“It’s still going ahead?”

“To the best of our knowledge, yes,” Greg assured Nic, leaning back in his chair.

Nic breathed out a quick sigh of relief and glanced around the room to hide the emotional moment. The boardroom here was much more formal than the charity’s, and he found himself wishing it were more cozy. Even the one tree in the corner was scrawny, the soil dried out.

It wasn’t truly employment insecurity that had been worrying at Nic lately. He’d just get transferred to another project if the board didn’t go ahead with the system overhaul for the charity. But Kyle and the others would have to keep working on antiquated systems, and Nic’s long nights of work to make it perfect would go to waste.

“Did they say what’s happening with the timeline?”

“No. How far away are you from being ready for testing?”

“Days, at most,” Nic told him. “I showed Kyle informally and he’s approved everything.”

“Good. Great!” Greg looked impressed. “Thank you for taking that initiative.”

“Of course.” Nic wasn’t about to say that he’d hardly had to arrange a meeting… Kyle had curled up with him on the couch last night and he’d shown him the progress. Then, they’d made out for about an hour.

It was easy to arrange check-in dates with Greg: by next Tuesday, he expected to be finished, which was slightly ahead of the original schedule.

As they left the meeting room, Nic was almost buzzing from the renewed adrenaline. If he worked long hours today, he could maybe finish by the weekend…

His phone buzzed, and he looked down at it.

Going to be out for a while. Home late sorry. We’ll talk soon. Miss you. xx

It was from Kyle, of course. Nic’s heart sank at first, then rose. Raising a child was going to take a lot of time, and Nic couldn’t share all of it. He composed a quick response.

Okay, good luck. Tell me if you need anything. xox

He almost didn’t see Hank until he turned the corner for the lunch room and ran into him.

Nic was pretty tall, but Hank was still an inch or two taller and a solid wall to almost hit. He reeled backward to avoid touching the other guy and held up a hand. “Oh, sorry.”

“Whoa. Got a lot on your mind, buddy?” Hank smirked at him. God, Nic wanted to slap the smarmy, patronizing tone out of him. He was every bit as good as Hank at his job.

“How’s your little project for that… support group… going?”

“It’s not a—” Nic decided not to finish his sentence and instead gritted out, “Fine.”

“Oh yeah? It’s still on?” That smile was goading.

Nic wasn’t going to play that game. He smiled blandly. “As far as I know.”

“Really.” It wasn’t a question.

Nic nodded once. “Mm.” Even as he did, Hank leaned on the doorway of the lunch room, blocking the way in, but only casually. It was a casual non-threatening threat. Nic knew it well.

“I reckoned they wouldn’t be needing a new fancy system what with the building burned down, huh?”

Nic’s chest felt tight. Hank clearly didn’t care that people had been in the building, that this was setting back their work… any of it. But if he jumped in to defend them, Hank would make even more snarky comments.

“You’d be surprised. Excuse me,” Nic answered coolly and turned away. He didn’t need coffee if it was going to come with some goading asshole.

He fumed all the way back to his office, but kept his face carefully blank. Every office had the guy who wanted to be a jerk just to get a rise.

How the fuck did Kyle put up with this? No wonder he’d wound up choosing a place like Plus to work, fighting the very kinds of people who judged him.

Greg would probably tell Hank to cool it, but that was a last resort. Running to the boss and whining about that one asshole? Yeah, not happening.

There was one way to channel his anger into something productive: get this project done even sooner, better, than Hank would believe. Impress Greg, set himself up for a good career here, maybe outpace Hank’s career trajectory…

It was petty, but Nic could play this game.

He cracked his knuckles, typed in his computer password, and adjusted the neck rest on the back of his chair.

If Kyle was home late, Nic had extra time today.

He couldn’t protect Kyle from homophobes and parenting stress, but he could cook him dinner, hold him close every night, give him a place to stay, and right now, make his work life so much easier.

And maybe Kyle would stop looking at him whenever he did something for him like he didn’t deserve it and couldn’t quite believe Nic thought he did.

Time to get to work.