Chapter 3
BENJI
“So, Benjamin, do you have any questions for me before I take you to meet the head of R I was never sure.
I’d been a young teenager when that accomplishment had blown up the tech world.
Seeing that image as a twelve-year-old, I remember thinking the tech was amazing, and that the man behind it was beautiful.
I may have been coming to realize I liked boys before Anson Day’s robotic breakthrough, but the first time I really knew for sure that I was gay was when I looked at a smile that somehow managed to hold pride, confidence, and shyness all at the same time.
I related to that awkward exuberance as a young man, and I felt like I was witnessing it in real time as I cautiously entered that conference room, my head swimming, my body feeling like it might fall forward until I reached the Earth’s core.
His smile had my pulse quickening in a whole different way than the anxiousness I’d felt about giving a good interview. Until that conference room door opened, I’d been interviewing for my dream job. All of a sudden, I was standing in front of my dream man.
And I was as shocked to be standing in front of him as Erin seemed to be.
The man before me was so different from the man in that photo but just as beautiful.
Day’s long hair was pulled back tightly in a ponytail that brushed between his shoulder blades, the dark strands now peppered with streaks of gray, one strand loose but tucked behind his ear.
He sported a salt-and-pepper beard that appeared much more well maintained than the scruff he’d had in that picture.
He’d trimmed down considerably though he still wore khaki pants on his narrower frame.
This pair looked like they’d been made for him and were precisely pressed.
His slip-on sneakers were an expensive brand, worn in and comfortable looking.
The ratty T-shirt was replaced with a forest-green Henley, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, showing off a sleek luxury smartwatch and sinewy, hairy forearms.
He appeared nervous, his smile a cacophony of contradictions.
I found it ironic since I was the one not only at a critical job interview and not only standing in front of the famous Anson Day, but I was standing in front of a man I had idolized and romanticized for years.
While I could see the awkward, happy scientist from my adolescent memories in his slimmer face, the main connection to the man in the photo was his eyes, which shimmered a deep blue as they moved away from me and back to the folder resting on the table.
Erin stood at the door, apparently unsure what to do as I walked past, my arm extended, my confidence growing with each step I took toward him. “Dr. Day, it is an honor to meet you, sir.”
His curt nod and stiff handshake were like a thunderclap.
The tech-world celebrity that I had worshipped as both a man and as an icon was right there, his hand in mine.
My heart felt like it was fighting its way out of my chest. My breath caught.
I wasn’t sure how many more shocks to the system I could take.
I’d imagined, if I got a job at New Day, that I would meet Day at some point, so I had ruminated on what it would mean to meet the man that held so much significance to me.
It was important that I not come across as some raging fanboy but looking at the Day before me, so different from the young man I always pictured, didn’t feel like I was experiencing hero worship.
His hand in mine felt like something else entirely.
Something I couldn’t quite define or understand.
“Mr. Warren,” he countered as we continued to shake, up and down, up and down.
His inability to make eye contact should have thrown me off, but it just felt endearing as he stared at our pumping hands instead.
It was an odd surge of emotion to be having at a job interview, and it took me right back to the twelve-year-old boy who had obsessed over his blue eyes as much as I had his work.
This was a man, I realized. A man navigating a social situation, not the famous head of a technology firm.
Of course, he was that, too, and I needed to remember that aspect of our encounter, needed to focus on my interview, not the beating of my heart or the worry that he could feel my pulse through my fingertips.
Whatever the zing was that I was feeling, I convinced myself, was the result of years of hero worship.
How could it possibly be anything else? I had to tamp it down and get to the business of giving a good interview to Anson fucking Day. I centered myself and smiled.
Day’s head snapped up but not toward me. At least not at first.
“Thank you, Erin, that will be all.” He had found his voice with his employee. Deep and confident if still a little stilted. After a beat, she nodded and closed the door behind her, and Anson Day smiled, finally focusing the bluest eyes I had ever seen directly on me.