Chapter 18
18
CONNOR
I'd been working my ass off since I was eighteen. Surely, I had some employable skills. Ben doctored my resume to list my areas of expertise instead of my work history, but it seemed shady, especially when interviewers asked about my former employers before they launched into their questions. They were always interested in the start-up Hank and I had sold, but when I told them about cryptocurrency and NFTs, their optimism waned.
"You've said enough," one business owner told me, tapping her legal pad with her pen. "Stop wasting our time."
March became April, and then a month had passed with no success. Ben's pops even offered to help during the Sunday dinner that marked one month since I'd moved to Laguna Niguel.
"It's my work history," I confessed.
"Take me through it." He patted the chair beside him after the rest of his children and grandchildren had gone outside to enjoy the beautiful afternoon.
I didn't even get to the crypto wallets. He recognized the name of our start-up. Their bank used the software I created for their employee wellness program.
"Do you still know the code for it?" Pops asked. "Our lead developer broke a feature two months ago, and it's still broken."
"Know the code?" I grinned. "I could write it in my sleep. I bet I know what he broke. The dashboard is no longer communicating with the third-party apps for step tracking and nutrition."
Pops nodded. "Good guess. You're hired."
"For this project, right? Not a … not full time?"
"Why not?"
"I never learned how to code," I admitted. "I created Wellness Dashboard for fun."
"You'll learn on the job." Pops clapped me on the shoulder. "When I tell my team you created the app, they'll want to teach you everything they know. You wouldn't believe how much they raved about the simplicity when we first started using it."
I'd been called "simple" plenty of times, mostly by Hank. It always sounded like a bad word. When Pops said my designs were simple and elegant, I puffed up at the praise.
"Meet me at the office tomorrow at eight." His smirk reminded me of Ben's. "We'll have you coding our customer-facing website in no time."
On the ride home, Ben squeezed my thigh, nudging me out of my thoughts.
"Pops said you're starting at the bank tomorrow."
As much as I wanted a job, I was still leery of working for Ben's parents. "I am. I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Why?" He rarely looked away from the road while driving, but he flashed me an angry glare before jerking his eyes back to the road at the sound of a horn. We were in bumper-to-bumper traffic, but Ben was a cautious driver, leaving three car-lengths between us and the SUV ahead.
"I know you don't want me to work there," I said.
"I never said that." He chuffed a laugh. "I don't want a job at the bank, but this sounds perfect for you. Even if you hate it, you'll have a better resume after six months and can try again."
"I … can." Jobs had always left me. I'd never left them. Seasons ended, businesses closed, start-ups sold, and now Hank had fired me. I didn't know if I could quit a job after six months, but I would do anything to make Ben happy.
The next morning, Ben dropped me off at the head office for SoCal Community Bank on his way to Barclay Foods. Pops, or James as he told me to call him at work, met me in the lobby and ushered me through a gorgeous glass office building. Even the elevator was glass, so we could watch the people chatting or ambling through the lobby below.
Instead of leading me into his office, James motioned me toward a conference room. He introduced me to his lead developer, Kurt, and the rest of the team. Kurt's reception was frosty, but the other techs welcomed me. Anne, a tall woman with short graying red hair and glasses offered me her desk and console to, "see what you can do." I had the application interface fixed within the first fifteen minutes, and I caught a code error in another application she showed me before our hour was up.
By lunch, James had fired Kurt and moved me into his office. I was stunned. I didn't know what to say when he offered to take me shopping for some office decor after lunch.
"This feels a lot like nepotism," I said when we sat down to lunch at a restaurant a few blocks away. We'd walked, enjoying the hazy sunshine and warm but not yet blazing temperatures.
"I don't care," James said. "You're already well on your way to becoming my favorite son-in-law. I've never seen Ben so enamored with anyone. All I want is for my children to be happy, and if he won't work here …"
"I will." I nodded. "I get it, but I don't have any credentials."
"Nobody on the development floor has questioned your ability." Our server interrupted with glasses of water and menus, and then James leaned over the table. "Kurt was one ass-smack away from a sexual harassment lawsuit, and he's a shitty developer. I'd much rather have a reliable family man on my staff, if you know what I mean."
My face felt hot. "I'm not … Ben's not …"
"Son, you don't need to put a ring on my boy's finger or knock him up to be part of this family." His kind smile reminded me so much of Ben's. "From what I've heard, you could use all the family you can get."
I blinked back hot tears and managed to choke out, "Thank you."
I felt better about the office decor when James led me back to the building after lunch. We raided a supply closet not far from my new digs. They had everything I would need, from copier paper to sticky notes.
Next, he led me to a storeroom on the first floor filled with framed artwork and decorative lamps. "Make it your own," he said.
I was immediately drawn to a painting of a rocky cave mouth. Before it, a mother wolf watched three playing pups.
"This one," I said.
"Benjamin and the others don't know this, but we have wolf shifters in our family tree."
I didn't know how to respond to that, so I picked up the painting and placed it on an empty rolling cart.
"If Connie were to make a reappearance at another family dinner," he said, "I wouldn't be opposed."
I could do nothing but stare at him, though I managed to keep my jaw clamped shut.
"Benjamin's a horrible liar," James said. "When I started asking him about the well-trained dog who disappeared without a trace, he shut down."
I nodded. "He does that when he doesn't know what to say."
"He does it a lot less now than before he met you." James patted my shoulder. "You're good for him. I think you'll be good for the bank, too."
With that, he led me back upstairs to my office. He offered to call maintenance to put up the painting, but there was already a nail in the wall for the hideous surrealist art Kurt had left hanging. I swapped the two paintings out, and James placed the other face-down on the cart.
"I don't want to have to look at it when I take it back to the storeroom." He chuckled.
"I don't blame you. I almost turned down the office for that alone."
James laughed with me, and it didn't feel forced. It also didn't feel like he was laughing at me, unlike Hank. My former business partner had been a condescending prick sometimes, and to everyone, including me.
"I've only developed the one app," I said as James turned to leave. "What if that's all I've got in me?"
James motioned for me to follow him, and we walked down the well-lit hallway, back toward the bank of cubicles for my team. "How about you sit with Anne the rest of the afternoon to see what we do. I'm not asking you to reinvent the wheel, but if you see something you think you could improve, go for it. Tomorrow, I'll have you sit with Luca to look at our customer-facing software. And the day after that, I'll have you and Malik review some of our home-brewed systems. Kurt developed a program for productivity tracking that's been all the rage." We'd made it back to Anne's desk, where she overheard his sarcastic comment.
"By that, he means it makes steam come out our ears every time we have to use it," she said. "I hear congratulations are in order." She held out her hand, and I shook it. "Welcome, boss."
I laughed. "Connor's fine. I've never been anyone's boss."
It had been a long time since anyone had called me son, too, but the memory of my lunch conversation with James played on a loop in my head during the slow parts of Anne's demonstration.
Son. I liked the sound of that.