A Fluffy Tale 2: Warm & Fuzzy (3 page)

“But what if it needs changes?”

“I’ll have to ask someone. It looks fine,
Daniel. It’s on the server, you said.” He squeezed Daniel’s shoulder, and
smiled. “Off you go, and thank you.”

“Uh...you’re welcome. Are you sure?”

“Daniel....”

“Okay. Thank you. See you Monday.”

Tony smiled again and went back to his
office. Daniel did a quick check to make sure he’d left his desk in a tidy
state, that the files for the presentation were clearly marked and easily
locatable, then he scooped up Kani and his jacket, and headed for the lift.
Linda came around the corner, but pretended not to see him. Suited Daniel—he
didn’t want to have to explain why he was leaving early because he wasn’t at
all sure it didn’t make him look like a lame duck PA. Two secretaries from
Dennis Obi’s team joined him in the lift, but ignored him. Maybe they could
tell he was gay and disapproved? He had no other explanation to offer himself
as to why he was almost universally despised, and he certainly wasn’t going to
ask. He just had to do the job. That was all that mattered.

The secretaries got off at the fifth floor,
leaving Daniel and Kani to ride the rest of the way alone. Kani wormed his way
back onto Daniel’s shoulder and licked his face, giving out quiet little chirps
of concern.

“I’m okay,” Daniel said, petting Kani’s
tail. “Just tired. And starving.” Kani chirped louder. “You’re hungry too, I
bet. Sorry, kiddo. You should make more fuss.” Kani responded by sticking the
end of his tail into Daniel’s ear, making him laugh as the lift doors opened.
An array of bemused and slightly disapproving looks from waiting passengers
greeted the two of them. Kani squeaked and disappeared, and Daniel scurried
away from the lift area as quickly as he could. He didn’t want a reputation as
a lunatic.

Kani reappeared seconds later, just as
Daniel spotted Spen’s unmistakeable figure striding towards them. His heart
gave a queer little lurch, half panic, half relief. Since Spen was one of his
few allies, Daniel was terrified of doing anything to diminish the goodwill
between them, but his growing crush on this handsome, funny,
clever...incredibly
tall
...guy made
conversations torture. He lived in fear of opening his mouth and letting some
utterly gauche or stupid comment fall out, which would either let Spen know
about Daniel’s secret feelings, or make him think Daniel was a total dork. It
always took a little while before Spen’s easy charm let him relax and talk
normally.

Spen was dressed as usual in a sharp suit,
his slim tie knotted loosely and letting the hollow of his long neck show, the
crisp whiteness of his shirt setting off his dark skin nicely. Even in a suit,
he looked utterly relaxed. Daniel had no idea how he managed that. Spen spotted
them—or rather Myko spotted Kani and the two kems running towards each
other gave Spen the tip—and waved. Daniel smiled, but hoped Spen would be
too busy to stop and chat.

No such luck. “Hi, Daniel. Off to late
lunch?”

“Uh, no. Going home.”

Spen’s eyebrows lifted. “Are you sick?”

“No, no...just been working through my lunch hours and Tony didn’t
approve. He sent me home.” God, that sounded
awful
. “I mean...he thought I’d been
working too hard and wanted me to have a break.”

“Now that’s something I agree with. You
don’t want to burn out. I know all about wanting to impress a new boss, but I
don’t think you have anything to worry about there. Shame you’re heading off. I
was about to give you a call and ask if you wanted to come along with us to the
pub this evening.”

“Us?” Daniel squeaked.

“The IT lot. No one scary,” he added with a
big grin. He had a lovely smile, Daniel thought. “You still could come
along....”

Daniel was tempted because he hadn’t had an
evening out since...well, not since Uni...but put the temptation aside. “I
can’t, sorry. I should get home. There’s stuff to do.”

“Oh, okay.” Spen sounded truly regretful.
“Next week, maybe.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“See you next week. Seriously, you
shouldn’t stress so much. You’re good. You have no idea how much easier having
you to liaise with has made my job.”

Daniel’s face heated up with embarrassed
pleasure. “Uh...thanks. I try.”

“You do. Have a good weekend...and look
after yourself, okay?”

The warm concern in Spen’s voice and his
kind brown eyes made Daniel want to cry. “I will,” he managed to say. “You too.
Kani, come on.”

Kani and Myko gave each other one last
nuzzle of affection, then Kani bounded over and up
Daniel’s body onto his shoulder. He chirped at Spen, and Spen reached over to
pat Kani’s fuzzy head. “You look after our boy, squirt. See you both later.”

Myko climbed his human’s leg and Spen
strode off, the only man in the whole company who could make a suit look cool,
an imposing sight never likely to be lost in the crowds. Daniel watched until
he disappeared around a corner, then sighed. “We
better go, Kani. Time to feed both of us.”

Kani squeaked in delight, and his easy joy
put a reluctant grin on Daniel’s face. A kem’s life was so damn simple.

~~~~~~~~

Spen had been looking forward to talking to
Daniel outside the office, but it was a lot to ask, expecting him to hang
around for hours just to have a pint. Spen couldn’t begrudge him an early start
to the weekend. Strange that it was Tony suggesting it, since the guy had a rep
for asking a lot of overtime from his assistants and pushing them hard. Maybe
he didn’t want to scare the kid off. If Spen had someone on his team as bright
and helpful as Daniel, he’d do almost anything to retain them.
Damn shame Daniel didn’t have a formal qualification, or Spen would poach him
without a twinge of conscience.

Friday afternoons were for winding down
everywhere but in IT, which all too often had to deal with a last minute panic
by one or other of the managers over projects for the next week, new employees,
and equipment failures. But at six, Spen stood and whistled. “Okay, boys and
girls. Close it down, lock it up, and get your party on.”

“My man Spen,” Luke called approvingly,
already logging out and switching off non-essential equipment.

Ten minutes later they were in their
favourite local pub, Spen making the first round of orders as was traditional.
Bearing a pint of his favourite real ale, he nabbed prime position in the
corner, while his people spread around and took greedy slurps of liquid
refreshment. An almost choreographed sigh, and then a ripple as everyone
relaxed. “Fuck, this week sucked,” Jyoti said with a groan. Her kem nuzzled her
cheek in sympathy.

“Just like every other week,” Luke said.
“Hey, I heard a bit of gossip about our boy Daniel. Seems HR weren’t at all
happy about recruiting him, and the prevailing wisdom is that he’ll be gone
before his probation is up.”

Spen frowned, not liking to encourage this
kind of thing, but Jyoti had already seized on the morsel. “Why would HR
object? He’s bright, really sharp.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t have a degree, and
there were a few noses out of joint since they had so many internal candidates.
Noball really pushed for him. Looked a bit funny, apparently.”

“Managers do that all the time,” Spen said.
“I pushed for
you
.” He gave his tech
a quelling look. “Nothing strange about that.”

“No, of course not.” Jyoti took the hint,
and turned the conversation to suggestions being floated for team building
outings. Luke didn’t bring Daniel up again, to Spen’s relief.

But Luke and Spen had to wait at the same
bus stop for their ride home, and despite Spen’s distaste for the subject, Luke had something on his mind that he had to
express. “It isn’t just Daniel’s recruitment that’s weird, you know.”

“I don’t think this is a good—”

“No, wait, Spen. I like Daniel, that’s why
I want to tell you. You know how we were all told that Jan left for a better
job and that’s why he resigned in such a hurry? Well, Alison in Logistics said
she ran into him two weeks ago, and he’s unemployed. As in,
still
unemployed. He didn’t have a job
to go to—he just left without giving notice. Alison’s since found out
that HR knew about it but were happy to spread the fake story.”

“Maybe he had personal reasons. Wasn’t his
mum sick?”

“Yeah. She died a couple of weeks before
Jan left. Alison said he was happy to talk about his mum, but clammed up tight
when she mentioned Noble. There’s something funny about Noble, Spen. Two males PAs in a row, which is unusual in itself, lasting less
than three months each? And now a new one he’s recruited against
everyone’s advice?”

“Sorry, I’m still not seeing why this is a
worry. Noball is an egotistical pain in the arse, so maybe people just don’t
like working for him.”

Luke folded his arms and looked seriously
at Spen. “Lots of our managers are pains in the arse, and their people stick at
it for years. I reckon it has to be something else.”

“Like?”

“Work it out. Jan was young, pretty and
gay. Daniel is young and pretty, and if he’s not gay, I’m a baboon.”

“Noble’s married with kids.”

“Yeah. Perfect cover.”

“So why does he still have a job? Come on,
Luke. You think the company would keep him on if this was true?”

Luke shrugged. “Maybe Jan didn’t want the
hassle. Or maybe the company paid him off. Why would they lie about him? They
wouldn’t want word to get out that Noble’s sexually harassing his staff. The
work we do, the clients we have? Can’t afford the publicity.”

“Sounds like bollocks to me. You don’t have
any proof of this. You really don’t want to spread this around.”

“I won’t, but I wanted to tell you. The
knives are out for this kid, at least among the admin assistants, and that’s no
rumour. Someone needs to keep an eye on him. He likes you. We like him. I don’t
want him to lose his job.”

“You’re making this very personal. And
that’s your bus.”

“Shit, yeah.” Luke stuck his hand out to
hail it, and the bus pulled into the stop. “Look him up on the net and you’ll
see why.”

“What?”

“On the net. You’ll find him. See you
Monday.”

Spen waved distractedly as the bus pulled
off. His own bus arrived a minute later, and he settled down in his seat,
disturbed by Luke’s odd news and his strange obsession with Daniel’s safety. If
true, it certainly was worrying, but Luke implied that it was more than
Daniel’s youth and inexperience that might make him vulnerable.

Annoyed at himself for giving into the
urge, he pulled out his smartphone and typed in “Daniel Walkinshaw”. There were
too many results to make sense of, so he just searched for images. The very
first page of results showed their Daniel, pictures of him with his family,
some showing him holding some kind of prize or certificate. Spen clicked
through and discovered that Daniel had won prizes at his secondary school for
Chemistry and Computing, and a part-scholarship for his tuition fees. So he was
bright. This wasn’t in dispute.

Puzzled as to why Luke thought this was
relevant, Spen went back to the search results, and clicked on one of the
pictures of a somewhat younger Daniel with a brother and sister and his
parents. Spen assumed it was to do with his academic achievements. He couldn’t
have been more wrong.

This was what Luke had been talking about.
Daniel’s parents had died last year in a freak accident involving a collapsing
crane and a horrifyingly large block of concrete, leaving Daniel and his
siblings orphaned. There were dozens of reports focussing on the misfortune of
the people killed and what had caused the accident, and a certain amount of
attention to the fate of the three children. But with Daniel being an adult,
and with living grandparents, the assumption seemed to be that the two younger
kids would manage. The press had moved on, though a coronial enquiry had been
held just three months ago, deeming the deaths to be unlawful, and a recent
news report said the company responsible for the crane’s maintenance was to be
prosecuted for manslaughter.

So that explained the interrupted degree,
which was a damn shame. But it also explained why someone with his obvious
technical talent was stuck in an office working for Tony Noble. Did it also
explain why Noble had been so eager to hire him? Young, pretty...and
responsible for an orphaned brother and sister. Gay or not, Daniel had flashing
signs all over him saying “prey”. The question was,
was Noble a predator or was that accusation purely based on the office gossip
machine, never particularly charitable or accurate?

Myko put his paw on Daniel’s picture. “What
do you think, eh? Worried too?” Myko looked up at Spen and it really did look
like he was concerned, especially when he patted the photo again and gave a sad
little chirp. But maybe Myko was only reacting to Spen’s mood. Hard to know, with kems.

He nearly missed his stop, he was so
absorbed in his thoughts, and only Myko nipping his ear saved him from a long
walk back. Even when he got back to the house, he couldn’t stop thinking about
it. His mum came out as he rummaged through the fridge.

“Hello, love. Had a nice time?” Myko
squeaked in glee and jumped from Spen’s shoulder to his mother’s, so she had
Vira, her kem, on one side of her head, and Myko on the other. Myko spent near
as much time on his mum’s shoulder as Spen’s when he was home.

“Same as usual. How was school?”

“Same as usual.” She grinned. “Let’s just
say that I’m glad retirement is only three years away.”

“You’d be bored.”

“I’d love a chance to be bored. There’s a
couple of chops if you want them.”

“No, thanks. I’ll just make a cheese
sandwich.”

“I was just going to have a cup of tea.
Want one?”

“Oh, thanks. Where’s Dad?”

“Asleep in front of the telly. I thought
I’d wake him up when I was off to bed.”