Page 47 of Technical Advances

I want to protect you, your reputation and your company

I capped the pen and turned to look at him.

“And I was willing to pull away and pretend I didn’t want this, to do so,” I let him know, the surge of honesty running though me, a feeling of freedom I never knew was possible.

I could tell Anson anything, I realized. More to the point, I wanted to tell him everything.

“This could really damage your reputation, Anson, and I would never want to do anything to hurt you, or New Day, so you have to convince me. What will hurt more?” I tapped the pen on the paper. “Solve for X, Anson.”

He looked adorable in his response. “I prefer it when you call me ‘baby.’” I rolled my eyes and uncapped the pen.

Beck will absolutely murder me, I repeated for good measure, adding below it, and—I said the next part out loud, “for some reason”—my dad might want to murder you.

I capped the pen again and held it out to him.

“You go.” I shook the pen, but he just kept shaking his head at me slowly, so I added, “Please, baby,” waving the pen at him.

“Benji.” He was still shaking his head no, but his smile said something else as he tore off his sports coat, tossing it over the couch before reaching out with a smirk on that adorable face and swiping the pen from my hand.

I dropped to the coffee table, watching as he positioned the pen and stared at my makeshift spreadsheet. “Solve for X, please, Anson. Let’s lay all our cards on the table and go from there.”

“I have been doing some research.”

He pulled the pen’s cap off and raised his arm, his back ridged, his head slightly tilted. I could picture the furrowed brow and the gears churning in his head, just like when he was sitting at his computer. I wanted to grab the pen back from him and note, I can tell what you’re thinking, even just looking at the back of your head. It seemed like an important part of the calculus.

I’ve never been in a relationship before, he wrote to the left of my column, his penmanship precise, his lettering small. I leaned forward and to the side to read as he wrote.

“Unless you count Beck,” he muttered. I may have been thinking the same thing.

They were quite like an old married couple, weren’t they? Yet I felt no jealousy, not after Anson’s appearance at my apartment showed me how much our kisses had meant to him. Where Beck was concerned, I just felt the warmth of knowing he was looking out for Anson and the fear of knowing he was likely going to be at least as untrusting as my father was about our relationship, possibly for similar reasons.

“Did you and he ever …” I started to ask.

He cut me off quickly with, “No, never. Beck’s straight. Or at least, he’s never dated anyone but women.” He had that look that I’d come to love … I mean to know, where his brow furrowed, and you could just sense he’d tuned everything else out. If it wasn’t an embarrassing thing from my childhood, I might deduce that he was about to have a brain blast.

“Yeah, no, we’ve never talked about it. He’s always known I was gay; I mentioned it the day we met. But he’s only ever been with women. Has an ex-wife and everything.” That was fairly common knowledge.

“Any chance he ever dated someone who worked at New Day?” I could feel my eyebrows practically hit my hairline as I asked hopefully. Anson merely laughed and shook his head no, turning back to our low-tech spreadsheet.

I’m too old for you, he continued, which at least was better than, You’re too young for me.

Most men don’t want me … He dropped his arm, and I watched it twitch as he contemplated. He finished that line by adding, they want the Anson Day. I was impressed with his ability to write in italics, but then his words sunk in. I braced my palms on the table to lift myself up, but Anson wasn’t done.

Beck will most likely find a way to come between us

Erin will most likely murder me (HR issues)

A joke, I thought, which seemed a hopeful sign, but the tension didn’t leave Anson’s shoulders, so I wasn’t so sure.

Your father was always so kind to me

Your father seems mistrustful of me already, and that was mostly about work

New Day Tech needs a future beyond me, and I knew that was you before I met you …

HR ISSUES

He repeated that last phrase, underlining it three times; it was the first markings he made that weren’t precise, more like three slashes that he forced onto the paper. He took a step back, taking in the sheet, then stepped forward and placed an A over his column and a B over mine.