Empty Nests (6 page)

And it was far nicer than most of the dates I’ve been on
, James thought.

“So how did the not-date go?”

“It was nice to be out with an adult.”

“Nice enough that you might go out on a not-date again?”

“I have no idea, but he has my number.” James wasn’t going to admit to the pleasant feeling that had swelled when Gabe asked for his number.

“I suppose it’s a start, but next time I’m going to pick what you wear, because that sweater is not going to get you any play.”

“Dylan! And I’ll have you know you gave me this sweater.”

“When I was eleven, and Grandma helped me pick it out. If you want to snag a real boyfriend, you’re going to have to step things up a notch.”

G
ABE
WAS
humming some half-remembered tune in half-remembered Spanish as he sorted through the overnight e-mails. Despite the late night and long drive back, he’d made it a point to get into the office early. He had done a lot of thinking on the drive home. Not much of it formed into anything conclusive, but he did realize, with no little embarrassment, that these days he used his Japanese more than his Spanish.

He’d also made sure to put the handwritten number into his phone before even getting out of the car. The program pamphlet from the Freight ended up on his pristine modern fridge, although he did have to hunt around for a magnet.

Tamyra put a bottle of sweetened iced tea on his desk. “I’m told that’s all they have down in the cafeteria.” Gabe was half-tempted to send it back, but he wasn’t that much of a diva even on his worst days. “And since when do you drink iced tea?”

“Had a craving last night.”

“Speaking of last night?”

“It was an enjoyable evening. Lots of good music.”

“Any coffee?”

“Yes, the kind you get in a cup, which is fine because it wasn’t a date.” Gabe kept the disappointment out of his voice, having no desire to give Tamyra the satisfaction.

“Sure, it wasn’t. You planning on another ‘it’s not a date’?”

“Maybe, but right now I have a bunch of sales figures from last month I need to look over.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t?”

“No. You have a date with a camera.”

Gabe looked at his schedule and suddenly remembered SMPS meant Sales/Marketing Photoshoot. “No. No. God no!”

“Hope you brushed your teeth.”

F
LASHBULBS
WENT
off. Gabe did his best not to squint or blink. It seemed like Sales and Marketing wanted photos with him, Frank, and Nate every other month, somehow believing if they tried enough times, they’d change the three of them into models. It was a Sisyphean task.

Gabe knew he was reasonably okay looking. An early article had described him as tall, dark, and handsome, but that had been several years ago. Gabe figured he now fell under the category of tall, dark, and “not bad looking for his age.” He spent enough time in the gym to be healthy and always brushed his teeth. But then there were Frank and Nate. As much as he truly loved his business partners and cofounders of TechPrim, their photos would slip in nicely alongside the word ‘nerd’ in any dictionary. Frank was six foot six and in the right light looked like a redheaded praying mantis. Nate was five foot six with thinning dishwater-blond hair, and in spite of the best personal trainers money could buy, had an extra twenty pounds that refused to go away.

Gabe’s face was starting to ache from smiling.

“You were wearing your first-date shirt yesterday,” Frank mumbled from behind his forced smile.

“Gabe had a date?” Nate asked.

“It wasn’t a date,” Gabe mumbled back. Even if it was, he wasn’t about to tell Nate and Frank. They had way too much interest in his love life for a couple of straight guys, and he had no desire to encourage them. Especially Frank.

“Then what was it?” Frank asked.

“It was a world music open-mic night with a guy I met in Berkeley.”

The bulbs stopped flashing, and a woman rushed up to dab bits of powder on their faces.

Nate rolled his eyes. “Oh God, tell me it wasn’t with some guy who wears Birkenstocks and smells like sandalwood?”

“That’s rich, coming from a guy who regularly forgets deodorant and has to be horse-whipped into shoes.”

“He’s having a moment,” Frank told the makeup girl in an exaggerated lisp. Gabe turned around and flicked Frank’s ear, hard.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“Being an ass and having way too much interest in my love life.” Gabe suddenly had a powder brush applied to his nose. He shooed it away. “Okay, you know what? We’re done. No amount of lights, filters, gels, or makeup are going to make us look like anything other than what we are. And if the pictures are that bad, you can Photoshop them.” From behind him, Frank cleared his throat. “Oh, I’m sorry,
Techpix
them.” He swung around to his business partners, who had outvoted him on the idea of going up against the Adobe Creative Suite. “And really, of all the bits of software we could go head-to-head on, you pick that one? It’s become a verb, for Christ’s sake!”

“He’s having a moment,” Nate said to the photo crew with far less lisp.

“Nate, I know where you live.”

“That’s not a threat.”

“I know where your PA lives.”

“That is a threat.”

“I am going back upstairs, washing this crap off my face, then trying to get some real work done.”

G
ABE
WAS
nose-deep in financials when there was a knock on his door. “What?” The photoshoot had completely killed the afterglow of his un-date.

Frank leaned in. “Got a moment?”

“No.” He was still annoyed at Frank.

Frank let himself in anyway. “Hey, look, sorry for being an ass down there.”

“Yeah,” Gabe grumbled, not looking up from the paperwork.

“Okay, maybe it wasn’t a date, but if it was, that would be cool.”

Gabe sighed. The argument was an old one that had been rehashed a dozen different ways.

“I mean, never mind getting off that stupid list, you need someone. Someone nice. Someone who will not let you live in this office.”

“I have lots of work to do.”

Frank reached across the desk, putting one of his freakishly large hands over the paperwork, forcing Gabe to look up. “We’re not a start-up anymore. You have an army of bright people working under you just waiting for your orders. A third of the world uses something we or one of our subsidiaries makes. We’re one of the only companies left in the Western world that can still afford to give out holiday bonuses. And yes, I know your business voodoo is one of the main things keeping us up, but we don’t want to see you burn out. Nate and I know damn well that without you, we would just be a couple of code monkeys with thirty-year mortgages, and we are very grateful for that. And we also know that as things stand now, if you have a stroke or a breakdown or something, we are fucked. You need to delegate, and you need to relax.”

“I’m not going to have a breakdown, but I do have a lot of work to do.” Gabe wasn’t lying. The stupid photoshoot had him behind schedule for the day. He tried to put his head back down into the paperwork as a sign that Frank should leave. He didn’t take the hint, but then he never did.

“Okay, this ‘it wasn’t a date’ date that you went on, did you have a nice time?”

“Yes.” Gabe admitted after letting out a long sigh.

“Is the guy single?”

“Yes.”

“Sane?”

“I think so.”

“Not flaky?”

“Not so far.”

“Decent looking?”

“Yes.”

“Then why the hell don’t you ask him on a real date so I don’t have to set you up with brain-dead ex-cousins?”

“I will think about it if you go away.”

“That is all that I ask.”

I
T
WAS
past six when Gabe scrolled through the next few days in his calendar. It was full, but that was always the case. As much as Frank and Nate had him grinding his teeth some days, Frank’s words about finding a nice guy were stuck in his head like an irritating song. He was hardly paying attention by the time he thumbed through Saturday, then suddenly backed up. There was a good four-hour block in the afternoon highlighted in bright blue and labeled with the word “Mimir.” He grinned, grabbed his phone, and dialed. James picked up.

“Hey, it’s Gabe. Have you got a second?”

“Hi. Sure.” James sounded reasonably cheerful, so Gabe pushed on.

“I was wondering if you had any plans for Saturday afternoon?”

“Um…. No.”

Gabe looked at the blue block on his calendar. “Would you like to go to a charity garden party?”

“A what?”

“I have to do this charity garden party thing on Saturday. It’ll involve champagne and nibbling things off trays. But I’ve gotten pretty good at sneaking out of those things early, so maybe we could get a proper late lunch and maybe catch a movie?” As Gabe’s words sank into his head, he cringed, realizing how unappealing he’d made a date sound. He was sure he’d once had social skills that allowed him to ask someone normal on a date without sounding like a loser.

“You want to take me to a garden party, then sneak out of it?” James sounded incredulous.

“If nothing else it would be doing me a favor. If I show up with a guy on my arm, maybe the divorcées and ladder climbers will back off.”

James laughed. “So you want an anti-beard?”

“It’s a ‘brave new world’ out there, we’ve already been on a not-date, and I would like to see you again.” There was mostly silence and some harsh whispering in the background.

“I’m being told if I don’t say yes, I’m a moron.” Gabe would have been offended if he hadn’t heard the chuckle in James’s voice.

“Great. I’ll e-mail you the information, and I’ll see you on Saturday.”

“Saturday it is.”

T
HE
CRACK
in the bathroom mirror bent James’s nose to a strange angle. He’d called the night before to ask Gabe what to wear and had been told it was khaki-and-polo-shirt casual. James dug out his one polo shirt. He still couldn’t exactly believe he was going to a charity garden party at a country club. He flipped his hair to one side and then the other. He’d never put a lot of thought into his hair before. There were a lot of things he’d never put thought into before; he’d simply had other priorities.

“You look fine, Dad,” Dylan critiqued from the doorway. “Just stop messing with it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Now go snag yourself a rich, executive sugar daddy.”

“Dylan!”

Dylan had become half-obsessed with the fact that it was a garden party, which meant Gabe almost certainly had a comfortable income. “I’m saying it wouldn’t be a bad thing. Being a kept man and all, you could go back to school, cut loose a little.”

“Enough.”

“Okay, okay. But you have to promise to let him pay. He invited you, he picks up the check if you go out somewhere.”

James was about to argue that he could handle himself, but he had no idea what Gabe had planned, and the monthly budget was getting tight. He took a deep calming breath and counted to five. It was something he’d done on an almost daily basis since Dylan turned twelve and became a smartass.

“Fine. I am leaving now. I love you. Be good, don’t sneak in any girls, and I’ll send you a text when I’m heading home.”

“I love you too, Dad. Try not to be too good today. And if you want the place to yourself, send me a text and I’ll be out of here.”

James took a deep breath and counted to five again.

J
AMES
DOUBLE
-checked the map. There was a vine-covered gate with a small guardhouse and high brick walls. An exceedingly discreet brass plaque read Oakbow Country Club. He pulled up to the guardhouse tucked beside high, heavy wood gates.

“Hi. I’m here for the garden party?”

“Help parks around the back, and you’re late.” The guard didn’t even look at him.

James bristled. He spent his days fixing the stupid mistakes of people with doctorates who didn’t give him a second look. He was not about to spend his weekend dealing with the little snot in the guardhouse.

“I was invited. By Gabe… Juarez.”

That got the guard’s attention, but he still squinted at James with suspicion. “Your name please?”

“James Maron.”

The guard flipped through a few papers. “Ah, yes. Here you are.” The gates swung open. “If you turn your… vehicle to the left, a valet will park it for you. Sir.”

The “sir” sounded so painful to get out that James didn’t try to argue that his yellow ’95 Volvo 850, aka the Lemon Drop Wonder, was a perfectly good car. He did grin at the valet as he handed over the keys. “She makes an odd squeaking sound when you go from neutral to drive. Don’t worry about that, but you can’t go from drive right into reverse. You need to go back to neutral first, or she’ll just seize up.”

The valet forced a smile. “I’ll remember that, sir.”

The valet indicated the correct path to follow, telling him the garden was to the left of the main clubhouse, a sprawling, elegant building of tall windows and dark wood that almost certainly wasn’t as old as it was trying to look. The path twisted ahead and disappeared between high geometric hedges. As he neared he could make out the chatter of voices and the tinkling sound of glasses, and he began to get nervous. He was not, and never had been, a country club kind of guy. He’d worked for a few country-club-type people, but he’d never gotten near a real country club in his life, never thought he would, and was starting to feel a little strange about it.

He slid up to the edge of the gathering, trying not to be noticed. There were a couple dozen people there. Waiters were wandering around with trays of nibbles and glasses of champagne. The women were in summer dresses that looked far too flimsy for the weather. The men were in khakis and polo shirts, but the shirts had little things embroidered on the breast, which meant they cost a hundred bucks at a men’s store instead of five bucks at Thrift Town.