Epilogue Tea
It took all my not-inconsiderable self-control to not fidget with my clothing—civvies.
I was starched, pressed, and polished in a brand-new pantsuit…
and nervous as fuck. I'd feel better if I were at least wearing service blues, or better yet, a flight suit, but this wasn't the type of function it was acceptable to wear a uniform to, so here I am in brand-new civvies, feeling like a poser, and nervous as fuck.
Yet I'm nervous for a fucking interview with some soft billionaire tech lord?
Get it the fuck together, Tay.
The environment wasn't helping. It reminded me of my grandfather's office, which was unsettling.
My grandfather was an Admiral. My great-grandfather?
Rear Admiral. My father? Commander, legendary Navy test pilot, a combat pilot with three kills during the Gulf War.
Yeah, I'm a legacy brat. And my grandfather's office?
It's where you went to get chewed out for subpar performance.
Such as when I made a mistake soloing with Dad when I was ten.
Or when I got a B- on a calculus exam sophomore year of high school.
Or when I scored less than perfect on a written exam for Navy pilot school. Or…well, you get the idea.
In my family, less than perfect equals abject failure, as adjudicated by Admiral James M. Tiernan.
This office—or, the reception area thereof—was a spitting image of Granddad's office: dark wood panelled walls, plush crimson thick-pile carpet, bookshelves lined with dense hardcover tomes on weighty, serious subjects, low lighting, and above all, silence.
Oppressive, thick, heavy silence.
You didn't speak unless spoken to, here.
You didn't fidget.
Or cough.
Or sniffle.
You certainly didn't look impatiently at the dour receptionist who looked like she could swallow a lump of coal and shit out a diamond three days later.
I've been sitting in this wingback chair staring at the floor for twenty minutes.
There are four other men waiting, each decades older with thousands of hours more flight experience than me.
They're wearing expensive three-piece suits.
Rolexes. Brogues and Oxfords. They're serious men with stolid names like Robert and Gregory and Thomas.
And then there's me.
Tea.
Five-five, with a feminine build, even my tailored pant suit can't hide.
They'll look at me and forget my CV. Happened before, and I’m fully prepared for this dick—Linus Magnus Thorvaldsen, founder and CEO of LMT Enterprises, a tech R clearly, interviewees were not called back based on order of arrival.
Figures.
The door to the inner sanctum opened, and the previous candidate walked out, looking peeved. Forties, graying, slim, and serious with the air of a man who runs marathons for fun, he paused as he passed me. "Good fucking luck, sweetheart," he said, sounding ready to chew nails.
Yikes. Okay.
The door closed again. So…not my turn?
Sweet.
Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty.
I'd taken my walking papers from the Navy a couple of months ago, which in itself was a family sin—Tiernans were career, dammit.
We were Navy lifers. You didn't leave the Navy.
You didn't work for civilians. Yet here I was, in civvies, out of the Navy, interviewing for a position that wasn't even a government contractor job, which would have been at least acceptable to my family, if not preferred.
Finally, three and a half hours after I entered this place, the door opened, and a skinny kid in a suit worth more than everything I own stood just outside the doorway, peering at a tablet.
He peered harder.
Here it came.
"Tea?" As in the hot beverage.
Dick.
I ignored him.
"Tea?" Louder, as if I somehow hadn't heard him the first time. He also wasn't looking at me.
He cleared his throat ostentatiously. "Tea Tiernan?" Still mispronouncing my name and omitting my hard-earned rank.
I looked up and met his eyes, and I gave him the Tiernan Terror: our family's ability to stare at someone and make them feel tiny, stupid, insignificant, and inferior.
It can't be taught or explained, only experienced, survived, and internalized until you can replicate it yourself on unsuspecting ensigns; I'd perfected it to the point of being able to make grown men cry. Literally, once.
He quailed, paled, and glanced at the tablet again. "Lieutenant Commander Tiernan?"
I stood up at perfect parade attention. "Good afternoon." I emphasized the afternoon slightly to point out that I'd been waiting since morning.
“This way, ma'am." He gestured through the doorway, as if I'd somehow take a wrong left turn at Albuquerque and end up in someone else's office.
I strutted past him, hating the feel of the leather ballet flats my sister insisted went best with this outfit. You can't strut properly in flats, dammit. You need heels, at least, but preferably a good pair of heavy shitkickers. Nothing says "don't fuck with me" like a stomp-heavy strut.
Walking into the inner sanctum felt like walking into a different world. The reception area was Serious Business; this was…Tech Bro Playground.
Two walls were entirely glass, revealing a breathtaking view of Seattle's skyline and the Puget Sound.
There was a putting green—not a strip of fake grass from Menards with a little plastic cup.
No, this was actual grass, indoors, complete with undulations in the "terrain". It occupied a whole corner of the office, which itself was most of the floor. I could land a Huey in here. There was an 80” flatscreen TV on one wall with a PS5 and a couch facing it.
A foosball table. A table arrayed with junk food.
The desk was bigger than the USS Princeton, my first berth. The man behind it totally shattered what I'd been envisioning. I'd imagined some doughy, pencil-necked dork in coke bottle glasses, or a stodgy old fart who paid other people for his ideas.
This guy was, objectively, hot. Six feet even and fit, he was wearing khakis and a seafoam green polo.
Messy, curly blonde hair, and yes, glasses, but chic designer ones that gave Clark Kent more than pre-Microsoft Bill Gates.
He was older than he looked, though, I knew that.
I'd done my research—he was notoriously reclusive and never gave interviews, never attended public events, and had never been publicly photographed.
The only known pictures of him stopped at college.
So, while he looked to be late thirties at best, he was, in reality, past fifty.
Which was, in my estimation, a combination of good genes and the longevity care that comes with being a billionaire.
He was doing the classic Important Businessman Pose: standing at the window behind his desk, hands clasped behind his back, looking pensive and thoughtful and busy, as if he had a million things to do, but his current train of thought required Gazing Pensively While Thinking Deep Thoughts. Yes, the capitals are necessary.
He had nice arms, I couldn't help noticing.
He wasn't my type, but I am straight and single and in possession of excellent eyesight, and he was attractive.
I crossed the veritable wasteland that was his office to stand at attention between the two wingback chairs angled toward each other in front of his desk.
"Mr. Thorvaldsen," I said. "Good afternoon, sir."
A lengthy, posed pause, and then he turned to face me, scrutinized me closely, silently.
Head to toe, twice. He noted the cut of my suit, I'm certain.
My chin-length black razor bob, long enough to pull back if necessary, short enough to fit under a flight helmet comfortably without getting in the way.
My makeup-free face. And, most certainly, the irritation I knew I was failing to hide—I have a shit poker face.
"My apologies for the long wait, Commander Tiernan." His voice was quiet, smooth, and placid.
I didn't answer that—I'm not in the habit of saying "oh, it's fine" when it's not, and a three-and-a-half-hour wait when I was one of six candidates was absurd.
An intentional slight, as I saw it.
For some reason, Thorvaldsen smirked at me, and then gestured at the chairs. "Please, sit."
I sat—on the edge of the chair, knees together at an angle, feet under me, spine straight, chin high: seated attention.
More smirking. This guy was starting to irritate me with the knowing smirks.
He flipped open a manila folder—my CV. Perused it slowly, line by line, page by page.
"Impressive," he said, when he'd finally closed the file.
This didn't merit an answer, since it was objectively true.
More smirking.
"I've interviewed eleven men and three women for this position," he told me. "All of them have impressive qualifications and resumes."
At some point, he was going to ask me a question, right?
"None of them have been even remotely interesting."
This got my attention. “Interesting, sir?"
A full grin, this time. Dazzling. Megawatt. “Yes, interesting, Commander. You'll find the things I value are not always…what you'd expect."
"Such as qualifications for a personal pilot?" I said, my tone arch and wry.
He laughed. "Precisely, Commander." He leaned toward me, shoving my file aside. "I could throw a rock and hit forty excellent pilots. Every one of the fifteen pilots I've interviewed over the last month, has been more qualified than the last, regardless of which order you put them in."
"Fourteen, sir."