Page 16 of Heart of a Hero

“That would be awesome.” Conrad closed the door and led the way back upstairs. The house was still quiet as Conrad walked to the sofa. He could tell Conrad was listening for any signs that Lizzie was awake, but then he relaxed and sat, and Forrest sat next to him.

“I really should go.”

“I know, but I don’t want you to.” He leaned closer. “I’m sorry for being dumb and letting fear take over. But if I’m honest, I never want you to leave. I like it when you’re here with us, and I don’t like it when you’re gone.” The truth was, sleeping with Forrest when he hadn’t felt well had been one of the best night’s rest he’d had in a long time. Finding him in bed with him… well, let’s just say the excitement had been amazing.

“I know. Me too.” Forrest checked the time. “But I have to. There are things I need to do for tomorrow, but I’ll see you Saturday.” Forrest lightly kissed him and stood and got his coat, then headed for the door.

“In a hurry?”

Forrest paused with his hand on the doorknob. “If I don’t go now, I never will.” He met Conrad’s gaze with one filled with heat and desire. For a second Conrad thought he might change his mind, but then he made a soft groaning noise and pulled open the door. He hesitated for only a moment before leaving and closing the door behind him. Conrad got up and watched him go through the window beside the door and then locked it and headed upstairs.

Maybe this was for the best, with the discussion they’d had and the fact that Lizzie was asleep. But he was so tired of being practical and always taking the safe route. Though with Forrest, it wasn’t just him. Conrad sighed and figured it was time to go to sleep. He had plenty to do in the morning. So after checking on Lizzie and carefully pulling up the covers around her, he got ready for bed.

CONRAD DROPPED Lizzie at his mother’s, where she was going to have breakfast, and went on to work early. Mom tried to get him to sit and eat, but he had things to do, and an hour before everyone else got into the office would be priceless. He hadn’t expected the office to be half full and buzzing with activity. “What’s going on?” he asked Maria as he passed her office.

She looked haggard. “We’ve been here for hours. The accounting software that we use was handling amortization incorrectly. I discovered it with one of my accounts, and it turns out that it affects half our clients, so we’ve been in here for hours trying to assess the extent of the issue and how long it goes back.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

Maria chook her head. “We just determined that it was the result of a patch that was installed two months ago, so we’re making adjustments now, and we’ll need to call our clients to explain. It might affect a few quarter-end statements, but it doesn’t seem to affect any annual results, so at least it’s repairable with a minimum of damage.” She breathed a sigh of relief, and when her phone rang, she snapped it up. Conrad went back to his office, happy that he wasn’t involved in this particular bit of drama.

A knock on his doorframe a while later interrupted his train of thought. He looked up and groaned at Lester. “What do you need?” he asked.

“What do you think of all this?” Lester asked. Conrad had learned a long time ago to not give any sort of opinion where Lester was concerned.

“I think that we all need to do our jobs and spend less time talking and wasting other people’s time. I have a lot of work to do, and I assume that you do too.” He glared. “And if not, then you need to be out getting yourself more clients.” If that didn’t send Lester scurrying, he didn’t know what would.

“I mean, there was a software glitch that no one caught.” He shook his head.

“It’s been identified and fixed, from what I understand.” Conrad shrugged and turned his attention to the computer, pointedly ignoring Lester in the hope that he would go away.

“Yeah.” He continued like he knew something Conrad didn’t, though he refused to take the bait. “But they’re going to need someone to handle the testing and review of future upgrades and patches.”

Conrad lifted his gaze, refusing to react. “Maybe you should volunteer to take on that job.” That clearly hadn’t been the idea, and it seemed like Lester practically swallowed his teeth at the thought of taking on actual work. “If you want to be the director of systems and installations, then you need to be able to handle things like this.” Conrad knew that Lester wasn’t capable of anything more complicated than kissing up and talking about what needed to be done. “Now, I have better things to do than gossip.”

Lester finally seemed to get the point and left. Conrad saved his work and sighed before picking up his phone to text Forrest. We need to find something on Lester Jenkins. The man is insufferable.

Forrest sent him a thumbs-up in return. Conrad checked the time and realized that Forrest was about to start class. He sent a smiley face and wished him a good day before returning to the preparations for meeting with a potential client.

They had basic materials already developed, but Conrad liked to customize the initial meeting agenda based on their business. It made things much more personal and helped get the point across that Conrad had done his homework and was truly interested in helping them move forward.

He had just finished when he received a message that Mr. Maxwell, the managing partner, wished to see him. He pursed his lips and stifled a groan, thinking that Lester had somehow managed to get another task dumped in his lap.

Chapter 8

CONRAD HAD said that Lizzie was spending the day and the night with her grandmother. Apparently they were going to Philadelphia to see a show, and Conrad had asked Forrest to come over for lunch and an afternoon of Lego. He pulled up in front of the house and parked. Conrad opened the front door, staying out of the rain, but looking deliciously amazing in his skinny jeans and light T-shirt. Forrest hurried inside, dodging the deluge pouring from the low clouds above.

“How was your week?” Forrest asked as he took off his dripping coat. Conrad hung it up to dry and groaned. “That bad?”

“Sort of. There was an issue with one of the systems. Not something I’m responsible for, thank goodness. It was fixed, and the issues it caused were corrected. But the firm decided they needed to do a better job of reviewing their system upgrades. Something I’ve been saying for a while.” He led him inside the warm, dry house as the rain pelted the windows.

“Did they foist this onto you?” Forrest asked.

“That’s the interesting thing. I got called into Mr. Maxwell’s office, and he reviewed the situation. I explained that what we needed was a test plan for upgrades. That every department needed to develop a base set of test entries that we could run through before implementing new software. That would allow us to be sure this didn’t happen again. Then he asked if I would take the lead on the project, and he even assigned an intern to help gather the plans together and assist in developing the final documents.” He smiled.

“So in a way they did give you the task?” Forrest asked.

“Yeah. But they gave me the help to do it properly, and they asked me to head it and to oversee the rest of the firm’s efforts. Directors usually do that sort of thing, which means that my work is being taken seriously and I’m being given senior-level responsibility within the organization.” He smiled. “I didn’t see Lester after that, but I heard the rumors he was trying to talk up. The man is a real menace, and he needs to learn the cost of his gossip-mongering.”