Asking for Trouble (21 page)

Joe finally entered the AI Solutions office at three o’clock
on Tuesday afternoon, nodded a hello to Carla, the receptionist, and made his
way around the warren of cubicles to his office, with a brief stop for a
progress report from Michael, his lead programmer. He unlocked the door to his
own office, hung up his jacket, unpacked his laptop with his usual care and
plugged it in. But he didn’t sit down at his desk.

Do it now.
No
point in dragging it out. He left his office again and stuck his head into
Alec’s, next door.
 

Alec was turned away, typing furiously. He looked up, though,
at the sight of Joe in his peripheral vision, which meant he wasn’t coding.

“Hey,” he said. “You made it.”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Eventually.”

“Seems like we got out just in time, Rae and me. Though I
was sorry to miss the skiing. How was it?”

“Good. Storm came in there too, though, we had to cut it
short, and Alyssa will tell you it got a little exciting. Not as exciting as
she’ll make it out to be,” Joe said, unable to resist smiling despite the unease
he was feeling. “But not the perfect conditions you’d hope for, somebody’s
first time. She’ll tell you all about it, I’m sure, in gory detail.”

He was babbling, he realized with wonder.
There
was something he’d never been
accused of. Time to cut himself off. “How’s Rae?” he asked. “How’s the knee?”

“Hurts,” Alec said, grabbing a cup of coffee from the desk
and taking a swig, then making a face. It was probably cold. “She’s working
from home this week, under orders from her boss.” He smiled himself at that
one.

“Yeah, right,” Joe said.
Now
or never.
 
He’d spent a fair
amount of time on the drive home thinking about how to say this, and there was
no good way. “I slept with Alyssa.”

Alec stared at him, the cup in midair, then set it down.
“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You do realize,” Alec said, “that ‘I slept with your
sister’ is not on any guy’s list of favorite sentences.”

“That’s why I thought I should tell you,” Joe said stolidly,
and waited for what would happen next.

“Well, then, give me some information,” Alec said in
exasperation.

“You want
information?”
Now it was Joe who was staring.

“Not—Of course not. Of course I don’t. Are you
trying
to make this conversation even
harder? I mean, what are we talking about here? I’ve got to figure that you’re
not in here to tell me that you hooked up with my little sister and had a real
good time, and you want to make sure I know all about it. I hope that’s not it,
anyway, because I’d be obligated to try to kick your ass, and I don’t think I
could. So for Rae’s sake, tell me it’s not that. She likes my pretty face.”

“Would you shut up?” Joe demanded. “Do you
like
to talk this much?”

“All right,” Alec said, and despite his flippant tone, he
didn’t look all that relaxed. “So tell me. And would you please
sit down? Quit standing there like
you’re expecting me to ask you to step outside, or to tear up our contract, or
whatever it is you’re thinking. Just sit down and tell me.”

Joe sank into the chair that sat kitty-corner from Alec’s,
in front of his own monitor, the one he used when they were doing paired
programming. The place where they’d hammered out so much of Hal, the virtual
assistant software that was already well on its way toward making them their
latest and greatest fortune. It wasn’t looking like it’d be the last time he’d
sit there, although he’d wondered.

“I didn’t hook up with her,” he said at last, “not like you
mean it. But I slept with her, and I plan to go on sleeping with her, and I
don’t intend to keep that a secret.”

“So this is a—what?” Alec asked. “A serious thing?”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “A serious thing.”

“Well, damn.” Alec leaned back in his chair, his hands on
the leather-covered arms, and laughed. “Rae was right.
Damn,
I hate when that happens.”

“Oh, yeah?” Joe asked, relaxing a bit himself.

“Oh, yeah,” Alec assured him. “She’s been telling me for
months that Alyssa had a thing for you. She and Mira had quite the conversation
about it at Christmas, from what I hear. I said no, not possible, because Liss
isn’t exactly subtle. Not the world’s most patient person. Pretty hard for me
to imagine her longing for you from afar for years, but they were both pretty
sure. The only question was, did you have a thing for her too, and nobody was
sure about that, because you’ve always been so damn hard to read. Which was why
we went skiing with you.”

“What?”

Alec made an impatient circular gesture with one hand. “Come
on, keep up. Whose idea was it to invite ourselves along on your ski trip?”

“I don’t know, whose?”

“Rae’s, of course. And who said, ‘You know what? We should
invite Alyssa too, if you don’t mind, Joe? She loves to ski.’”

“Well,” Joe said, feeling like he’d been left behind
somewhere back around the last turn, “I do remember that that was Rae.”

“Yep. She said you two needed some time together, away from
the parents. A little fire in the fireplace, a little whisky, a little drama—”Alec
made a face at that one. “I could have done without the drama, thank you very
much. But you notice I left you the whisky,” he added helpfully.

“So we were set up.”

“Wow, you catch on quick, don’t you? Yep, another victim of the
Desiree Harlin executive steamroller. She sees something she thinks needs
doing, she makes a plan, and she executes. Good luck trying to get in the way
of that.”

“Hope she didn’t fall on purpose too.”

“No.” That sobered Alec up. “No, that was a little extra
icing on the cake. Even Rae can’t always get everything right. But sounds like
she came close.”

Joe wasn’t listening, though. “Away from the parents,” he
said. “What
about
the parents?”

“I don’t know. Rae probably does, magically, but I don’t
have a clue. What are you going to do about that?”

“Same thing I did with you. Go up there and talk to them.”

“Good plan. My mom’s not going to give you a hard time.
She’s loved you from Day One. Another lost lamb to take into the fold. But my
dad . . .”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “That’s another story.”

“You are not going to do that,” Alyssa exploded when Joe
told her the plan the next night. He’d taken her to the gym with him after work
and bought her a membership, because there were about three things he did:
work, go to the gym, and sleep. He couldn’t take her to work with him, but he
could take her to the gym with him, and he could take her to bed. And he was
planning to do both, just as often as possible.

 
Now, they were
catching a late dinner. Fish tacos, because, she’d informed him, those were her
other
favorite, besides hamburgers. And
at this moment, she was waving her taco at him furiously, cabbage streaming out
of it like strands of seaweed.

“I know I said that dating you was like going back to the
fifties,” she said. “I didn’t realize I meant the
eighteen-
fifties. What, you have to ask my dad for my heart and
hand?”

“Yeah,” Joe said, “I do.”

“I am an adult,” she said, and the glint in her eyes was
pure danger. “I don’t need my father’s permission to date you, and neither do
you.”

“I realize that,” he said doggedly. “You’re not a child, and
you make your own decisions. That’s not what this is about. It’s about me owing
your parents, your dad especially, the courtesy of telling them myself. It’s
about respect.”

“This is some weird military thing again,” she sighed.

“Well, kind of. I guess. At least, it’s a dad thing. I’m
sure it’s the right thing, anyway, and I’m doing it. I’m not asking for
permission to date you, like you can’t give it yourself.
 
I’m letting them know, that’s all.”

“All right. Whatever. When are we going?”

“We’re
not,” he
said.
“I
am.”

“You are not going up there and telling them without me.”

“Yeah. I am. I want them to feel free to say whatever they
have to say to me,” he tried to explain, “without feeling like they have to . .
. limit themselves because you’re there.”

“You think it’s going to be hard to do,” she said slowly.
She’d set her taco down, and her face was serious. “There are things you’re
going to say that will be hard for you, or you think there could be.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “Probably.”

She nodded. “Which is why I’m going. You can talk to them
alone,” she said when he began to protest. “If you need to do some man-to-man
thing with my dad, well, I don’t get it, but that’s your business. But I’m
going with you. If it’ll be hard for you, I’m going to be there.”

Which is why she was out there in her mother’s kitchen now,
helping to make a Saturday lunch that Susie had insisted on their staying for,
and he was sitting in her dad’s cubbyhole of a study.
 
He’d talked to her parents alone, as he’d
told Alyssa he had to, and he’d done it pretty much the same way he’d told
Alec, except that he’d said he was dating Alyssa instead of that he was sleeping
with her. Some things, parents didn’t need to hear spelled out.

They’d listened to what he’d had to say, and then Dave had
looked at him measuringly and asked, “So you came all the way up here, just to
tell us you and Alyssa are involved?”

“Yes, sir,” Joe said.

“Honey.” Dave turned to his wife. “Do you mind giving us a
few minutes?”

“Of course.” Susie got up, smiled at Joe, and left the room,
and Joe tensed for what would come next. He’d thought he had to tell them, yes.
But he hadn’t really thought that Dave would object.

“All right,” Dave said when Susie had closed the door. “What
is it that makes you think we wouldn’t be comfortable with the idea of you and Alyssa?
Considering some of the relationships she’s had—and those are only the
ones we’ve heard about, mind you—what would make you think we wouldn’t be
jumping for joy to know that the two of you are seeing each other?”

“I don’t—” Joe began. “I didn’t—” He broke off
as the other man sat back, his hands clasped in his lap, and waited.

Not many men could outwait Joe, but Dave Kincaid was one of
them. He sat, solid and still as stone, looked at Joe, and waited.

“My past hasn’t been . . . perfect,” Joe finally said. And,
when Dave still didn’t say anything, he went on. “I was in foster care, but you
know that.”

“Yes,” Dave said. “I remember.”

“My mother was a . . .” Joe looked up at the ceiling and swallowed.
“A meth addict. After my dad died, she started dating a guy who was an addict,
got addicted herself. She used the rest of her life,
heavy, and she died of it, basically. So heredity-wise, I may not
be the best bet.”

“Got any addictions yourself?” Dave asked.

“No.”

“Do a lot of drinking? Use any of the other stuff?”

“Not now. And not meth, ever. Hard drugs, no. There was a
time, though,” Joe admitted, “when I was smoking weed pretty much every day.
Drinking a fair amount, too.”

“How long ago?”

“When I was fifteen, sixteen.”

“Then I think we can safely say that the danger period is
over, don’t you? What else? What else did you do?”

“Some fighting,” Joe admitted. “And . . .” He swallowed. “A
lot of stealing. I was a thief.”

“Stealing from whom?” Dave asked, still looking calm.

Joe wasn’t, though. Joe was sweating. “Shoplifting.”

“Why?”

“Why?
What does it
matter why? I wasn’t trying to save a starving child or anything like that. I
can’t give you an excuse that’ll make it all right.”

“No,” Dave agreed, “but you can tell me why.”

“Because,” Joe said reluctantly, “I was mad, I guess.
Because we’d get these lists.” He didn’t want to remember it, but there it was.
“Back-to-school lists, you know the ones. A whole page full of things that I
didn’t have, and didn’t have any way to get. Colored pencils, pens, notebooks. P.E.
uniforms. You could go into the office and tell them you couldn’t afford the
uniform, and they’d give you some old one that somebody had donated. But nobody
gave you colored pencils. And nobody gave you new clothes. You remember, last
Christmas, when Alyssa and Rae were talking about clothes, about not having the
right clothes?”

“Yes,” Dave said. “I remember.”

“Well, it was hard for them that they didn’t have them,” Joe
went on, determined to tell the truth for once. “Harder than for a guy. I heard
them say that, and I know it’s true. But they dealt with it. They didn’t go out
and steal clothes so they’d have something new to wear, so they’d look like
everybody else. But that’s what I did. School supplies, clothes, shoes, electronics.
Everything. I could have found another way to get what I needed, or I could
have gone without it. But I didn’t. If I wanted it, I stole it.”

“Why?” Dave asked again. His posture was still relaxed, his
expression unchanged. “When you went into a store, when you took something, how
were you feeling when you did it?”

“Mad,” Joe said. “Mad.”

“Because you didn’t have it? You were taking what you should
have had?”

“Yeah. Because other kids had it, and I didn’t, and it
wasn’t fair.” Joe looked down, tried to laugh, ran a hand over his head. “I
don’t know where I got the idea that it should be. Not like anybody ever
promised me that life would be fair.”

“It sure wasn’t fair to you.”

“No. But that doesn’t make what I did all right. It isn’t
fair to have somebody steal from you, either. That’s the part I missed. At the
time.”

Dave nodded. “So what have you done about it?”

“Well . . .” Joe was nonplussed. “Well, I don’t steal
anything these days, if that’s what you mean. And I donate some, but you know
that.”