Cancelled (12 page)

Kellie beamed. “I'd like that. Let me know when and I'll make sure I'm off work.”

Johnathan could see Mrs. Szachowski walking towards him. He held up the picture and waved it at Kellie. “We're having a baby girl!”

“Yep, we sure are.” Kellie left with her mother to make her next appointment as Johnathan headed towards the parking lot.

Johnathan plopped in his office chair and spun around to his scanner. Placing the ultrasound photo into the document holder, he pressed the green button. A beam of light moved down the length and back again.

“How did your doctor's appointment go?”

He jerked to see Alex coming into his office. How did she know?

“Fine.” He raised his eyebrows at both her barging into his office without knocking and knowing about where he was.

“I saw on Outlook you put down doctor's appointment on your schedule. Are you sick?”

“No, I'm not sick.” Johnathan wondered what to say. He thought about telling her everything, just coming clean. But even Anna urged him to wait until he knew for sure. Alex waited for an answer. “I have a friend who is pregnant. I went for moral support.” There, that was mostly the truth.

“Oh.” Alex's brow furrowed. Johnathan waited to see if she put two and two together. She had seen Kellie here at the office months ago, but he hadn't mentioned her since.

“Are we still going to have Eric over for dinner tonight?”

“Yeah, why wouldn't we?” Johnathan returned her puzzled look with one of his own.

“I just thought...never mind. I'm sure if there was more to it, you'd tell me.” Alex raised her hand up in an open palm at an angle to qualify her statement.

Johnathan's gut felt the verbal punch. How could he be so cruel? He needed to tell her, but yet a small voice in the back of his mind kept saying “Wait.”

“I have to catch up on some figures. The latest from the test Eric ran this morning.” He even help up paperwork to support his claim. This was awkward.

Alex nodded and headed back to her own office. Before Johnathan could process what Alex meant about Eric, the picture of his daughter popped up on his desktop. He emailed the photo to Anna, then placed his head in his hands. How was he going to fix this?

He was keeping Alex in the dark, when he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with her. She was so understanding, trusting, smart, and made him happy beyond belief. He could see the two of them raising his daughter the way Anna and his father raised him.

Opening his search engine, a travel advertisement in the side bar gave him inspiration. That was it! After a flurry of keystrokes, and pulling his credit card out a few times, he had a romantic getaway planned for Memorial Day weekend. He'd whisk her away from everything, let her know how he felt and beg her to become his wife. They'd already known each other for years, why should anything stand in their way now?

Johnathan's office phone rang. The caller ID displayed Anna's phone number, which he found odd, because she never called him at work.

“Is this my grandbaby?”

“Baby girl" he said. Anna squealed on the other side of the phone line. "Why are you calling my work phone?”

“Because your cell phone is off.”

Johnathan pulled his slider out and flicked it. He had turned it off at Dr. Harper's and forgotten to turn it back on. He really needed to stop doing that.

“I have a bunch of work to catch up on, I was gone most of the morning.”

“That's fine. I want to have dinner with you, tomorrow night.”

“Great, I'll ask Alex.”

“No, I want dinner with you, alone.”

“Alone?" Johnathan couldn't see Anna snubbing Alexis, but then it hit him. "Oh, about Nancy?”

“And a few other things.”

“Alright, I'll ask Alex.”

Anna laughed. “Ask her, huh?”

Johnathan fidgeted with the phone cord. “We're moving in together.”

“That's wonderful! Does she know?”

“Not yet. We did the amnio today. I should know in six weeks or so.”

“Have you asked yourself if it's going to make a difference?”

Johnathan tapped his stapler on his desk. “If what will make a difference?”

“Are you going to be okay to walk away from the baby if it's not yours?”

Johnathan closed his eyes. To be honest, he never considered how he would feel if the baby wasn't his. Why would Kellie lie? And the timing matched up perfectly. The doctor even said the baby was measuring right with the date of conception.

“I don't know.”

“We'll talk more at dinner. See you Saturday.”

Johnathan didn't waste any time. He hurried to Alex's office and walked in without knocking, returning her own behavior. “Anna needs to have dinner with me on Saturday. Something happened with Jenn's trust fund, and we're trying to fix it together.”

“What happened?”

“My mother cleaned it out.”

Alex's mouth opened in horror. “How did that happen? I thought you specifically kept her off the accounts for your brother and sisters.”

“I did. It's a long story, but we're working with our family lawyers to fix it.”

“Are you going to press charges?”

“I don't know, I'm waiting on more information.”

“No, this works. I came in your office earlier to tell you Tiffany's in town this weekend. You probably don't want to tag along to dinner on Saturday anyway." She paused to gauge his reaction, which he affirmed nonverbally. "But you'll eat lunch with us? I kinda want to show you off.” Alex gave Johnathan a tart smile.

Johnathan knew Tiffany was Alex's sorority sister and biggest rival when they were in undergrad together. He wouldn't miss the college stories of her for anything. “You bet. Where are we going?”

“That bistro you took me to in Georgetown. I figured we could start packing you up Saturday morning, grab lunch, run boxes to my house, and then separate for dinner.”

“How do you organize everything so efficiently?”

Alex shrugged. “I never told you about my mother making me put my schedule on note cards as a kid and post them to a bulletin board?”

“I can see Carla doing that.”

“Oh, speaking of parents and obligatory invitations. How awful would it be to miss festivities here in D.C. and go to Jersey for the Fourth? Mom wants to know you better, now that we're dating.”

“Do they know we're moving in together?”

“Um...no. After Kyle, Mom's harping on me to at least be engaged first.” Alex looked uncomfortable. “I don't agree with her. Please don't take that as pressure. But, there's no changing her mind about things, so ignorance is everyone's bliss."

“So as long as we're engaged by the Fourth of July, I can tell her we're living together?” Johnathan gave Alex a smirk.

“Oh get out of here. We both have work to do.” Alex shooed her teasing boyfriend out of her office.

She tried to turn her attention back to work. This new contract from Hedis for another project needed her scrutiny. But she couldn't stop the pitter-patter of her heart at his casual mention of an engagement before July. She daydreamed about how he would ask. She couldn't wait to tell Tiffany all about it, and watch her go green with envy.

Alex left Friday to Johnathan and Eric to man the office as she took a rare day off. After checking over the office stuff, Johnathan joined Eric in the Cave.

“Hey man, great job on the Proteus project. 15% under, that's incredible!”

“Yeah.” Eric shrugged and continued to tackle part of the Claw with a screwdriver. After a few seconds of awkward tooling, he stepped back and threw the screwdriver back on the work bench. Grabbing scrap cloth to wipe his hands, he glared at his electronic opponent.

“So how'd you manage to come in so low?”

“Alex didn't go over it with you line by line to check up on me?”

“No. It was your project.” Johnathan took a step back from Eric. “i thought you were cool with us.”

Eric sighed out loud. “I came under on man hours. I did most of the work myself at night and on weekends.”

“Dammit, Eric. We can't work and not bill the hours. It fucks up our database for estimates on future jobs.”

“I was bored." Eric gave Johnathan a stare before changing tools. He shrugged."So I came in here and tinkered. My own projects weren't going well, and the Proteus project needed to be finished. I did what I had to do. Pull my weight on the team and all that.” Eric picked up yet another tool and resumed his attack on the left side of the Claw to access a tight area inside. He grunted. “Who in the hell tightened this shit?”

Johnathan stepped up; he was the last to work on those schematics. “Here, give it to me.” Eric pushed back and let Johnathan jump in. In seconds, the panel was open, exposing the intricate electronics that controlled the gripping mechanism.

Both men stopped. Neither spoke a word or made a move to work on the Claw. Johnathan noticed they were completely alone.

“Where is everyone? Eddie? Tang?”

Eric laughed. “Dude, Tang's got finals and Eddie has been gone all week. He's in California on a job interview.”

“No one told me.”

“You didn't ask. You've been gone all week.”

It wasn't far from the truth. Between more meetings with his lawyer, Kellie, and pulling paperwork duty in his office, the truth was that he hadn't spent much time in the Cave, except last night when he stayed behind to get in wrench time to clear his mind.

“Even I never see you anymore. Life is pretty fucking boring when your best friend bails on you all the time.” Eric slammed drawers as he pulled more supplies out to fix the panel.

“We work together. We see each other everyday.”

“When's the last time we goofed off work and hit the batting cage? Or you tell me the last time we played a round of golf on the weekend? You're pissed at me for pulling overtime, but hell, you be single without shit to do.”

“We can't. Getting this bastard to work is our ticket to easy street, where the contracts just pour in.”

Eric ignored Johnathan. The future contracts fight was an old one, and neither would convince the other as to the best future for the company. After more minutes of quiet work, Eric finally burst.

“Fuck this!" He smacked the screwdriver on the workbench making a sharp, metallic clang. "We need a microelectronics setup. Think about it. We wouldn't be trying to do this shit on such a large scale. We could program the finesse we need without asking a dumb, clumsy ape to do it.” He picked up the clunky Claw and let it fall.

“Where in the hell did that come from? Microelectronics? We aren't manufacturing chips. Where's the application?”

“We make the application. I've been researching. We could design chip sets that fit our schematics, make sabotage more difficult, and minimize bugs in the system.”

Eric's spirit poured out. Johnathan could tell this was research he wanted to pursue.

“I don't know. Have you put together cost figures?”

“No.” Eric deflated like a popped balloon. “I knew you'd say no.”

“I'm not saying no. I'm asking what's the financial impact?”

“That's a no.”

“How is it a no? It might make financial sense to invest in newer technology.”

Eric laughed. “And I'm the one naiive about business?”

Johnathan gave up. He opened up his laptop from his bag and started to work. “Let's just get some work done. I vote we work through lunch and cut out at 3. Maybe grab a beer?”

Eric smiled. “Hand me a meter.”

9

A
t nine pm, Johnathan stumbled into Alex's townhouse. He was surprised by two very lovely women in the living room. One he knew intimately, the other he guessed was Tiffany.

“Where were you? I called and texted.” Alex verbally assaulted him the minute he crossed the threshold.

“Eric and I had drinks after work.”

“Ugh, you stink. Go shower. We want to grab dinner.”

“Dinner? I didn't know we were having dinner tonight.” Johnathan's bloodshot eyes looked past Alex to her friend. “I'm Johnathan by the way.” He held out a hand to the red-head with freckles.

“Tiffany Valero. Nice to meet you.”

Alex gently pushed Johnathan through the living room, towards the stairs. She glared at him in his slightly drunken state. “What's the matter with you?” she whispered hoarsely.

“Nothing,” Johnathan said in a normal volumed voice. “Eric and I needed some man time.” He could hear Tiffany giggling from the couch.

“You're embarrassing me. Go. Go shower so we can hit the town. I told Tiffany to not worry about a hotel and told her to just take the guest room.”

“You didn't talk to me about that.” Johnathan didn't like his privacy invaded by any strangers.

Alex followed Johnathan to the bedroom as he undressed to shower. She shut the door behind her.

“What do you mean I didn't talk to you about it? This is my house.”

“I'm moving in this weekend. That would make it our house.” Johnathan pulled his under shirt off over his head.

“You don't live here, yet.”

“My opinion on who does or doesn't sleep over isn't important?”

“Tiffany is my friend from college. What's the problem?”

“So when a friend of mine from undergrad, let's say Tom, calls to say he's visiting D.C. I can let him crash here too without talking to you about it?” Johnathan raised his eyebrows at her as he stepped out of his work pants.

“Who the hell is Tom?”

“Who the hell is Tiffany?” He reached in the bathroom and turned on the shower to warm up.

“You know Tiffany. I've told you all about her.”

“That's not the same as knowing someone. And you didn't answer me. Is it only your friends who get to stay whenever, but not my friends?”

“This is stupid. Tiffany is staying the weekend. Period. If you don't like it, you can go back to your own apartment.” Alex left the bedroom by firmly closing the door.

Johnathan picked up his recently discarded clothing and turned the shower off. He redressed in the dirty clothes.

“Where are you going?” Alexis asked as he stormed out of the bedroom.

“Back to my place.”

“That's silly. You're drunk. Go take a shower and we'll all go out.” She tried to gently touch his arm, but he yanked it away from her.