A Fluffy Tale 2: Warm & Fuzzy (13 page)

“Yes,” Daniel mumbled.

“A lot rides on this, Daniel. National roll
out is expected to be underway by the end of the year, beginning with Northern.
I depend on your support, and if you don’t feel you’re up to it, then I’ll have
to find someone who can give it to me.”

Daniel swallowed. “No, I can do it. I just
ate something that made me sick.”

“Very well. There’s a backlog of messages
to attend to, and I want the Underwood file. That needs to be followed up.”

“Yes, Tony.”

Back at his desk, Daniel stared at the list
of emails but didn’t really register them. He hadn’t expect this hostility from
Tony, though maybe it wasn’t surprising since he must have lost a bit of face
when Spen had cancelled with so little warning. Daniel had tried so hard to be
the model employee, to give more than expected at every turn, but now his job
was threatened by something that wasn’t his fault and he had no control over. A
wave of anger rushed through him, and for a few mad seconds, he contemplated
throwing his laptop to the floor or through Tony’s window.

The rage left him just as quickly as it
came on, and was replaced by a depression so profound, his eyes filled with
tears that no amount of wiping could remove. He went to the men’s loo to wash
his face. Was Spen right, he asked himself as he stared at his mottled
complexion in the mirror? Should he give this up now, instead of persisting for
however long it took to find another job?

But if he left now, Tony would have every
excuse to write an unflattering reference. Leaving before his probation was
completed couldn’t ever look good, even without a bad or carefully neutral
recommendation. Daniel didn’t know if he could face months of job hunting again, especially now he realised how little
he’d enjoy the jobs he’d be applying for. Maybe beans on toast for supper every
night weren’t so bad. For his own sake, he’d rather live frugally than take
another office job. He couldn't ask Dee and Alex to do that though, and it
still didn’t answer the problem of a long-term income. The lawyers had warned
him it could be years before the various criminal and civil actions were
settled.

So he’d better bloody well get on with it,
and stop feeling sorry for himself, hadn’t he? He was the head of the family.
Mum and Dad had never whined about their responsibilities, so neither would he.

He returned to his desk, and sent a brief
email to Spen telling him what Tony wanted. It wasn’t the politest thing he
could have done—Spen had texted him several times over the previous days
to ask how he was, but Daniel hadn’t answered. Spen’s company would have been
so very welcome, but Daniel hadn’t dared give into his desires, and didn’t want
to give Spen more reason to believe in his inability to cope. He’d taken refuge
in housework, cooking, doing a few odd jobs, and the rest of the time, designing a prototype for a remotely controlled artificial
hand. It had been his last project at Uni, one he’d barely started before he’d
had to leave to deal with his parents’ deaths. He would never hand it in, and
he wouldn’t produce anything that wasn’t being done bigger and better by
appliance researchers, but robotic devices were one of his interests, and it
kept his mind off other things.

The nights had been tough. He would rather
die than admit that to Spen...or anyone. Talking about it would make it worse, he knew that in his heart.

He scrolled through the list of emails,
marking those that needed attention, deleting those that didn’t, as a way of
procrastinating until he found the energy to actually deal with the damn
things. So many of them were actually for Tony to answer, but instead of them
going direct to him, they were sent to Daniel, who would then have to ask Tony
how to answer them, then sit down and transcribe his thoughts. Why this was
supposed to be more economical than Tony dashing off a quick answer, Daniel had
no idea. Increasingly, he found office affairs meaningless and staggeringly
inefficient, offensive to his engineering instincts almost past toleration.

His phone pinged to tell he had a text
message from Spen. “Meet me 4 lunch 2day, 12:30.”

Daniel texted back, “Sorry. 2 busy.”

Seconds later, “Make time or will sic Myko
on2 u.”

“U wdnt dare.”

“U sure?”

Daniel sighed. “Wnker. OK.”

He got a “;-)” as his only reply.

He really didn’t want to talk to Spen
because he was bound to bring up the...thing. But he also missed the big guy,
and had been so very lonely over the weekend even with Dee and Alex around.
Spen looked at the world, analysed problems in almost exactly the same way
Daniel did. They were always finishing each other’s sentences when they talked
about Cross-Channel or anything else remotely technical. Daniel had no one else
in his life like that any more. If he could just persuade Spen not to keep
bringing up the other matter, they could be friends again.

If Spen hadn’t texted him ten minutes before
their lunch ‘date’, Daniel would have completely forgotten. As it was, he
rushed into the pub five minutes late. Spen looked at Myko. “Told you,” he said
to his kem. “Where’s Kani? Myko’s jonesing.”

“Aren’t you all butch and forceful today?
Kani? Come out, squirt.” Kani’s head appeared with a joyful chirp, then he leapt down to be greeted ecstatically by Myko. “I
wish Tony would back down on this one.”

“Force it. He has no right asking you to
hide him. I ordered some of that veggie lasagne you liked so much, and got you
a juice. Figured you’d be pushed for time.”

Grateful as he was for the forward
thinking, Daniel was just a teeny bit pissed off at being managed. Okay, a lot
pissed off. “You don’t have to nanny me.”

“I’m not. It’s just efficient. If you want
something else....”

But just then the food arrived and it
smelled delicious. Kani took a long sniff, his tail shivering with delight.
Daniel nudged him away and loaded up his fork. Suddenly he was starving. “No,
it’s okay. Why did you want lunch?”

“Missed you, that’s all. Wondered how you
were. You look tired.”

“Yeah. But I’m
fine
.”

“I’m sure,” Spen said, taking a long sip
from his beer. “So, Tony’s got his nuts in a tangle this morning? He sent me
the pissiest email. I nearly sent it off ‘accidentally’ on a round office
list.”

“He’s um...not happy. I told him it was
something I ate, so he’s less cranky at me directly. He thought I’d drunk too
much.”

“Yeah, right. Are you okay on that score?
No headaches or anything?”

“No, Nanny Spencer. I’m just fine, I keep
telling you.”

“Good. What’s this about you going to the
Northern meeting?”

“Oh yeah, I need to ask your mum if she can
mind Dee and Alex for one night—the twenty-eighth. Tony says it will be
an overnight trip.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is it an overnight trip? Northern’s
head office is a two-hour train trip away, and Tony gets a vehicle allowance.
You could easily drive up and down in a day.”

Daniel frowned. “I don’t know. He just said
it was and I wasn’t going to argue, since he was already so worked up. Does it
matter? If your mum can’t do it, I think Dee and Alex can manage one night on
their own, so long as they have her to call.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine with it but that’s
not the point.”

Daniel swallowed the bit of lasagne he’d
been chewing, lay his fork down and looked directly at Spen. “Then can we stop
talking about it? It’s my business, not yours. I’m about this close to being
thrown out on my ear and like I’ve explained to you, I need to keep the job a
little longer.”

“So you said,” Spen muttered, eating some
of his salad. “So, do you want to watch some more movies some time?”

“Uh, don’t you have better things to do
with real friends?”

“You’re a real friend, and no. God, Daniel,
you have such low self-esteem. You can’t imagine anyone enjoying your company.”

“Sorry. My friends were either at Uni or
from school, and when Mum and Dad died, they kind of...evaporated. I think they
thought they would catch bad luck.”

“Idiots. Look, if you think I’m bothering
you, just say so. I don’t want to be a pest.”

Daniel flushed, and looked at Kani, utterly
blissful as Myko groomed him. “No, you’re not a pest. But I’m not a kid. So
long as we’re clear on that.”

Spen held his fist up for Daniel to bump.
“Totally clear. So, what did you get up to?”

~~~~~~~~

Spen managed to smooth the hackles of his
prickly friend, and even raised a smile or two on his weary face. Despite
Spen’s worst fears, Daniel’s strategy of denial seemed to be working for him,
at least for now. As a long-term tactic, it sucked, but only Daniel could take
the next step. But Spen hadn’t given up on the police angle, and what Daniel
had told him about an overnight trip—an entirely
unnecessary
overnight trip—with his sleazeball boss, had sent
all the alarms bells ringing. So while he carried on a pleasant conversation
with Daniel, his mind was busy turning over how best he could find the evidence
he needed, and work around Daniel’s refusal to bring the law into it. Denial
was all very well but he didn’t think it would survive a second attack—and
if it wasn’t Daniel, it would be someone else.

“I need to get back,” Daniel said, wiping
his mouth. “Thanks for the meal. My turn next time.”

“You’re on. I’ll ask Mum about the
twenty-eighth.”

“Thanks. I’ll draft up something for the
handout and you can comment.”

“That’ll save me some time. I’ll walk back
with you.”

He’d have done it anyway, but he had an
extra reason today. Luke had heard about Daniel’s ‘bender’ before Spen had
mentioned it, and the gossip wasn’t flattering in the least, he reported. Some
of the speculation came far too close to the truth for Spen’s comfort. He
couldn’t stop people talking, but he could at least show that Daniel had the
support of at least one senior manager, for what that was worth. People stopped
and looked as they passed. Daniel didn’t seem to notice. Spen wasn’t naïve
enough to believe he would remain oblivious.

Daniel waved goodbye and headed for the
lift, while Spen walked to the stairs. Ten minutes after he sat down, he
received an email from Daniel to say Noble had explained that he was going to
Northern’s office early on the twenty-eighth, and he wanted Daniel to be
available for a breakfast meeting the next day. It sounded completely
plausible, and yet Spen was at the point that if Noble said grass was green,
he’d have to stick his head out the window to check for himself.

He tried his best to concentrate on his
work, since he wasn’t being paid to be Daniel’s minder, but his thoughts kept
going back to his friend—and his friend’s boss. He didn’t like what those
thoughts were coming up with it.

“Spen, do you have a moment?” Jyoti
motioned him over to her desk. “There’s something you need to look at.” Spen
come over to stand behind her. She pointed silently to the relevant part of the
print out in her hand. Myko squeaked and jumped up and down on Spen’s shoulder.

“Shhh, calm down, squirt. Jyoti, come with
me.” Spen took her to the section’s small meeting room that doubled as storage
for dying computers on their way to recycling. What she had in her hand was too
explosive—and too important—to discuss in the office. She’d found
the smoking gun he’d suspected. Now he had to work out the best way to use it.

Coming into work knowing Tony would be away
all day at the Northern office—even if he and Daniel would be meeting up
later—was a relief. His boss had been, not to put too fine a point on it,
an absolute shit to work for since the conference disaster. One minute he was
praising Daniel extravagantly over something he’d done satisfactorily, and half
an hour later he’d be tearing him down over some minor error, even if it wasn’t Daniel’s mistake. Daniel went home each evening with
his guts in a knot, too tense to eat or sleep.

He
hoped
all the nastiness resulted from Tony’s anxiety over the Cross-Channel rollout.
If not, and this continued, it barely mattered how long he stuck it out at his
job—his reference was going to suck. He’d already started looking at job
advertisements, but without any sense of hope, or belief he could push himself
as being competent and employable. He did his best to hide his worries from
Dee, but his sister knew something was up. He palmed her off with excuses about
the rollout, but he couldn’t do that forever, and she was too smart to be
fooled for long.

He wasn’t looking forward to this visit to
Northern, but it did mean he would have the rest of tomorrow off, and then it
was the weekend. If he could just get one solid night’s sleep, he would feel
much better. Maybe he could take Spen up on his offer of a movie night. Spen
had completely stopped commenting about the events at the conference, so Daniel
could relax in his company again. It had been great to have an excuse to drop
down to IT again. Kani had been making the most of it. And today Daniel could
let him out without upsetting his boss.

Spen had arranged to have lunch with him
again. The handout had gone to Northern already so there was nothing left for
them to do, yet Spen was unusually tense, drinking his pint with a
determination that bordered on the disturbing. “Something wrong?” Daniel asked.

“No. How are you?”

“Glad to have a boss-free day.”

Spen smiled but the expression disappeared
too quickly. “Never trust a manager who’s shitty to his underlings. He sucks up
to the clients and the bosses pretty well, but the test is in how he treats
you.”

“Yes. I know he’s crap. Do we have to talk
about this again?”

“No, we don’t. How are Dee and Alex? Mum
was so pleased they were staying over again.”

“So were they. They really like your
parents.”