Page 40 of Technical Advances

“Hey! That’s not fair. We only ever get pizza delivery when we’ve forgotten to stop working long enough for dinner, and we’re starving! So of course, I inhale it! The real wonder is how you can take your time with that first slice.”

There was that smile I’d missed for the past few days and those laughing eyes. When I’d entered the restaurant that evening, I truly wasn’t sure what my plan was: my intentions, if you will. But seeing him there, outside of the lab, relaxed and happy despite his dad’s strange mood, I knew, without a doubt, that nothing else mattered other than him being happy. No, more than that, I knew I wanted to be the one to make him happy. He may have convinced himself that our connection was merely hero worship on his part, but he was wrong. Or maybe he was just using that as an excuse because he felt the need to protect me. I didn’t need him to protect me; I just needed him to care about me the way I cared about him, assuming that’s what he wanted. Finding the way to convince him of that was a challenge I was ready to face.

Benji may have been busy preparing for graduation and spending time with his father when we weren’t working together remotely during our few days apart, but I had used my down time to do a different type of research, staying up all night the evening before to try and figure something out. As we joked about sharing a pizza from his favorite restaurant, I was fairly sure that I was ready to share my findings with Benji.

But not in front of his father, obviously, so I opened my mouth, ready to counter that Benji was always starving, no matter how many times we took food breaks, but Ben looked between us quizzically and muttered, “Working?”

“I do have a tendency to forget to eat when I’m working,” I responded, and Benji and I both laughed.

“That’s the understatement of the century!” he agreed. We were staring at each other over the heavy menus, champagne flutes, and a flickering candle, the sunset softening the room around us. I’d almost forgotten that Ben sat next to his son until he cleared his throat.

Benji’s eyes widened, but he quickly reverted to a smile. He turned to face his father, and I missed the candlelight popping off his glasses, causing his chocolate eyes to dance.

“He gets in the zone, Dad.” Benji’s hands were adorably animated again as he described our time together to Ben. “It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. He’ll start typing and bam, all of a sudden …” Benji made a sound like a firework going off and opened his fingers in front of his dad’s face.

“Bam. Huh?” Ben repeated cautiously. “You’ve started work already, Benji? I don’t understand. You haven’t even graduated yet. I thought you told me you were starting next week?”

“Officially,” Benji began. “But Dad. You know the project I was working on for my dissertation?” Ben nodded, and Benji began describing his work in detail and how it matched up with mine.

“You mentioned that when you told me you got this job, but Benj …” Ben looked at me and didn’t finish his sentence. Benji exuberantly continued to share about our work.

“And it’s really moving along, Dad. Anson’s equipment is incredible. I mean, the equipment at MIT is incredible, too, but I don’t have to fight for time on the 3D printers in Anson’s personal lab, you know? I can just … we can just map something out, then give it a try! If it’s wrong, oh, well! We start again!

“It’s so … liberating. And what we’re creating, Dad. It has the potential to be a game changer. I think it’s really going to help people!” Enthusiasm was vibrating off Benji. I found it infectious, but Ben looked concerned.

“So you started working already?” Ben looked at me as he asked.

“Benji’s official start date was supposed to be after graduation. What we’re working on is a collaborative project, part of Benji’s project-specific profit-sharing agreement with us.”

I hadn’t intended to blurt that out in front of Ben and probably shouldn’t have, as it really wasn’t appropriate for me to discuss private agreements with outsiders. But he seemed genuinely concerned about our working together, and I wanted to put his mind at ease and to find a way to explain to him that Benji may technically be an employee, but it didn’t feel that way to me when we worked on Project Orthos. And Benji’s employment agreement had been structured to acknowledge his contribution.

This was key to the nonscientific research I had been doing. Maybe in telling his dad, it was really Benji I was trying to communicate with.

“Anson …” Benji began, but I didn’t let him finish his thought.

“We are almost equal partners in Project Orthos, Benji. Or we should be.” I really needed to talk to Benji and not in front of his father.

“Profit-sharing agreement? I thought you were an employee of New Day?” Ben didn’t sound happy about it, or maybe he sounded suspicious.

Ben’s brow was definitely furrowed, not unlike Beck’s when he was displeased.

“Yeah, Dad. I didn’t want to bore you with all the legal details. But because the work from my dissertation is being used on Project Orthos, and because we’re working together on it, I get to have a share in any profits!”

“A direct share?” Ben looked from one to the other of us as we nodded in affirmation.

Slowly he said, “That’s very generous of you, Anson.” It came out as part question, part accusation.

My eyes locked with Benji’s, and he nodded his permission for me to answer.

“The way his current agreement works, he’ll have a share of the profits, Ben, but New Day Tech will hold the patent. It’s company policy and fairly standard in the industry. I’ve made sure that Benji has a very favorable agreement.”

“You have, have you?”

“Dad?” Benji sounded confused and maybe a little hurt. I jumped in to try and help Ben understand. Beck and the legal team were about to hate me.

“If Benji wants you, or an attorney, to review it, I would understand that. Benji’s contribution has been extraordinary. This is truly a shared project. We can revisit the terms if you want to, Benji.” I didn’t know which of them I wanted to hear my pleas more. Ben seemed so concerned about his son’s employment at New Day.

I ended up looking at him because had I looked at Benji, I don’t think I could have kept my emotions in check. “It is imperative to me that our … arrangement be equitable to Benji. We are equals in this project.”