Chapter 6
Eli
Lex’s text letting me know they’re about to take off from Buffalo is the first thing I see when I wake up late Friday morning, the next is a text from Harrison.
I groan into my pillow. Just the thought of having to plummet back to the real world after the most surreal day of my life is annoying, and getting back to actually working might push me into pissed territory.
But that’s not really Harrison’s problem, so I get up, move through my morning routine, and go to my kitchen to get some coffee before I park myself at my desk.
First thing I do is open the flight tracker app and find Lex’s flight so I can follow him as he makes his way across the country.
Next, I check in quickly with Kraken13, the hacker who works for the Dempsey family who is now apparently my mentee. I know from the couple of conversations we’ve had this past week that he won’t be awake yet, but this way he’s going to reach out as soon as he is.
After that, I quickly catch up with my main engineer at ECS and everything looks to be going great. I promise to make it to the office after noon, and then it’s time to face the music.
Lex is still at least two hours away from landing in LA, so there’s really no avoiding it.
He’s not completely out of touch with technology, but I know Harrison prefers a phone call, so I make sure it’s going to be secure and no one will be able to tap in, then I call him.
“Hey, Eli. Thanks for getting back to me.” I can tell he’s walking around and feel bad instantly.
“Sorry for not checking if this was a good time. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Just like Dad, Harrison juggles being the CEO of a very successful company that’s the parent company of a handful of others. The man is busy with a capital B—I really should’ve checked.
“No worries. I did tell you to call me as soon as you could. I just used your scanner in my office this morning, so my guess is it’s safe to speak freely?”
The few small creaks that can be heard over his voice tell me he’s probably seated at his desk now.
“Yes, the line is secure.”
“Perfect. So, a few things. My head of IT wants to talk to you about—wait, let me read the sentence right from the memo he sent me so I don’t butcher it.
I really have no idea what any of this means.
” I stifle a giggle and manage to hum agreeably.
“Right, she wants to have a meeting with you and possibly your team about automatizing the confidential data transfer straight to your servers instead of having to do manual macro-dumps.” He sucks in a deep breath while I give it some thought.
A million possibilities flit through my mind, and the problem is that every one of them would pose an increase in risk probabilities. If we give Harrison’s parent company, Crawford Inc., a direct link to the servers, then someone could hack them by using the same entrance.
Harrison would literally understand none of that, so instead I keep it simple.
“I understand that desire, and honestly I am hoping we can achieve an automatization, even an integration, with our clients this way eventually, however, that’s not achievable at this moment with the type of secure link we have with the data dumps.
I can talk to them at their earliest convenience to discuss it, though. ”
“Okay, I think she wants to tour your offices, would that be okay?”
“If she signs my NDA and comes alone, then sure.”
“Yeah, she’d be fine with that. Okay, I’m going to give her your email so you two can agree on a time to meet.”
“That sounds great, Harrison. I promise we are working on improvements, but since security is our top priority, we can’t take any chances.”
“I don’t mean to pressure you, Eli. I can assure you I’m very happy with ECS and what it’s done for us.
I understand that it’s a new business and it’ll improve and develop over time, but Rachel doesn’t have the same context as me.
And speaking of, I’m calling a meeting for Monday.
Not only because we still need to discuss the details of everything that happened, but because both Richard and Jim expressed interest in ECS as well when I mentioned it to them this past week, and I think this could be a good time to make sure we’re all being as safe as possible. ”
“Oh.”
That’s . . . a lot.
“Sorry, I’m normally more eloquent, but I really wasn’t expecting that.” I know for a fact Jim isn’t a fan of mine, because I like eyeliner and pretty shiny eyeshadows as well as the occasional skirt.
“It’s fine. I’ll give you the floor on Monday so you can explain everything to them, as much as it’s possible for us to understand anything you do. I’ll also explain more about what I mean then, all right?”
“Yes. All right.”
There’s a sudden ball of tension in my chest that confuses me. I don’t know what that means, why Harrison’s obvious belief in me has me suddenly speechless.
“See you on Monday, then. It’s going to be at number three.”
There are ten locations where the Turris meets, and they’re all numbered. Harrison is in charge of choosing the location and making sure we can all get in unnoticed.
“Got it. I’ll tell Dad.”
“Thanks, have a good day.”
“You too,” I murmur, and the call finally ends.
I keep staring at the blank screen of my phone for a few minutes afterwards, just processing everything.
Then I catch a glimpse of the flight tracker and see the little plane just about to pass from Colorado to Utah.
Thoughts of work and the Turris fly out of my head, and I replay the entire conversation we had.
It was hard, swallowing the pill of Lex denying me one kiss, but knowing it means as much to him—or maybe more—than it does to me, I can be a tiny bit grateful that things happened the way they did.
There’s a lot to unpack between us, and there are a bunch of pieces that need to be put in place before we can truly begin without having to hide.
One of the things that won’t leave my head is what I didn’t tell Lex. He was very open with me, told me about his previous experiences with other men, about thinking he might be demisexual, and I stayed quiet.
I’m not exactly embarrassed about my complete lack of experience, sexually speaking. I guess I could count my dildos as experience, and I do, but the only experience I want is with Lex, so yeah, I’m not ashamed.
Not now at least . . . now that I know he’s felt the same way as me this whole time. It is unusual, I know, for a twenty-one year old man to never have kissed anyone, but I have my reasons.
First and foremost, I’ve never been interested in kissing anyone but Lex, but there’s also the fact that Luxton Prep wasn’t really teeming with queer guys. My makeup and occasional skirts were tolerated, and even encouraged by some, but were never really celebrated.
I also decided to graduate extremely early, and didn’t go to college despite Dad’s encouragement for me to do so. I’ve always learned better on my own, and besides, I already knew everything I needed to.
Sure, that decision came back to bite me in the ass when boredom kicked in and led me to make stupid—even if very funny in hindsight—decisions and the FBI appeared on our doorstep, but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve learned a lot since then. Especially how to cover my tracks better.
What matters even more than the fear of rejection is that in that awful, painful, hopeful, and beautiful moment with Lex, it didn’t feel like the right time to tell him that since he’s the only person I’ve ever wanted to kiss, I’ve never kissed anyone else.
Man, do I want to kiss him. I can’t fucking wait for that moment. I just know that when we’re finally able to get everything we want, it’s going to be magical.
I don’t want to pester him about checking his trade clause with his agent or urge him to put a list of teams together, but what I can do is get started on my side of things.
With that in mind, I do something I haven’t done in freaking years and download social media apps to my phone.
Of course, I don’t have the passwords to my personal accounts stored anywhere, but I’m still using the same email, so at least I can set new ones up easily enough.
I do a quick search for Lex’s name and find what I need almost instantly.
I keep it simple with the first thing I post. It’s a reply to a Buffalo fan’s post about me being at the game to watch Lex.
It has a picture of me attached, one taken at a moment when I was arguing with an LA fan, interestingly enough.
The man was sitting right next to me and he was grumbling about Lex missing a pass.
@buffncold
Eli Ellsworth in the stands, arguing with an Empire fan in fucking Buffalo while watching his older brother play, is the most youngest-sibling thing I’ve seen all year.
@eliellsworth @buffncold
Excuse you, I’m an only child. If anyone here is the typical youngest child, it’s Lex. He’s spoiled, but he’s got nothing on me.
I put that away for five minutes to check the email I just received from Harrison’s head of IT, and reply quickly, offering to meet her today or tomorrow and proposing a few timeframes.
She gets back to me before the five minutes are up, and knowing I’m going to have to eat something on the way to the office to make sure my team is ready for a visit, I check my response only four minutes after posting to see if it’s having the desired response.
@empiresbunny
The fact that @eliellsworth came out of his cave and went online only to demand the internet recognize that he’s more spoiled than Alexei is sending me
@theruleroftheempire
sir, did you disown your brothers?
And that is the very best opening I could’ve hoped for.
@eliellsworth @theruleroftheempire
Stop calling them my brothers, that’s weird. Lex is my best friend. Vinny’s just always there (no offense but we really have a better time when he’s not being the fun police)