Page 48 of Technical Advances

“There it is,” he whispered.

He began drawing lines, connecting items that were similar, his two “HR Issues” connecting to my one.

He paused before connecting, “I have idolized you since I was a kid,” with, “Most men don’t want me, they want the Anson Day.”

“As good a place as any to start,” he mumbled before turning to me.

“Cards on the table,” I muttered right back.

“Is this … are you … Are you like them? Like all those men, Benji?”

He didn’t let me answer, quickly continuing, with resolve, “Because I would still want this. I do still want this even if it’s just for tonight, even if it’s just one time. Even if it’s just you fulfilling a lifelong dream and moving on after it’s done. If it makes you happy, I want it.” He pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, setting them near me on the table. I may have mistook the move for him leaning into me, but he pulled back quickly.

It was his turn to ramble, something I never thought I’d see him do, his vulnerability right there in front of me, endearing him to me even more. “I’ve had one-night stands before. Hell, I’ve only had one-night stands. I can do that, Benji. We can do that and then … and then go back to the way things were. If that’s what this is. If that’s what you want.” I think he was trying to convince himself of what he was saying at least as much as he was trying to convince me.

“Then we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. If that’s what you want.” His voice trailed off at the end.

I shook my head no as violently as I could as I finally stood up from the coffee table. He was gesturing as if he was going to continue his rambling with another point, so I kissed whatever his next words were out of his mouth, grasping him tight for the first time, our tongues dancing, our chests beating against each other, and our cocks finally pressed between us. A and B coming together to create X.

“You deserve so much better than questionable one-night stands, Anson. You … you deserve everything.”

“All I want is you.” His fingers through my hair lit me up like two particles colliding.

I pulled away to look in his eyes, keeping my grip tight on his hips, our lower bodies aligned.

“Then we need to find the right variable for this formula.” I insisted.

“I did do some research.” He said, his smile brighter than I had ever seen it. Before I could ask about it, he kissed me again. Hard, firm, confident, and sure. I could feel his lips turn back into a smile before he pulled away, his eyes dancing so close to my face. I reached up to cup his cheek, my own eyes alight in his joy.

“I’m the boss,” he said as if it was a revelation and not the source of all our problems.

CHAPTER 16

ANSON

Like I told Benji, I’d done my research during the days that Benji and I had spent apart. It hadn’t taken long, even though imagining all of the obstacles that a relationship with him would present had kept me up all night anyway.

New Day Technologies, my company, had an HR policy for fraternization. While it was written to discourage workplace romance, the policy did in fact acknowledge that people could meet at work and decide they wanted to date. It was actually a fairly progressive and reasonable policy, and I was proud it was ours. I assumed Erin and Beck had had me sign off on it at some point, but it was one of many items that I trusted Beck to handle on our behalf.

Was the language stronger when one person was higher up on the organizational chart than another? Of course, it was. But Beck and the legal team and the human resources professionals had mapped it all out years ago. They may not have had the owner of the company in mind when they wrote it, but I was also an employee of New Day Technologies, the same as Benji.

Not unlike Benji’s instinct to create a pro-and-con list, or to solve an equation as he had called it, during those days we were apart, I had read and reread the policy, mapping a solution as to how we could be together.

The only part of the equation I didn't have a solution for was the “B” factor. I had convinced myself that Benji thought our kiss had been a mistake. I’d traveled down many rabbit holes since he’d left me in the lab, each time concluding that Benji had never really wanted to kiss me that night. That some residual inner teenager had emerged in him and fulfilled a fantasy of kissing the Anson Day. That he was just like all of those other men I’d been with and all of the men, and women, who had thrown themselves at me over the years, hopeful for their chance to spend time with, or maybe to even nab a rich, successful, if somewhat eccentric tech-bro.

Benji and I had continued to work, texting and talking through shared documents. And without Beck over our shoulders, we’d even done so through the night one night. The next night I’d forced him to stop working, urging him to get some rest for his big weekend. It was as close to a personal conversation as we had after the kiss, but he didn’t bring it up, so neither did I.

Then I spent time with him and his father, drifting between the fear that he didn’t want what I wanted and the impossible hope that I could feel a longing in him that mirrored my own.

Impulse and instinct had led me to his apartment after dinner. Or maybe it was desire and desperation. I had done one-and-done more times than I could count. If that’s what Benji had to offer, my feet marching toward his apartment told me that I was willing to take that even as my heart hoped for more, even as it hoped for everything.

He’d simply said, “All I want is you,” and sure, that could easily have been interpreted any number of ways. That may have been the affirmation of a one-and-done. And I’d never been one to read facial cues, but I thought I could read Benji’s. It was one of the reasons I felt so close to him.

And his face? It was telling me, in clear and certain terms, that he wanted me. All of me, the real me.

A plus B didn’t equal X. It equaled Y. “Y” for yes.

I pulled away from him, missing him immediately, my mind a crazy whirr, a tingle running from my mouth to my groin. I moved my hands to his hips to keep our lower bodies locked as he had done to me. I could feel his hardness against my leg, and mine throbbed in commiseration.