of air. This was unexpected. I didn’t like the unhappy lilt in his voice. Or the ridiculous stab of jealousy I felt for a dead man. “That’s a long time.”

  “It didn’t seem like it then. Time goes fast, but it’s a funny thing to look back on that period and realize most of my memories of us alone were spent watching TV, making dinner or dancing around the living room. We were safe inside. We could be ourselves. But I got greedy. I wanted less secrecy. I wanted to be out. I got daring and did silly things, like kissing him in the copier room or holding his hand under a table at a restaurant. He’d give me a warning look, but he never seemed overly alarmed. So one day when everyone had gone home for the day, I walked into his office with my shirt unbuttoned and gave him a little striptease dance before climbing into his lap and sticking my tongue down his throat. And that’s when Norm walked in.”

  Wes gave me a sharp look that erased any trace of wistful reminiscence in his expression and replaced it with a ferocity that made it clear I should pay close attention.

  “Norm is an opportunist. He’s a crafty bastard who recognizes weakness and uses it to his advantage. My weaknesses ten years ago were my gayness and fear of being caught. Norm began an internal campaign to oust us from our own company using fear as a weapon. It worked. Mike wouldn’t come out. He didn’t want the scandal and back then, it would have been front-page news. So we quietly sold our shares to Norm, cashed out, and started a different business. On a side note, the recession hit a month later, and good ole Norm got his ass handed to him. He lost everything,” he said with an ugly chuckle. “Long story short…he’s not my friend.”

  “Karma,” I whispered reverently. “He’s not mine either.”

  “No, it sounds like he’s using everything he can think of to weaken your reputation. He’s planting seeds of distrust. He’s distracting you. He’s a smart motherfucker who knows all he has to do is knock you off balance and get you spinning to bide himself time until whatever he’s cooking behind-the-scenes is ready. Times have changed. He can’t use your sexuality against you without looking like an ass. But he can use your mistakes, your reputation, and any little show of weakness, real or perceived. It’s a game of chess, Nick. You like chess. You’re good at it. Probably better than him.”

  “Yeah.” I stared into space as the tumultuous thought in my brain collided. “I have to go for him. There are bound to be people who knew what he did at Westell. We could turn this around and uncover his underhanded—”

  “Whoa! Not so fast, Jorgensen. You’re not using me or a dead man to get back at Norm.”

  “It’s not using you or Mike. It’s shedding light on poor character.”

  “On whose poor character?”

  “Hey! I—”

  “Hey, yourself. The past is over. The best way to exact revenge is to be happy. Avoid people and situations that compromise your well-being and mental health. Live your life your way and smile as often as possible. Nothing makes your enemies crazier than your happiness.”

  I stood abruptly and paced a few steps away then back again. “That’s your advice? I want to crush him, expose him. He hurt you. He ruined your company and your personal life and—”

  “No. We did that to ourselves. Mike and I were good friends, but as much as I wanted more, he didn’t love me. Not like lovers are supposed to love each other. Not like he loved Geordie. The irony is, Mike fell for a musical-loving effeminate man who couldn’t find a closet big enough for him, his stilettos, feather boas, and Barbra Streisand record collection. In fact, he fell so hard, he stopped caring who knew he was madly in love with a man. It just wasn’t me. And I’m such a goddamned sucker, it took me years to get over it. I bought a fucking winery for him, and he still chose someone else. Then he had the temerity to die and leave me with the other guy!” Wes chuckled and gave me a look I couldn’t read. “Be careful about karma. It has a funny way of coming back to bite you in the ass sometimes.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way. We can turn this around on Norm. We can document what he did ten years ago and—”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “But he fucked you over!”

  “He fucked himself over. Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said? I was too greedy, Norm was too greedy. We all lost—no one got what they wanted. Our greed killed everything and forced us to start at ground zero. You’re not using my story for revenge. It’s over, and I’m not going through old dirty laundry. Mike wouldn’t want it, and Geordie couldn’t handle it.”

  “Geordie’s strong. He’d want to fight.”

  “No way, not about Mike. Geordie went to bed with the man he loved and woke up next to his dead body. Don’t let his occasional musical outbursts fool you. He’s in pain.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m done fighting. All I need is what I have now.”

  “The winery?”

  Wes skirted the island and came to stand beside me. He pushed his fingers through my hair and tilted my head. His gaze softened but the emotion underneath stole my breath away.

  “No. I have more than a winery. I have a good job, good friends…and I have you. I’ve learned the hard way that nothing is forever, Nick. Even people. You’ve got to know when to let go of the past and live for now. Of course, I was mad about what happened. But I learned to let go. Wallowing in how unfair it all was didn’t change a thing, and it made me miserable. Norm still ruined my company, and Geordie still got Mike. But if I hadn’t been through all that heartache…if life hadn’t brought me to my knees with a fucking machete, I wouldn’t be who I am now. And I probably wouldn’t be here right now with you. This is new but I know it’s special. You matter to me, Nick, and I can’t help thinking I finally have exactly what I need.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shoulder. I was too overwhelmed to speak. He didn’t use the L-word but it was there, floating between us. I wished I was brave enough to say it aloud, acknowledge its presence. But that one little word didn’t seem so little. It seemed bigger than both of us. So I held on tightly and reveled in the moment because he was right. Now was all we really had. And now was good.

  Chapter 11

  My four-day break from the lab proved to be the reset I needed. I had a fresh perspective when I returned to work, and with it, the realization I’d been on the wrong track with my project. I wasn’t a variable away from solving a complex problem. I was completely off base. My engineering team stared at me in disbelief when I announced we had to start over from scratch. Eric was equally mystified. And more than a little panicked.

  “You’re scrapping everything?” he asked, flopping gracelessly into one of the visitor
chairs in my office.

  “No, but I’m peeling back the layers and reconfiguring what we have to date. You know the feeling when you’re so close to something you lose sight of the big picture? I think that’s what happened. But it’s okay. In fact, it’s awesome!” I halted my manic pacing from the window to my desk mid-stride and threw my arms out wide.

  “How is this awesome? It’s a major delay.”

  “It may not be. It might only be a month. Trust me, Er.”

  He nodded then let out a heavy sigh as he stood. “I do. But I think we have to close the Byzantine deal as is. It’ll be a forty, forty, twenty split between EN Tech, Norm’s firm and Finn as reseller. I delayed signing, but if we don’t do it now we may lose a bigger percentage to Norm. There’s been noise about Carrigan investing in some new technology from Japan. Apparently, Norm is in on the cut and he’s indicated to Byzantine this is the missing piece…not us.”

  “He’s full of shit. There’s nothing out there that compares to what I’m scrapping let alone to what I know I can do. It sounds bonkers but hang in there, buddy. I swear it’ll be worth it.”

  “I know,” Eric sighed in a beleaguered way I knew well. “Nick’s wild ride continues.”

  “Yeah, and here’s the thing…we need to find a way do it without Norm.”

  Eric furrowed his brow. “I don’t know if that’s possible without a new product.”

  “Fine. Then sign a deal using our old stuff or wait for a bigger opportunity to use the newer, better product.”

  “That’s a huge risk. You’re saying back out of a four hundred million dollar cut and gamble that the idea in your brain will result in a bigger win. Is that right?”

  “Yes.” I grinned like a madman as though I hadn’t just suggested something crazy. “Trust me, Er. This is the real thing.”

  “What’s going on? You’ve got that look in your eye and it usually means trouble,” he said warily.

  “Not this time.” I took the chair next to Eric and launched into everything I’d learned over the weekend about Norm, Finn, and events that took place when he and I were still in college. When I finished, I cocked my head and gave him an expectant look. “Well?”