Gagged (5 page)

“I’m sure she was — ”

“Never,”
I say, enunciating. “Details are Lucy’s bread and butter. She may not be able to debug endless lines of code or have three fancy degrees, but she can keep a fucking list of important things and make sure they get done. But it’s not just Lucy I’m trusting. I checked the messages you sent back and forth. You haven’t called her, according to the logs in and out of her desk. So tell me, Bernie — how
exactly
did you let her know about the delay? Did you write it in the sky?”
 

“Mr. White … ”
 

“Unlike Lucy, you’re a fuckup, Bernie. I knew it when I brought you on. I fed every bit of data LiveLyfe had on you into a bit of software I wrote myself, then into something my friend Trevor Stone’s company is playing with — not that he knew I’d done so, of course. And all that analysis told me what I already knew: ‘Bernard Lachlan is an adept and talented programmer with — ”

“How did you get my LiveLyfe data?”
 

My temper slips another notch.
Nobody
interrupts me.
 

“With all the right degrees but a personality that, according to Myers-Briggs and everything else, is shit at follow-through. I knew from the start that you’d always promise the moon but deliver its dirt and do it late. I’ve always factored it in. But this? This is new. Now you’re
lying
to me. You’re
making excuses.
”

Across the shop, the fat man with the mustache skirts wide with his coffee, watching me like a sheep eyeing a wolf.
 

Bernie stammers meaningless syllables.

“Bernie?”

“Y-yes, Mr. White?”

“I hired you because you’re the best developer I could find.”
 

“Thank you.”
 

“It’s a fact, not a compliment. I wouldn’t have hired someone who didn’t know more than me about what you do. For three years, I didn’t need you. At all.”

“Oh. Okay.”
 

“If you fuck up, fine, as long as you own it. As long as you always tell me the truth. Trust is very important to me, as is truth. So Bernie?”

“Yes?”

“If you lie to me again, trust me that you’ll not only be fired from this job but that you’ll never make another cent from the software you’ve already completed and that you have every right to be paid for. And Bernie?”

He makes a vague noise.
 

“If you ever,
ever
cast aspersions on my best person to save your own scrawny neck again, trust that you will find yourself very,
very
sorry.”
 

 
Bernie makes the terrible decision to reply, and in exactly the wrong way.
 

“I understand, sir. But if I could just point out that she’s not infallible because she’s … ”
 

I don’t exactly cut him off. He sort of stops on his own.
 

“Finish that sentence, Bernie. Go ahead, and say what’s on your mind.”
 

For a moment, I actually think he will. But then he’s saved by the bell when my phone buzzes showing an incoming call from Lucy. I don’t just switch from one to the other. I hang up on Bernie and leave the asshole to choke.
 

“Luc?”
 

“I hate when you call me that. It makes it sound like I’m easy in bed: ‘loose.’”
 

My temper is still up, but talking to Lucy is so much easier than talking to Bernie. I feel myself, as if she’s hit a tight acupressure point to release all the badness.

“I was just on with Bernie.”
 

“I figured. What did he say?”
 

“That he’s a lying little shit.”
 

“You knew that, Caspian.”
 

“I don’t like lying.”
 

“He’s capable, but he’s a coward. You know the type. You going to fire him?”
 

“What do you think?”
 

I can imagine her shrugging. “Meh.”
 

“He blamed it on you, said he told you there’d be a delay on Einstein but that you must have forgotten.”
 

“I thought he might do that.” She laughs. “Let it go, Caspian. You’re horrible with people by yourself. There always has to be a good cop and a bad cop. I’ll handle Bernie. Where are you? In your office?”
 

“I’m at Hill of Beans. You want anything?”
 

“Like I’m going to drink coffee after that shit gave Dad two heart attacks?”
 

“Caffeine isn’t what’s killing our father.
Life
is what’s killing him.”

“Don’t even joke about that, Caspian,” she says, her voice warning.
 

I’m not joking. Or exaggerating. On a stress level from one to ten, our father always seemed to be at eleven. Lucy doesn’t like when I talk about him so bluntly, especially when he’s still in the hospital, but we didn’t share the same childhood. She entered the family after I’d already attracted all the old man’s expectations and disappointments. He never hit her; that was something reserved for the older son. Lucy was his beloved baby girl, but I was heir to a throne I’d never be worthy of. I guess that’s why I abdicated my father’s business and started my own, then outshone him a hundred to one. But to Lucy, none of what I went through even exists. She knew he was rough on me, but not quite
how
rough. She gets frustrated with how cold I am on the subject, but his being sick now doesn’t make me want to hold his hand or send him flowers.
 

“I didn’t necessarily mean coffee,” I tell Lucy, dodging the apology she probably expects me to make. “They have all sorts of whipped things you can get instead.”
 

Lucy seems to let it go. It’s exhausting to keep up with all of his baggage. When
hasn’t
my father had something shitty going on? The bastard has been sowing what he reaped for five years now.
 

She sighs and drops it. “I’m good. So how was your interview with that girl from USF?”
 

“I haven’t done it yet.”
 

There’s silence on Lucy’s end of the line then the clacking of keys. Usually we both have steel trap memories inherited from our father, so the idea of her checking something she already knows to verify something I already know is somewhat amusing.

“Caspian … that was at one o’clock.”
 

“I know.”
 

“It’s quarter to two.”
 

“I know.”
 

“Did she reschedule?”
 

“Who would she reschedule with if not you?”
 

“So she didn’t show up?”

“She showed up. I talked to James. He says she’s waiting outside my office.”

“Did you … did you forget or something?”
 

Of course I didn’t forget. I left just before James let her in and came out here. It’s not like I was going to let some random college student interview me without having a much bigger plan — one that required me to be right where I am at this exact moment while Jasmine Lewis cools her heels in my office. Or — knowing what I know about Jasmine from her supposedly private data, including her small obsession with me — she’s probably warming up rather than cooling down. But that’s a game for later, after my errand is over.
 

As if on cue, the line brings me to the barista. I give him my order — black house roast, small, with an extra shot of espresso. The kid looks at my black AmEx as if he barely believes it’s a real thing, but it swipes just fine, adding another two bucks to my unlimited line of credit.
 

“What did you call me for, Luc?”
 

“Hunter called me.”
 

“Hunter Altman?”
 

“Yeah.”

“Why did he call you?”
 

“A mistake, I guess. He’s got both our numbers. And he sounded drunk. Or high. Or like he was getting head. Or, knowing Hunter, all three. And that reminds me: For the last time, can you set me up with him? He’s so hot when he’s not fucked up.”
 

“Never. Hunter is worse for women than I am.”
 

My thoughts turn to Jasmine, waiting in my office. My cock stirs in my pants. Not for Jasmine, but for the chain of events to follow.
 

“You’re a pussy,” says Lucy. “But I’ll never tell anyone.”
 

Someone is suddenly behind me, yelling, so I tell Lucy she can tell me about Hunter later, and I hang up.
 

I straighten my collar. I brush the wrinkles from my blazer.
 

Everyone in the coffee shop has already turned to the yammering voice behind me with wide eyes, shocked by all the vitriol spewed without the slightest hint of warning.
 

But I know exactly who this blonde girl is, and I’m not surprised in the least.
 

CHAPTER SIX

A
URORA

I’
M
NOT
SURE
WHAT
’
S
GOT
into me. Maybe it’s the texts from Jasmine, which I couldn’t resist reading as I marched a half block to the Hill of Beans, forming a long, slow story of decay in haiku: a girl losing faith in herself in few-minute intervals, usually in 140 characters or less. Or maybe it’s the morning with all those bright-eyed children who deserve better, the second school decidedly underprivileged, their futures uncertain even as they reach for the stars. Maybe it’s the minutes I’ve spent staring up at Caspian White’s glimmering white monument to overcompensation like a giant penis stretching toward the sky. Or maybe it’s all those things together, brewing a stew of blame: all that’s gone wrong for me and for everyone is
his
fault, as he sits up there on his throne, helping nobody beneath him.
 

But whatever it is, I thought I had it under control. I was even rehearsing lines in my head as I walked. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt; maybe he and Jasmine had their wires crossed, and he thought later while she thought now. And then I’d calmly ask him the questions I knew she wouldn’t. I could even be cogent. I could give him the dollars and cents and ones and zeroes, so far as I understood them. He’d agree that open source made sense or he wouldn’t, but at least I could say that I tried.
 

But then I heard Caspian say, “She showed up. I talked to James. He says she’s waiting outside my office.”

It prickles my scalp. I know he’s talking about Jasmine. His cavalier, cocky tone says,
Yeah, I made that bitch wait. So fucking what?

My vision goes red. My fists clench. There’s a pounding in my ears, and suddenly I can’t think straight. My well-reasoned arguments and calm points of discussion all fly out the window, along with any benefit of the doubt. By the time I’ve pushed through the people behind him, I’m in hysterics.
 

Caspian seems to hear me and realize I’m here for him. He puts his phone away but doesn’t turn; first he adjusts his collar and brushes his sleeve. It’s the exact same
I’ll get to you when I get to you,
little girl
attitude I heard in his voice when he was talking about Jasmine … who he’d deal with “whenever.”
 

I stop yelling when he turns. I hate what my pause must say, but his physical presence is as disarming as the gossip shows claim. He must be six-three, dwarfing me even in my heeled boots. He’s broad at the shoulders, narrow at the waist, his suit cut perfectly to accentuate the V of his impressive torso. His eyes aren’t shy; they fix me so immediately and intensely that I honestly feel like I’m swimming in their ocean-deep blue. His face has a day’s worth of stubble, blond like his hair, longish and brushing his collar. And there’s that smile. That maddening, cocksure
smile
. Like he’s heard all my hate, and finds it sweet.
 

“Go on,” he says. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your tirade.”
 

“Jasmine Lewis. She’s my friend.”
 

“It’s good to have friends.” But again: a slow tip of his infuriating lips that says he’s toying with me.
 

“You have an appointment with her. Right now.”

“I don’t think I know a ‘Jasmine Lewis.’”
 

“From USF. The journalism major who wrote to your office requesting an interview.”
 

More of that smile. I know it, too, from his press photos — the one Jasmine calls his
panty-melter.
 

“There must be a mistake. I don’t accept interview requests, Miss … ”
 

I ignore his prompt. I know what he’s doing and want to slap him. The way he’s trying to make me dance is infuriating, but here I am, waltzing all the same. I can’t make myself walk away. Not now that the entire shop’s clientele and staff are staring. Not now that I’ve already so completely embarrassed myself.

“You know goddamn well what I’m talking about.” I don’t swear much, and the word feels odd on my lips.
 

“Wait. She wanted to interview me for a class,” he says, putting a finger to his chin. “Is that right?”
 

“You know she did.”
 

“Hmm.” He looks at his watch, brushed silver and probably worth more than my Civic. “Was that
now?”
 

“One o’clock!”

“Well, I’m not going to make
that.”
He lets his watch hand drop, moves down the counter to where his coffee is waiting. He takes the cup and slides over to the cream and sugar. I happen to know Caspian’s drink is a red eye without sugar or cream; it was in an
Esquire
piece Jasmine and I found during our research for this all-important day that Caspian couldn’t give a fractional shit about. He doesn’t need anything from the little bar, but he’s peeling a stir stick without hurry, tossing the paper toward the trash, missing, picking it up, missing again, bending again. I feel seconds ticking. I can feel Jasmine’s discomfort all the way down here, at Earth level two blocks away. I know how she is. She’s personalized all of this. She won’t see this as Caspian being an ass; she’ll take it as a reflection on herself. To Caspian, she’s nothing — and right now, that’s exactly what his disregard is reducing her to.