James

When I arrive at the office, I’m expecting…an office. Instead, I walk into a playground full of hipsters tossing rubber balls at the wall while they talk into Bluetooths or bouncing animatedly on those exercise ball balance chairs, happily typing away. Not only is it a security nightmare, but here I am, a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by early-twenties techies. My first exposure to Startup Culture. I keep my disdain to myself. I’m here for work. This is a job.

A woman named Amanda, whose hipstery cardigan and jeggings outfit gives her the air of being everyone's listen sister, leads me through the office. I instinctively scan the place, raking my eyes over every door and window, memorizing the layout. The first thing I notice in any room is the position of all the exits. The second is where to stand if I don't want my back to a door.

Today, the first thing I notice is another man. Dressed in designer jeans and a hoodie, slim and broad shouldered, he looks like he just rolled out of bed, but the bed was in an underwear commercial. An uncomfortable heat flares in my throat and chest. I'm not just self-conscious as the only suit in the room. I'm self-conscious because my eyes went right to his ass, a rounded curve of muscle displayed in jeans so tight he must have greased himself up and jumped off the roof to get into them. He glances back at me with the stubble of a day or two, bright hazel eyes, and the smirk of someone who knows something I don't.

He can't be more than twenty-five. I'd say it's pushing it to put him past twenty, even.

"Grab me a cup of coffee?" I say.

He turns around from the copier and leans against it, one foot before the other, displaying long, muscular legs. A runner. He's in shape. It takes work to get a body that shows through a sweatshirt, and he's got it. He must be popular in the company with the other interns. A guy like him is better called pretty than handsome.

"Sure," he says, smirking.

There's no break room as such; over on the far side of the office there's a couple of battered kitchen tables, some counters, a fridge, and all the gadgets; a weird mix of thrift-retro and modern gadget chic. I'm used to seeing coffee pots but there's one of those juicer things, too. Not the $300 ones they sell in informercials to help you lose weight by drinking your cucumbers, but an even more expensive one.

Neither does my new employer have a private office. Rather than enclosed, he's elevated, his workspace set up on a loft that rises above the rest of the employees. Amanda leads the way, winding around a cast iron spiral staircase. At the top, I find a messy workspace on a vertigo-inducing platform. Tucked into the corner of the building, it has two sides open to the rest with only plexiglass half-walls. Being fairly tall, they come up to just below my center of gravity and make me anxious. I shake it off and look around.

He's got one of those big desks that sits on iron supports, covered with all sorts of papers, but also junk; several computers, toys, junk mail, stress balls, those "fidget cubes" and whatever else. The chaotic desk is the center of a storm; there's more computers and a half dozen monitors behind it, plus filing cabinets and bookcases overflowing with binders and documents mixed haphazardly with an eclectic collection of textbooks, weighty tomes on quantum physics, science fiction novels, and comic books.

The coffee boy jogs up the stairs and sets a cup in front of me and a mismatched one where his boss should sit. Mine says WORLD'S BEST MOM.

He turns to Amanda.

"You can go now. I'll take it from here."

Then, he sits down behind that desk and sips some coffee, temporarily ignoring me to tap a password into the nearest laptop computer. The custom-made case makes the glowing fruit logo on the lid into a bat instead.

"What is this?" I ask. "Won't your boss get pissed off if he catches you in his seat?"

The kid—he's an adult, but I can't help thinking of him as a kid, he reminds me of someone I knew in the service—looks at me with a thin smirk and leans back in the chair, crossing his legs.

"Better move before he gets back," I say, teasing.

"He's already back. He's me."

Standing, he thrusts out his hand. "Phoenix Breslin."

Lurching to my feet, I send my chair rolling backwards and grip his hand.

"James Myers. I'd heard you were young, but—"

"I'm twenty-one," he says, sitting down again.

Smoothly, I recover my own seat and sit across from him, studying him.

So, this is the guy who hired me because he's in fear for his life. Behind him, I can see in the reflection that he's got a bunch of windows open; reading up on me. In a brief moment of concentration, he bites his lip, and something uncoils in my stomach, reaching between my legs. I cross them, letting my jacket fall open. When Breslin looks up, his eyes dart momentarily to the butt of my gun.

"Is that legal?"

"I have all the paperwork," I say.

He shrugs. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

"You did want to hire armed security, didn't you?"

He laces his fingers and leans forward on the desk. I can’t tear my eyes off his face. Big, liquid eyes, a sharp nose, wide full lips, and a head of dirty blonde hair all tussled and artfully disarranged. I'm supposed to believe he's running a tech startup. He looks like he should be pouting on a billboard in his underwear.

An uncomfortable tightness in the crotch of my pants makes me lean forward. I push the thought away.

Still studying me, he glances around, past me, at the people working below, if you can call it working. Two of them are playing ping pong, for crying out loud.

"I'll get straight to the point," he says, shrugging. "The company is, right now, at a very sensitive stage. We have a product launch coming up, and following that, I'm taking her public."

I glance around the room, following his gaze.

"Well, your security here is a mess."

"Right. More to the point, there's been a threat against my life. I think."

I sit up, abruptly. "Did you go to the police?"

He sits back, as if my movement compressed some invisible force between us. I can feel the pressure of it on my chest. Phoenix rocks in his chair, starts to turn, and catches himself. He was going to spin around if he didn't.

"I filed a report, and they came out. I could only let them do so much. Amanda gave you the NDA and collected your signature?"

"I thought I saw something about my immortal soul on there."

"We'll have to update the language. It's not strict enough." A smirk touches his lips.

"Point is, this whole thing rests on my shoulders. Everyone acts like this will all fall apart if something happens to me. So I have to make sure that isn't even a possibility."

"Plus, you'd rather not have something happen to you on general principle."

Almost absentmindedly, he nods. "I don't think I'm really in any danger."

"What happened, exactly?"

"We had a break in," he says, standing. "Someone came through, ransacked my desk."

"How can you tell?"

He arches an eyebrow. "They took some documents and storage drives. They didn't get anything; nothing important here is on paper, and the encryption on those drives is unbreakable."

"Right," I say, acting as if I know anything about encryption beyond downloading a different browser from the one that came with my computer.

"They also left something behind. Here."

Sliding it neatly from one of the chaotic stacks, he hands me a thin file folder. Inside is a printed picture of a...well, it's like a bouquet, or maybe an Easter basket, but instead of pretty flowers, there's a handful of kitchen knives driven into a Styrofoam head, the cheap kind stores use to display hats. Wedged into a basket, it's surrounded by a mound of red confetti laden with wrapped candies and little bags of goodies.

"Tell me you didn't eat any of this."

He gives me an annoyed look. "You can hold onto that. The police took the actual...thing, I guess to dust it for prints and all that."

"You want me to find out who left that here?"

"I want you to keep me safe," he says.

"The best way to do that might be finding out who's responsible for that. It's clearly a threat, even if it is bizarre."

"The police can handle that. I'm walking a tightrope here...can I call you James?"

"Jim is fine."

"Jim. I like that, it's a very bodyguardy name." He sits down again, leaning back in his chair.

"With respect," I say, "if you're hiring me to protect you, the best way to do that is to eliminate threats before they happen."

He glances at my gun.

"Eliminate?"

"Not that kind of eliminate. You do realize that my line of work is dangerous, and I need to protect myself?"

Phoenix scratches at his chin with one hand. "I guess I should expect that. Not like you're going to leap in front of bullets for me."

"If it comes to that, I'd rather they be headed in the opposite direction. Is this the only threat you've received?"

"Yes, but..." he trails off, and sighs. "Well, I've been stalked before. My life has been a little weird."

"How weird?"

Grabbing one of the fidget cubes from his desk, he fiddles with the little toy, clacking dials and prodding buttons, looking at it more than me.

"I finished high school at twelve, started at MIT at fourteen," he says, glancing up, maybe to gauge my reaction.

I keep my expression neutral. He goes on.

"Bachelor's at seventeen, doctorate at twenty," he says, "not that I really needed it. Lots of drop-outs in my line of work. I had a professor once tell me he was stunned I bothered to finish. The guys with the real ideas always leave early to pursue those ideas; it's the technicians that stay until the end, or so he said."

"But you didn’t drop out.”

"I stayed," he says. "I like the looks I get when I introduce myself as Doctor."

I snort. "What are you a doctor of, if I may ask?"

"Engineering. Masters in physics. I like numbers. I'm comfortable with them."

"Right. You said you've had stalking problems before?"

"Yes. There was an issue when I was still in school. Another student became obsessed with me."

"Obsessed with you?"

“Followed me, sent me gifs, tried to corner me once.”

“This was a girl?”

“She was older than I was.”

“Not judging.” I hold up my hands. "Could be the same person," I say. "I can look into it. Did you keep anything?"

"Turned it all over to the police. The presents stopped after the administration was involved. I eventually moved out to finish my last two years."

"I'm surprised you don't already have a security detail."

He snorts. "I don't need an army to keep me safe from a delusional girl with a crush, Jim."

"But you do need protection from this," I say, tapping the photo.

"Better safe than sorry. Alright, I'm coming around to it, so I might as well get there. What I need you to do is complex, and unusual."

"How so?"

He sighs and shrugs his shoulders, then strokes delicate fingers through his unruly hair. It straightens briefly, but by the time his hand drops to his lap, it's twisted defiantly into curls.

"So I need you to protect me, to keep my investors happy, but the rub is that having a bodyguard shadow me presents a risk to the planned IPO."

"Lots of celebrities have bodyguards," I say.

"I'm not a celebrity," he says, insistent. "I've never done that before. I've been pressured...look, I never wanted to live a sheltered life. I'm not going to build a wall of cash around myself and hide from the world forever, I have too much to do."

"Like what?"

He starts to speak, then frowns. "Later. This is awkward. I came up with a plan to explain why you'd be around me all the time."

"Which is?"

"Before I tell you, I want to be clear. Is the compensation you've been offered to your satisfaction?"

The compensation I'd been offered would let me retire. Either that or buy a boat and then a boat to put in my boat so I had an extra boat.

This is going to be weird. My stomach clenches.

"What I'm going to need you to do is pretend to be my boyfriend."

The words knock the air out of me. I pull it back in quickly, but my lungs feel like they're suddenly made of water-swollen cotton. What the hell?

"I...excuse me...what?"

"We'll drop some rumors in the right ears that I'm seeing someone, and when you're spotted with me, assumptions will be made."

I work my mouth, too dazed to answer him. This is the most absurd thing I've ever heard, but he implied I'd get paid more if I ask for it, as long as I agree. He stares intently, waiting for me.

The truth is, retirement and boats are both off the table. I need the money, and not for myself. I have certain responsibilities, and I might be able to stop risking my neck all the time if I have enough to comfortably handle them. This could be my ticket out, and let's face it, this is a puffball gig. Worst I might have to do is collar some nutter who wants to sleep with this guy. Not that I blame her.

I cough. Mentally.

"You're asking me to...hold on. I have to ask. Are you...?"

"Am I gay?" he says, smirking. He shrugs. "You're familiar with the expression 'batting for the other team' right?"

"Yeah, I've heard it. After suggesting that I pose as your significant other, I wasn't expecting you to be coy."

He suppresses a laugh. "I think the best way to describe me is that I stay in the dugout, if that makes any sense. I have a limited amount of time and I just haven't devoted any to that."

"Are you, though?" I ask.

He cocks his head, almost birdlike, eyes suddenly no longer sharp, but piercing. "Awfully insistent?"

"I'm just trying to get the full picture. It might explain the stalker. Someone you rebuffed."

"When I was fourteen years old I was in classes with eighteen-year-olds, Jim. I doubt any of them were interested, no matter how much I had."

"You were in regular school before that?"

"If boarding schools are regular. Off and on."

The question still pounds in my mind, the steady beat of it against my skull joining the rhythm of the throb in my pants.

Are you? Are you?

Time to change direction. I force myself calm and try not to make it obvious that my dick is straining against my pants. Not that I know why it would be. I'm sure Little Jim's antics are just from a long dry spell.

"Well, I'm not," I say.

"Well, I can see why you're a little shocked."

I'm more than a little shocked. "I don't have a problem with it, but you are asking me to publicly out myself, aren't you?"

He shrugs. "I'm not asking you to give a speech, identify yourself, and propose to me in Central Park in front of the press. I'm just telling you what the official explanation will be for your presence. All you really have to say, if asked, is 'no comment.'"

"I'm a little blindsided, Mr. Breslin."

"Please, Phoenix. I appreciate that. How does this sound: I double your pay."

I flinch. "You...what?"

"I know what I'm asking. I know you're the best."

I stare for a few moments.

"Fine, triple it."

"Alright, I'll take it," I blurt, hastily.

Then I chastise myself. I should have waited for the final offer.

"I understand you're paid as an independent contractor through the agency you work for."

"Yeah," I say.

"Amanda will handle all that."

He stands up and moves to the stairs, calling her name. She appears, ascending the staircase, and steps up to me with a packet of forms.

"More NDAs," she says, handing them to me, "plus a few other formalities. I can find you a place to fill them out..."

Almost an hour later, after my hand is cramped from signing, people start to drift off. It's later in the afternoon, past five. Some of the people I saw goofing off when I came in are hard at work at their desks now, though they still look absurd sitting on rubber balls. Phoenix descends from his office and is leading some kind of presentation to a group seated around a conference table, behind a glass partition.

Amanda takes the paperwork.

"Everything look good?" she says.

"No one reads that," I say.

She flinches. "Suit yourself."

Shit, maybe I did sign over my soul.

Phoenix doesn't notice me, or doesn't allow himself to appear to notice me, when I lean on the wall and watch. Animated, he's giving a lengthy talk about...something, and half the people involved aren't even in the room; rather, they appear on a screen on the wall. The way the cameras are set up makes it look like one long conference table that goes straight through the display.

He's talking about some kind of project. I scratch at my chin. Need a shave. I've been up since four this morning, caught a flight from Houston from my last job, a safe but boring gig testing security at a warehouse. Sounds mundane, but the place was a military contractor with a severe shrinkage problem.

I have the opposite of a shrinkage problem. My day so far has been playing pocket pool every time I stand up, to keep from walking around with a tent. Since Phoenix saw my gun under my arm, he'd know the bulge means I'm happy to see him.

Hell, my head swims when I see him. I've never felt anything like this before. Not this intensely. I sympathize with what he said upstairs. Relationships, even flings, haven't been much of a part of my life, at least not since I was his age. I had my fun in high school but after boot camp when I was tracked into MP school, I decided I wanted a career out of it and got serious with it. I didn't want to be stuck with child support and a payment on a Mustang like so many of my peers. My flings were short, almost mechanical, and tapered off as I found something I thought I'd be doing with the rest of my life.

Thought.

There'd always been something missing, though. That dreaded feeling comes rushing back to me full force, clearer and brighter than before, a light now where no light had been. The vague sense of unease that always curls up in the back of my head is there again, but coupled with a realization.

What I don't know, is a realization of what.

Phoenix finishes up, dismisses his employees or investors or whatever they are, and yanks off his headset.

After they've all filed out of the room, he approaches me, then says, "I'm heading out for the day. I'll be back early."

"Yes, sir." Amanda, the assistant, squeaks behind me.

I didn't realize she was there, which is startling, to say the least.

"Do you have a place to stay?" he asks.

"I booked a pod hotel."

He looks at me curiously, considering, as if he's about to remark on my choice but decides not to at the last second. Instead, that enigmatic smirk turns his lips. He looks young and acts young and that look he gives me now could probably have half the women in this office flinging their panties at him, but there's a deep weariness in his eyes, with a hint of appreciation.

"Well, you can lose your pod."

I'm glad of that. The place is almost literally a box, five feet by eight with a shared bathroom in the hall and a bunk bed that's obviously redundant. I did leave my suitcase there.

"My things are in the room."

"I'll send for them. Someone briefed you, right? You're staying with me in the Village."

The hairs rise on the back of my neck. Staying with him?

"You're my security. 24/7. For now, anyway."

I nod. "Yeah, for what you're paying, I'd sleep anywhere you want."

Is there a hint of something in his eyes, or is that just me? It doesn't matter.

Phoenix leads me through the office to the industrial elevator. The building his offices occupy is downtown in Flatiron, which means he has great gobs of money to spend, if my salary for this job didn't tell me that already. Outside, past a security guard barely worthy of the name, the evening air is crisp. I button my jacket and walk with him, expecting to cross over to a garage or turn for a hired car to pick us up on the side street...

...but we walk, and by the time it occurs to me to ask where we're going, I no longer need to. He walks home. Some loon put a serial killer bouquet in his office and he walks home. I'm not sure if I should be impressed or terrified. Manhattan is safe, generally, as long as you keep your wits about you and exercise entirely reasonable caution. That is, unless someone is gunning for you.

"Why here?" I ask.

"Eh?" he says.

"Aren't most of the tech kids over on the other coast?"

"I don't fit in with that crowd," he says, a touch of arrogance entering into his voice. "I don't tell other people to do things I can't do myself and take the credit on Twitter. I make things happen."

I resist the urge to mock him for that little touch of grandiosity. It came off more earnest than arrogant, but it still set me on edge a little. This kid has an attitude I've seen before, common in the military.

Guys think they're invincible until they learn they're not.

"Besides, I grew up here. My father had a place in midtown on the Museum Mile. I still own it, but I don't maintain it as a residence anymore. I've hired some people to curate and expand the family collection."

"You own your own museum?" I say.

"Right," he says, "I guess. I don't really see it as owning it. I take care of it. My dad was the one who owned it."

The word was, often one of the most fraught in the English language, is almost brutal passing his lips, a breathy little exhalation of regret and anger that changes the entire sentence. He does have emotions, after all.

"Anyway, I love this city. It's important to do something for it. Give something back. If I grew up here and took advantage of all the town had to offer and then just ran off to live in the desert with all the other rich kids, it'd be like stealing, don't you think?”

I shrug. I'm not getting paid for my opinions.

"I have to say it. If you're under threat, it may not be the wisest thing, just walking around out in the open on the street."

Walking down the Avenue of the Americas, I notice more and more people looking up as he passes. Manhattanites are usually pretty good about celebrities. The city's collective tough-guy image would be ruined by fawning and begging for autographs and it's just not done. Still, people aren't blind, and he's been recognized.

Someone snaps a picture of us, and I instantly turn towards them, ready to grab the phone.

Phoenix catches my arm with a quick hand. "What are you doing?"

"You were photographed," I say, quietly.

He tugs my arm. "Come on. I didn't hire you to be a thug. I need to get you out of that suit, too. Someone might think I'm trying to look like a mafia don."

When he says I need to get you out of that suit, my balls clench like a fist and a shiver runs up my stomach. What the hell was that about?