Just like Dad, Harrison juggles being the CEO of a very successful company that’s the parent company of a handful of others. The man is busy with a capital B—I really should’ve checked.
“No worries. I did tell you to call me as soon as you could. I just used your scanner in my office this morning, so my guess is it’s safe to speak freely?”
The few small creaks that can be heard over his voice tell me he’s probably seated at his desk now.
“Yes, the line is secure.”
“Perfect. So, a few things. My head of IT wants to talk to you about—wait, let me read the sentence right from the memo he sent me so I don’t butcher it. I really have no idea what any of this means.” I stifle a giggle and manage to hum agreeably. “Right, she wants to have a meeting with you and possibly your team about automatizing the confidential data transfer straightto your servers instead of having to do manual macro-dumps.” He sucks in a deep breath while I give it some thought.
A million possibilities flit through my mind, and the problem is that every one of them would pose an increase in risk probabilities. If we give Harrison’s parent company, Crawford Inc., a direct link to the servers, then someone could hack them by using the same entrance.
Harrison would literally understand none of that, so instead I keep it simple.
“I understand that desire, and honestly I am hoping we can achieve an automatization, even an integration, with our clients this way eventually, however, that’s not achievable at this moment with the type of secure link we have with the data dumps. I can talk to them at their earliest convenience to discuss it, though.”
“Okay, I think she wants to tour your offices, would that be okay?”
“If she signs my NDA and comes alone, then sure.”
“Yeah, she’d be fine with that. Okay, I’m going to give her your email so you two can agree on a time to meet.”
“That sounds great, Harrison. I promise we are working on improvements, but since security is our top priority, we can’t take any chances.”
“I don’t mean to pressure you, Eli. I can assure you I’m very happy with ECS and what it’s done for us. I understand that it’s a new business and it’ll improve and develop over time, but Rachel doesn’t have the same context as me. And speaking of, I’m calling a meeting for Monday. Not only because we still needto discuss the details of everything that happened, but because both Richard and Jim expressed interest in ECS as well when I mentioned it to them this past week, and I think this could be a good time to make sure we’re all being as safe as possible.”
“Oh.”
That’s . . . a lot.
“Sorry, I’m normally more eloquent, but I really wasn’t expecting that.” I know for a fact Jim isn’t a fan of mine, because I like eyeliner and pretty shiny eyeshadows as well as the occasional skirt.
“It’s fine. I’ll give you the floor on Monday so you can explain everything to them, as much as it’s possible for us to understand anything you do. I’ll also explain more about what I mean then, all right?”
“Yes. All right.”
There’s a sudden ball of tension in my chest that confuses me. I don’t know what that means, why Harrison’s obvious belief in me has me suddenly speechless.
“See you on Monday, then. It’s going to be at number three.”
There are ten locations where the Turris meets, and they’re all numbered. Harrison is in charge of choosing the location and making sure we can all get in unnoticed.
“Got it. I’ll tell Dad.”
“Thanks, have a good day.”
“You too,” I murmur, and the call finally ends.
I keep staring at the blank screen of my phone for a few minutes afterwards, just processing everything.
Then I catch a glimpse of the flight tracker and see the little plane just about to pass from Colorado to Utah.
Thoughts of work and the Turris fly out of my head, and I replay the entire conversation we had.
It was hard, swallowing the pill of Lex denying me one kiss, but knowing it means as much to him—or maybe more—than it does to me, I can be a tiny bit grateful that things happened the way they did.
There’s a lot to unpack between us, and there are a bunch of pieces that need to be put in place before we can truly begin without having to hide.
One of the things that won’t leave my head is what Ididn’ttell Lex. He was very open with me, told me about his previous experiences with other men, about thinking he might be demisexual, and I stayed quiet.
