Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The world will come and go in the tide of a day, but here is her hand with my future in its palm. - Jeanette Winterson

~

An office at two-thirty in the afternoon is a particular flavor of Hell. The fresh promise of the morning is far behind, the end of the day seems forever away, and gone is the escapist enjoyment of lunch to look forward to.

It's enough to drag down the most ebullient and enthusiastic worker, let alone a tired, frustrated, meeting-sore CEO. So when the phone rings in the middle of his two o'clock meeting with the most terminally boring department head in the company, Joe doesn't even glance at the display screen before telling him, "I'm sorry, this is a call I've been waiting for, and I need to take it. I'll reach out to you all about rescheduling." When the man doesn't stand up, Joe adds, "Thank you," in his best' we are finished here' voice. Cowed, the man scuttles out.

Joe sees the name on the display just as he's snatching up the phone before it can stop ringing. People outside of his senior executives don't usually call him directly, so he's curious.

"Mister Genova, how can I help you today?" He tries to put the name with a face.

"Hi, I'm having an issue getting on the restricted information VPN."

Oh no. It's him. It's the impossibly gorgeous engineer with the knee-weakening accent. Joe remembers him from the last all-hands meeting; he'd given a status update on a community outreach program. Joe can't remember which one, because as soon as he'd started talking, Joe had lost the plot entirely in a terrifyingly unprofessional manner. He's just grateful it was all on the inside. Nothing dampens the mood of a large meeting like the senior executives losing higher brain functions.

Joe stares at the phone for a second. This is, and he doesn't mean to sound arrogant, not the kind of call one would make to the CEO.

"I'm hoping you can help."

"Help?" Joe asks.

"This is the IT line, yes?"

Joe blinks. He has a couple of options here: He could continue talking to this beautiful man, have a potential excuse to miss his three o'clock call, and be able actually to accomplish something productive in his day. Or he could—not. Do any of those things. So really, it's hardly worth considering.

"This is, yes. Yes. This is IT. You're having VPN problems, Mister Genova?"

"Please, that makes me feel like I'm in trouble. Just Nicky. Yes, VPN login problem."

"Let's see what we can do to help you with that, Nicky." While Joe didn't set up the restricted information VPN, he did configure the original one when the company had twenty employees, and everyone did a little of everything. Back when he got to actually work with technology instead of sitting in meetings all day. He's also logged onto the restricted VPN enough times that he thinks he can give this a pretty good shot.

"That would be amazing, thank you. I tried this from my teammate's laptop as well, so it's not just my laptop; it's something in my user configuration. I think."

"Are you getting an error message?"

"Yes, invalid credentials, but I'm using the same username and password that I use for my mail, this should work."

It should, yes. Joe is at least ninety percent certain he knows what the issue is and that it'll take about forty seconds to fix, but if he can keep this up for a bit, he can reasonably send a note with his apologies to his next meeting. "Would you mind hopping on a screen share with me so I can see what's happening?"

"I can do that."

"Go ahead and hang up, I'll pull you into this meeting in a minute."

Joe brings up his conference application and clicks the link to start a new meeting. Ah. That won't do at all. It's got his full name in the "Host" spot, and he doesn't need Nicky feeling awkward about this. He edits the field, replacing his business name with the name his family uses.

Two minutes later, he and Nicky are in the conference call together, and Nicky has his screen up.

"Oh, I see your name in the meeting window. Well, Yusuf, thanks for helping me with this. I need to get some information moved, and I have to be on that VPN to do it."

"No problem, Nicky. Happy to help." He is, too. That's the kicker of it. Making peoples' lives easier, simpler, better with technology is why he's in this field in the first place. Being CEO is a combination of his inability to get out of the way fast enough and his conviction that anyone else would just fuck it up more than he would, and then he'd be mad at someone else AND himself.

Nicky's problem is both immediately obvious and exactly what Joe thought it was. Still, what would a few more minutes hurt? He gives Nicky some routine housekeeping tasks to do on his computer, asks him to restart some services, things that aren't a waste of time but are absolutely unrelated to his issue. The entire time, Nicky is gracious, charming, and heartbreakingly earnest about doing a good job. Nicky is simultaneously the kind of person Joe most wants working for his company, and the one person he'd hate to run into if he decides to fuck off early on a Thursday afternoon because he just can't stand the sight of his desk anymore.

"It should take a minute for that cache to clear," Joe says, pulling something out of his ass that might or might not be a plausible excuse for five more minutes listening to Nicky talk. He dashes off a message with his regrets that he won't make his three o'clock. Even if Nicky's problem is fixed by then, Joe just can't—that's all really. He just can't.

"Thank you again for your help, Yusuf. I hope they pay you well over there."

"I can't complain." Not about the money, anyway.

"Yes, we're all lucky to have work right now. How long have you worked here?"

"Years," Joe says. "I've seen most of the staff come and go." Neither of those statements is a lie.

"Made yourself indispensable, then?" Nicky laughs, and Joe hears a cracking noise. Looking down, he sees the splintered ends of what used to be a whole pencil are jutting up from his fist. Who could blame him? That laugh. It was like listening to music. Very, very Italian music.

"They'd be fools to get rid of me," Joe says. Also, not a lie.

"I hope I have your confidence someday, Yusuf."

I hope I have your— No. That's enough of that. The situation is creepy enough as it is. This man is his employee. While he's not directly responsible for any decisions about Nicky's day-to-day duties, the imbalance is still there. Joe's going to do his absolute best to not engage in any workplace harassment, even in his own head. It's bad enough that he's let things get this far. It's just. He so rarely gets the chance to feel like there's a 'win' in his day. Besides which, it's an opportunity to do something meaningful for someone trying hard to be productive for his company.

"I'm sure you're doing fine. Okay, let's try that login again." Just as Nicky puts his username in the field, Joe stops him. "Wait. Try that with the domain name in front of it." He watches Nicky type the letters. "Right. Good. Then a backslash. Let's see if that makes a difference."

"Here we go," Nicky says, entering his password and clicking the login button. Less than ten seconds later, he's logged in successfully. "Yusuf! You're a miracle worker!"

There's a complicated, irritating reason why this particular VPN requires this particular kind of login. Unfortunately, it's also an exceptionally boring reason, so Joe doesn't tell him any of that. He says only, "I'm just happy I could help." He is, too. Happy to be useful. Happy to be productive. Happy to talk to this sweet, devastatingly gorgeous man for a few minutes. "Was there anything else?"

"No, thank you again. I'll be sure to call in if I need anything else."

"Have a good day, Nicky."

Joe's alone in the conference call again. Rather than log-off, he stays in there, knowing it will make his user look busy and might keep a few people away from him long enough for him to get some real work done.

Finally logged in successfully, Nicky clicks through the rest of the transfer he needs to complete. It's mostly watching files move from one place to another. He should switch windows and get some other work done. Or, and hear him out on this, he could sit at his desk with his chin propped in his hand, thinking about what a fantastic voice Yusuf-in-IT had.

When he'd stopped by Booker's desk on his way to lunch and asked if he had the extension for IT, he hadn't expected it to lead to a half-hour spent talking to someone genuinely helpful, patient, and charming. It almost made up for the fact that Nicky's last task of the day was a status call with his team lead, a man he and Nile had taken to calling The Weasel.

So yes, Nicky was happy to spend a few minutes replaying the sound of Yusuf saying his name if it gave him the wherewithal to get through this call. It will help shore up the only thing that usually helped him survive, the back-channel chat he had with Nile.

The Weasel discusses their upcoming milestones, the progress he wants to see, and his disappointment in their current progress. Nicky sends Nile a picture of an angry-looking cat. Their team lead drones on and on, offering words of simpering praise for the subcontractors he had brought in to handle some of the database work. Nile sends Nicky an animated gif of Tony Stark rolling his eyes.

This is why they keep themselves on mute unless they're speaking. The Weasel seems to take it as a sign of some kind of deference. When Nicky said as much to Nile over lunch one day, her response had been eloquent, yet succinct.

"Man, fuck that guy."

Indeed. Fuck that guy.

The next time Nicky picks up the phone to dial the IT extension almost a week later, he's legitimately having a problem. Granted, he could likely spend five minutes on a search engine and figure it out himself, but that would screw him in two ways. For one thing, he wouldn't show as being 'in a call,' and so The Weasel or one of his subcontractor flying monkeys would feel like they were free to barge in on his calendar. For another, he wouldn't get to hear Yusuf's voice, or, if he was very lucky, Yusuf's laugh.

He's prepared for it not to be Yusuf. At a company this size, there are bound to be three or four IT techs on the phones at any given time, so Nicky has already girded himself to be disappointed by someone else answering the phone. What he's failed to prepare himself for is the rush he gets when Yusuf is the one answering the phone.

"Hi, Nicky, nice to hear from you again."

Oh god. Oh, this is not good. Yusuf's voice goes straight down Nicky's spine and makes his toes curl. He was going to be so suave, he was sure of it. Maybe aim for friendly instead, he tells himself.

"Hey! Hi. Yusuf, right?" Happy to be on the phone rather than a video call, Nicky winces, mouthing swear words and slapping himself on the forehead for even trying to be cool. He's trying to figure out how to gracefully get off the call when his idiocy pays off because, yes, oh perfect, there it is. Yusuf is laughing.

It just sounds so joyful. Nicky's been trying to imagine what he looks like, but now all he can think is that out wouldn't matter what kind of body that laugh came out of; Nicky would find it gorgeous.

"That's me. How are you doing?"

"I'm good, mostly. It's always an adventure in DevOps."

"Oh?" Yusuf sounds genuinely curious, and it's been weeks since Nicky could bend an informed, sympathetic ear other than Nile's.

"Too much to do, not enough people, too many deadlines, and it takes longer to explain stuff to the subcontractors than it would take me to do it myself, sometimes." Nicky sighs, then remembers he's talking to another actual person. "I'm sure everyone has their own version of that. Hey, if it were fun, they wouldn't pay us for it, eh?"

Yusuf laughs again, and it's a slightly darker, more knowing sound this time. "Oh Nicky, the days I've had recently. We could be here for hours trading horror stories, I'm sure."

Part of Nicky wants to invite Yusuf for lunch the next time he and Nile go out. Just some burgers and a good old-fashioned bitchfest. He doesn't, though. This is only their second conversation, and Nicky's not even sure if Yusuf is in this office. He might be in one of the satellite facilities.

"Well, I wouldn't want to keep you from your queue and get you into trouble, but if you ever want to vent, you've got my extension." Nicky rocks his chair back as far as it will go. "Not as repayment for listening to me, or something, just. Sometimes it's nice to vent to someone who understands all the words."

It's always hard to explain that concept to his family or friends, even some friends in other kinds of IT work. They ask how his day was, and Nicky wants to tell them the truth. The problem is, by the time Nicky explains who the major players are and what the terms mean, it's almost more work than it's worth. Half of Nicky's family thinks he never sleeps because when they ask him how he's doing; he can't bear to go through the explanations, so he just says, 'I'm fine. I'm just tired.'

Yusuf, it seems, knows precisely what Nicky means.

"Thank you, Nicky." There's a kind of firm sincerity in his voice as if he wants Nicky to know how much the offer means. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Sure. Anytime." Nicky's feeling on firmer ground now; he props his feet up on his desk.

"For now, let's talk about what's going on with you. I'm assuming you didn't call just to hear my voice." Yusuf laughs, and Nicky falls backward out of his chair.

Whether it's the noise of the chair that Yusuf hears or the undignified yelp Nicky can't quite stifle, it's obvious Yusuf has heard something happening. From the headset currently trying to garrote him, Nicky hears a tinny, "Nicky? Nicky, are you okay?"

"Fine," he says as he untangles himself. "I'm fine. Sorry. I, uh, had a problem with my headset."

"Is that what you called about?"

Nicky pulls his chair close and gingerly takes a seat. "No, I think I'm having a problem with my docking station." On her way back from the break room, Nile sees him digging his heels into the carpet as he pushes himself back over to his keyboard. She arches one eloquent eyebrow. Nicky responds with a rude hand gesture. "My monitors keep flickering every time I plug the laptop in."

Warm, liquid honey-smooth, kind. Nicky's lost coming up with words for the sound of Yusuf's voice, so he entirely misses the first question. "Sorry? That cut out for a second."

"Nicky, if I were a betting man, I'd put money on our next conversation being about your headset. I asked if you'd updated the docking station drivers at any point recently."

"No. I don't think so? Not unless IT Ops pushed something out."

"Not that I know of. Let's see what you're working with." He gives Nicky instructions on where to find the version he's running, and when they realize the drivers are out of date, instructions on where to get the latest updates. While they're waiting for the download, Yusuf asks, "Am I keeping you from anything? I can email you these instructions if you need to be doing something else."

"No! No. Sorry. The only thing on my calendar right now is a status meeting, and I can send in my updates by mail." The chat notification on Nicky's desktop blinks. It's Nile telling him what an asshole he is for having an excuse to miss the meeting. "Besides, it'll probably just be the subcontractors giving all the updates anyway, since they're getting to do the fun stuff right now."

"They won't let you help?"

"No, sadly. It's all stuff I've worked on before, but it's been a couple of years, and my team lead insists that these guys know what they're doing more than I do. He says my team should just keep moving forward on our deliverables and let these guys work." Every time The Weasel says something like that, it rubs Nicky the wrong way. For one thing, he doesn't like being told he can't do something; it makes him want to be stubborn just on principle. It also doesn't make sense from a business perspective. Too much separation between teams means problems when it comes time to fit the pieces together, and if something terrible happens to one resource, the other resources won't be able to pick up their work quickly.

Aside from all that, Nicky doesn't trust these guys as far as he can throw them. They're not supposed to have access beyond what they need, but right now, they essentially have the skeleton keys to the entire environment. He's just waiting to see if The Weasel picks up on it.

Yusuf, just like last time, is kind and understanding. "I'm sorry to hear that, but at least I can keep you out of a boring meeting. You did that for me last week, so think of this as keeping things even." He laughs again, and Nicky can feel his heart rabbiting in his throat. "Drivers finished?"

"Yes." Nicky grabs his water bottle and swigs some. "All finished. Should I open them?"

They go through the installation steps together, after which the only thing left is a reboot. While they wait for Nicky's laptop to come back up, Yusuf asks, "So, it's Thursday, any big plans for the weekend? Anything fun?"

Nicky's forehead creases. He wants to believe that Yusuf is flirting with him, dropping hints, but the likelihood is that it's just another polite exchange. "I don't think so. There are some things to catch up on in my apartment. Sunday mornings mean coding with the kids. Nothing too exciting."

"You're teaching your kids to code?" Yusuf sounds distracted; Nicky can just imagine the calls that must be piling up in the queue.

"Not my kids, no. There's a tutoring company downtown that does free coding sessions on the weekends for kids between eight and fifteen. It's mostly visual code blocks that the kids can drag and drop, but it gives them a sense of how it works, and I love watching them figure out how everything comes together. So I spend a couple of hours there on Sunday mornings working with them. It helps if they've got someone they can ask questions, but we're mostly there to keep them from getting so frustrated it's not fun. A certain amount of challenge is nice, but any more than that—"

"Any more than that and someone's breaking their mouse."

Nicky laughs. "It's happened!"

The silence on the line grows heavy during the three or four seconds it stretches out. "Nicky, it sounds amazing. Those kids are lucky to have a mentor like you. What's the name of it?"

Groaning, Nicky says, "It's awful. It's called 'Full STEM Ahead.' I've been trying to get them to change it for years. But I suppose it gets peoples' attention. If you've got kids—"

"No, just me."

"—Oh. Good. I mean. If you have nieces or nephews or something, they might enjoy it." He takes a deep breath, wondering if he managed to salvage that slip up at all. Probably not. He's likely making it worse by now and should cut his losses. "My laptop's back up."

"Oh. Yes, good. Can you take it off the dock, and then put it back in?"

The display goes black as Nicky disconnects his computer, then flicks on again when he hears the satisfying 'click' of the laptop docking. "So far, so good. Let me get logged in." When the main screen comes up with no flicker at all, Nicky's brain seizes on an opportunity to be effusively admiring. "It worked! The flicker is gone, Yusuf! You're amazing, incredible; you just made my day. Thank you," Nicky says, "My hero," he sighs dramatically and hopes his laugh sounds like something other than what it is: A desperate attempt to hide how much enjoyed telling Yusuf what Nicky really thinks about him.

Thankfully, Yusuf is laughing too, so Nicky's pretty sure he's gotten away with it. "Not me, I'm just keeping the ship heading in the right direction."

"I'm grateful, no matter what. Thank you, Yusuf."

"Anytime, I mean it. Anytime." At the other end of the line, Nicky can hear Yusuf take a deep breath in and let it out. "Have a good one, Nicky. Enjoy your coding with the kids."

"I'll try. I hope you have a wonderful weekend as well."

Hanging up, Nicky rocks back in his chair, kicking his feet up on the desk again, now that he's not losing all control of his limbs just from hearing Yusuf's voice. He closes his eyes for a second, replaying the sound of Yusuf's laugh.

Closing his eyes was a mistake. The first sign he has of Nile's approach is the feeling of her jerking his chair back as far as it will go.

Nicky is halfway to the floor before he gets his eyes open, and his arms flung out in a futile attempt at balance.

"What kind of bullshit was that?"

"What?"

"Who was that on the phone?"

"IT. They were helping me with my laptop drivers."

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" She raises her eyebrows.

"Nile, you're the worst person."

"Like I care. Come on, I've wanted coffee since that status call started and I didn't even have you to keep me company, so now you're taking a walk with me.'"

The first time The Weasel had stopped Nile on her way to the break room, insisting he only wanted a "quick check-in," Nicky and Nile had worried it was a sexual harassment thing. Nicky carried on thinking that through the first couple of times The Weasel did it to him as well. In the end, they both realized that he wasn't a harassing creep; he was just a micromanager who never turned down a chance to look over their shoulders.

Eventually, it became clear that he'd only pull them into his office if they were alone. "Right," Nile had said. "Pack survival tactics is what will save us here." Since then, they'd had the buddy system for coffee runs, grabbing lunch, anything that took him past his office. Even trips to the printer if The Weasel was in a particularly snitty mood.

Nicky grabs his mug and follows her.

"While we're at it," she says as he catches up, "you can tell me what kind of IT guy keeps you on the phone for forty minutes and still has you smiling like that at the end." Sighing, Nicky resigns himself to telling her about Yusuf. Maybe if he vents to her, he can maintain some level of reality about what's happening.

"Just don't tell me about him 'clearing your cache' or anything. I don't need to know about that." Nile asks.

Watching her smirk at him, Nicky thinks that, actually, maybe confiding in her right now isn't such a good idea.

Joe, inspired by his calls with Nicky, spends the weekend scripting, realizing halfway through Saturday that he's missed it more than he knew. Watching the automation step through its workflow and finally end with the result Joe was hoping for is enough to have him punching the air, cheering himself. All that remains is to clean it up and set up a job that will run it at regular intervals. When he's finished, he's got a system that will send his niece a different quote from one of her favorite anime series every Monday, with a note from him telling her that he hopes she has a great week at school.

It's not fancy, but it was fun to flex his skills like that again.

Sunday evening, Joe sighs, picking out what he'll wear the next day, feeling the weight of the coming week settling on his shoulders. He finds he's not ready to be done with the fun part of technology, so he pulls up the webpage for the organization that Nicky works with and makes a substantial but not eye-watering anonymous donation to them. Maybe someday he'll be able to have the guaranteed free weekend time to go in and volunteer himself. For now, he'll settle for making Nicky's weekends a little more fun.

Nicky calls twice the next week. Both times for something small and easy to fix. Both times they're on the phone for at least half an hour, and Joe enjoys every minute of it. He likes Nicky's warmth and his sense of humor; even more, he likes the way helping Nicky reminds him of how fun technology can be, how little changes can make a big difference. Some days it's the only technical thing he does the entire day. He's the CEO of a technology company, and the closest he gets to technology is helping Nicky recover an unsaved file from a networked shared folder. Most of all, though? He loves just talking to Nicky, a man who seems genuinely interested in how he's doing and isn't related to him. Only a small number of people in Joe's life have those qualities; finding another seems like flipping over a log to find a truffle the size of his head.

That's not true, though, is it? Nicky is genuinely interested in the life of Yusuf, the IT helpdesk tech. Joe knows that he and that Yusuf aren't such very different people, but he's pretty sure Nicky wouldn't stick around long enough for the explanation. He would, rightly, storm off as soon as he discovered Joe had been lying to him this whole time.

As he had done on their second call, Nicky gripes a bit about the number of meetings he has to go to. Joe (or rather, Yusuf) commiserates that they're the worst part of his day, too.

"I suppose that's management for you, though," Nicky says. "They love their meetings."

Joe's heart sinks, but he tries to recover. "Nicky, I can say with absolute certainty that the highest levels of this company hate having their days packed with meetings as much as you and I do." When Nicky laughs, Joe says. "With the possible exception of the CFO. I think she might like packing her day full of meetings."

"You think she likes meetings?"

"No. I think she's a sadist, and the more meetings she holds, the more pain she's inflicting."

Joe can hear Nicky coughing. "Sorry. Sorry. Water down the wrong pipe." There's a pause before Nicky says, "You know, Yusuf, I bet most people who talk to you think you're smart and friendly, and none of them realize you've got that sense of humor hiding in there."

Something tightens around Joe's chest because he hasn't been able to say what he felt, let his inner smartass free, at work for far too long. It felt—good.

This is another reason he's glad Nicky knows him as Yusuf. Just like Yusuf is the name his mother yelled when he took the toaster apart at six-years-old, Yusuf is the one who makes people laugh. Joe goes to meetings instead of playing with old, broken toasters. Joe has to take everything seriously. Yusuf has snarky commentary on his coworkers, and today, Yusuf is going to solve Nicky's technology issue. Joe can go nap for a few minutes, or make himself useful and go pick up lunch.

Joe thinks maybe that comparison got away from him at the end there, and he's incredibly glad he didn't say any of it out loud.

He makes a few more offhand remarks while he's helping Nicky fix the issue of the day, and Nicky laughs at each of them. When this call is over, he's going to have to be Joe-the-CEO again, and it feels like that person is so far removed from the Yusuf who helps Nicky with his IT issues, that Joe wonders if that disguise will even fit him right now.

It will. It has to. He has work to do.

"Have a great evening, Yusuf. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep from bothering you too much in the future."

"It's a pleasure to help, Nicky, as always. Don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything you need. Anything."

"Okay, thanks."

"Sure."

"I'll keep the extension handy."

"Good plan."

Joe's so busy not ending the call; he entirely misses that Nicky isn't ending it either.

When the call is over, when he's in Joe-the-CEO mode again, Joe turns back to the report he'd been reviewing. It feels a little like the sun has gone behind a cloud, and he sighs. It would be a terrible idea to log into Nicky's laptop remotely and start disabling things just so he'll call. That would be a violation of several of his own policies, for one thing. So instead, he'll just wait and hope.

He does bring up Nicky's department page, though. The work they're doing sounds familiar and Joe recognizes the name of Nicky's team lead as the man who'd spent part of last year's Winter Holiday party paying him obsequious compliments and trying to insinuate himself into conversations. Skipping back up to the descriptions of their current projects, Joe frowns. If this team had needed outside help with database work, there are several in-house teams with resources who could be shared to help out. There wasn't any need to pull in subcontractors, so why did they?

Joe spends the rest of his afternoon meetings looking like he's diligently taking notes when in reality, he's making a list of places to check for unfortunate fingerprints.

At the next status meeting that includes only the team, Nicky broaches the subject of the subcontractors' permissions.

"Excuse me, sir?" It chafes every nerve Nicky has to call this man 'sir,' but he's fairly certain it'll get him a level of consideration in this conversation that The Weasel wouldn't otherwise afford him. A fact that is both depressing and amusing.

"What is it?"

"It's time for our monthly security posture check, and I'm wondering what justification we have for the level of permissions the subcontractors have?"

The Weasel rears back. "Excuse me?"

"We have to provide our access control list each month, detailing who has what privileges to which systems. Right now, these guys have admin access to almost everything."

"They need that for their work!"

"Okay, that's good to know, sir. Thank you, sir." Nicky can feel Nile jab him in the thigh with her pen, and he's glad the table hides everything below the waist. "Would you mind sending me a business justification so I can paste it in there?" He keeps his expression wide-eyed and sincere. He's just trying to do his job, and gosh, it sure would be nice if the people with the real power would help him out. Just for garnish, Nicky tries his most innocent smile, hoping that in this case, it'll come off as' too dumb to figure anything out.'

Whether it works or not, he may never know, but The Weasel says he'll email Nicky something in time for the deadline on the controls. Nicky's not holding his breath.

If he thought The Weasel was smart enough, Nicky might think something suspicious is going on when he opens the shared network drive the next day and can't see anything.

'No way he's smart enough for this,' is Nicky's first thought. His second is a little frisson of happiness sparking across his skin at having an excuse to call Yusuf.

First, he checks with Nile, since Yusuf always seems to appreciate when he's done some troubleshooting himself before he picks up the phone. She can see the folder contents and can't see anything obviously wrong in how he's accessing the drive.

"It should work," she says.

"Well, at least I know it's not just me. Time to call IT."

"Maybe your soulmate will be on duty again."

Nicky glares at her and regrets going out for drinks with her on Friday. If he'd gone straight home, he might not have said anything to her about the guy in IT with the incredibly sexy voice. At first, she'd tried to pick out which one it was by naming all the IT techs she could remember working with. Nicky had experienced a delightful moment of smugness when she couldn't immediately figure it out. He suspects he's paying for that now. Picking up the phone, he dials the extension.

Nile frowns. "Did IT get a new extension?"

Shrugging, Nicky says, "I guess so? Or maybe this is a second line? All I know is that the guy I usually—Oh, hi, just the man I was hoping to reach." It's accidentally the smoothest Nicky's ever been at the start of one of these calls.

"Hey, Nicky! Always nice to hear from you. Is it the headset yet?"

Nicky laughs and shoos Nile out of his cubicle. She leaves, but her face is creased in a confused frown as she walks away.

"Not the headset, sorry. It's a file share not showing me any files. Hey, not that I'm complaining about getting to talk to you whenever I call in, but, don't they give you any breaks?"

Yusuf sighs, and it sounds like he's resigned himself to being stuck in a boat that's going over a waterfall. "You know, Nicky, they really don't."

"I—" Nicky chews his bottom lip for a second, trying to decide on something. "I might have an idea."

"About your network share problem?"

"No, for after that."

"Well, let's see what's going on there. Would a screen share be okay?"

They do the hang-up-start-meeting-call-back dance so Nicky can show Yusuf the share he's trying to access.

"Oh," Yusuf says. "I think I might know what happened there. There were some updates to, uh, some of the file shares with proprietary documentation and intellectual property. You might have gotten knocked out of the group. Let me go check."

Nicky's unbending a paperclip to keep his hands busy. "When I was working with the kids on their code this week, they asked me what I was doing at work. I told them I spent a lot of it being rescued by the nice guy in IT."

"You told them I was a nice guy?"

"Aren't you?"

There's a long pause. "I suppose that depends on what your definition of' nice' is. Okay, I've added you back to that group, but it'll take a few minutes to sync with the directory." Another pause. "Did you need to—You don't need to stay on the line, you can just refresh it in about ten minutes, and let me know if that didn't work."

Nicky's not sure what to say. He doesn't want to get off this call, but there's no reason to keep Yusuf on the line. Most IT guys have their performance measured by how many trouble tickets they solve in a day, and Nicky doesn't want to be why Yusuf doesn't hit his numbers. Thankfully, Yusuf saves him.

"Or I could just hang out here for a few minutes to make sure."

"That would be great, thanks," Nicky says.

"So, how are things in DevOps lately?"

"Stultifying and with moving deadlines. The worst of both worlds." Yusuf laughs at his joke, and Nicky can't keep the smile off his face. "I need to get the security checks filled out for the month, and my team lead won't give me the last bit of information I need. Oh! I think you might be able to help me with this while we're waiting."

"Like I've said before, anything I can do for you, I'm happy to."

Nicky's throat goes suddenly dry, thinking about all the things he wants Yusuf to do for him. There's a thirsty click as he swallows. He grabs his water bottle and desperately tries to get the last few drops out of it, kicking himself for not having filled it earlier.

"Nicky?"

"Yeah. It's. You've worked here longer than I have; do you think the company ethics policy is just there for theater?"

"What?" Yusuf sounds genuinely startled.

"All of our training says we should report if we suspect anything. They promise there won't be any retaliation." Fidgeting, Nicky drags the string of his hoodie to one side, then to the other. "Do you think that's true? In practice, I mean?"

"Nicky, I can tell you that the highest level of management in this company believes that policy absolutely. The CEO sat down with the Operation Officer and the legal team and worked with them on that policy personally. If he found out that someone wasn't acting by that rule, they'd be out on their asses so fast they'd leave scuff marks on the sidewalk."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Nile says he's a good guy."

"I don't know about that," Yusuf says. "He seems like he wants to be, though." Nicky can hear Yusuf's mouse clicking. "I'm not asking for details, because I don't want to know, but I'll say that if you have a concern, you should absolutely file a report. They do the first round of investigations without alerting anyone, so if it turns out to be completely unfounded, no one has to know."

"Thanks, Yusuf. That's exactly what I needed to hear.

"What do I say, Nicky? Anything. Anytime." Nicky can hear the smile in his voice. "Try refreshing now," he says.

"Oh, perfect, everything's there! I don't know what I'd do without you, Yusuf."

There's a pause, and Nicky swears he can hear Yusuf start say something a few times before he finally gets out "I'm glad we were able to get it working again. You're a very rewarding person to help."

"Thanks."

"I gotta go, Nicky, but you know where to find me if you need anything, yeah?"

"I do, yeah. Have a good day, Yusuf."

"You, too."

The meeting ends, and Nicky sighs, tucking his headphones back in his ears and diving into the afternoon's work. It's not entirely effective at distracting him from the way Yusuf saying his name gives Nicky a nearly tactile pleasure. He still feels a bit like someone wearing a leather glove is petting the side of his neck, but at least this way, he's somewhat productive while he fails at ignoring his feelings.

The next morning, Nicky and Nile reward themselves for surviving the ten-thirty stand-up by visiting the fancy coffee place down the block. Nile gets something relatively simple and easy to order. She then dares Nicky to get the most complicated, obnoxiously overloaded thing on the menu. He's not a big coffee drinker anyway and likely wouldn't have finished it even if it had been something he actually liked. So, in the end, there wasn't any good reason not to order something that Nile insists looks like a unicorn pissed rainbows into a reusable mug.

They're still laughing about it when they come through the doors into the building's huge glass atrium.

"Oh, fuck." Nile swearing doesn't phase Nicky anymore, but she's grabbed his arm and stopped walking, and that does.

"What?"

"It's the CEO."

"Nile he's just a person like everyone else."

"Really?" she says, putting one hand on the back of his shoulder and guiding him around until he sees what she did.

It's not like Nicky hadn't known the head of their company was the kind of beautiful that stops traffic. When he'd spoken at the last company-wide meeting, Nicky had a chance to shake the man's hand. Up close, he'd somehow, impossibly, been more attractive. Right now, he's in the center of the atrium, greeting two women. His suit is dark gray, his tie looks black, and the light is hitting him in a way that makes Nicky trip over the gap between two tiles.

"You gonna make it?"

Nicky glares at Nile. "You know, sometimes, you could let things go without comment."

"I could. I could, but I won't." She jerks her chin in the direction of where the CEO is greeting two women. "How is it fair that he looks like that, he's smart, and he's got money. Plus, he's nice. It's the worst, Nicky."

From here, Nicky can see the man's expression. He looks so tired. His smiles are polite, even friendly, but it looks like he's got blocks of stone hanging from his shoulders. As they're about to pass, Nicky smiles at him and gives him the kind of smile he always wishes he could get on days when he feels like the oncoming train is only seconds from his heels. "Hello," he says.

Looking up, the man sees Nicky and smiles. His eyes crinkle at the corners, his nose scrunches up a little, and Nicky wants to write poetry about how the sun is playing in his curls. Fuck, those curls. Nicky's fingers twitch, and he has to shove one hand in a pocket to keep from reaching out. He doesn't hear anything until the elevator doors close behind Nile, and they're alone again.

"Shit, Nicky. Senpai noticed you."

Nicky shakes his head and frowns at Nile. "What?"

"Damn, I was hoping that joke was old enough for you to catch it. He said 'hi.'"

"That's polite."

"No. I mean, he looked you right in the eye and said, 'Hi, Nicky,' and he smiled at you."

"What?" Nicky drags his hand over his face. "How did I miss that?"

"Probably because he started by smiling at you. It was like watching the sun come out, Nicky. Like he'd been saving that smile just for you. I guess being able to make people feel that way is part why he's CEO, and we're not."

Nicky's brain scrambles for an answer. "I gave that update on Hour of Code at the last all-hands. He must have heard them introduce me; maybe he had to approve my slides before the presentation."

Nile's head bobs in a considering nod. "That would make sense. And it's more reasonable than assuming the CEO is in his office wondering how one of the seven app integration engineers four levels below him is doing."

"It sounds even more ridiculous when you say it out loud."

"He does still know your name, Nicky, and he smiled at you. That's a nice way to start the day."

Nicky can't argue with that. He wonders what Yusuf would think if Nicky told him this story. He might get a laugh at the image of Nicky so distracted by a beautiful man that he tripped over a flat floor. Then again, Nicky's not sure if a couple of phone calls means they're on friendly enough terms to talk about how attractive the CEO is, so maybe he'll keep this to himself.

After walking his visitors back out to the atrium, Joe sits back in his chair and replays this morning's disaster in his head. He'd looked right at Nicky, and in the most besotted voice imaginable, he'd greeted Nicky by name. He's mentally composing his apology letter when the man himself calls.

"Hi, Nicky."

"Yusuf, hey. I thought for sure you'd be at lunch."

Joe's not sure if he's being pranked right now, if maybe Nicky is saving his killing blow for later. "No. I just got finished with a meeting."

"Well, that's good luck for me because once again, I need your help."

"I don't—Sure. Yeah, of course, Nicky. How can I help?"

In his head, Joe is doing the probability calculus to see if it's possible he actually got away with that slip in the atrium. Maybe his voice hadn't been as loud as he thought. Or perhaps Nicky had been distracted by his companion. Somehow, and really, Joe's not picky, it seems like this isn't the disaster he was expecting.

The fact remains that even if he did get lucky this time, he's got to come clean soon. This isn't fair to either of them, but it's especially unfair to Nicky. It isn't what one might call 'informed consent,' and it's making Joe feel like more of a shitheel each time. He knows the longer he waits, the harder it will be, but then he hears Nicky's voice, pictures his eyes.

'Soon, yes,' he thinks. 'Just. Not quite yet.'

Chapter Text

"I was testing a script, and I think I fat-fingered my password in it," Nicky says.

Joe, who has made that mistake more times than he can count, says, "It happens to the best of us."

"Right, and it wouldn't have been a problem if I'd run it against one machine. I ran it against twenty, though, and now—"

"Now, your account is locked out."

"It is, and I know it will unlock in an hour, but I don't have time for that. I need to run one more test before the change window closes in half an hour."

For the first time, Nicky's calling Joe for something Joe can't actually fix. It's not that he doesn't know how; it's just that as CEO, there are things even he doesn't control, and unlocking accounts is on that list. "Okay, hang in there with me," he says. 

If he was feeling like a jerk before, it's about to get exponentially worse, because the only thing Joe can do is the thing Nicky thinks he's actually doing. He needs to get ahold of IT. Joe pulls up the IT group contact specifically for user management and reaches out to them via chat. A few seconds later, he sees ' Jonas M. has joined the conversation .'

"So, what kind of script," Joe asks.

"It's meant to simulate multiple simultaneous deployments."

"Ah, stress testing."

Nicky seems delighted to be talking to someone who understands. "Benchmarking really, before we start trying it against systems already running under production load."

"Makes sense. Give me just a minute here."

Jonas M: Good afternoon, Mr. al-Kaysani, how can I help you today?

Joe K: I'm speaking with a developer, and his account has gotten locked out. It needs to be unlocked.

Jonas M: I can certainly help with that, sir. Can I have his username and employee ID number?

"Okay," Joe says. "We're at the validation step. Can you let me know your employee ID number?" He knows Nicky's username from the VPN troubleshooting call, but there's no way to get his employee ID number in a way that won't make Joe look like an even bigger creep than he already does. 

"Sure." Nicky rattles off the number, and Joe enters it into the chat along with his username. Jonas's answer makes Joe want to slap himself in the face. A verification question, of course, and the answer has to come from Nicky.

"Still with me, Nicky?"

"Always."

Joe's face gets hot. How did he ever think he might get out of this before he developed a massive crush on this man? "The next thing that's going to happen is that one of the Service Desk User Management team is going to reach out with a verification question. I'll be here when you're finished."

"Got it. I'll just—oh, that must be them. A moment, please, Yusuf, I'll be right back."

For the thirty seconds, Joe is on hold, all he does is think about how nice it always feels to hear Nicky say his name. This is the worst.  Joe  is the worst. Still, it'll be nice to have those memories when Nicky stops speaking to him. 

"Well, that was easy," Nicky says as he comes back on the line.

Jonas M: Thank you, sir. We'll unlock his account now. Please have him reach out if he has other issues.

Joe K: I'll do that. Thank you.

"Good to hear. You should be unlocked in about a minute. I'll have you try then."

"Thanks for staying on the line with me while I confirm."

"Nicky, you know it's no problem."

"It's a chance for me to skip another meeting, too. Though my teammate will be furious at me."

"Do you want me to let you go so you can get to that meeting?"

"No, she'll live. She just likes to know she's not suffering alone. It's like our UX tester says, 'Misery loves company.'"

Maybe it does, Joe thinks. Company might be nice.

"Are you miserable here, Nicky?"

"No. God, no." Nicky laughs a little. "My team lead is—I've had better team leads, but the engineers I work with are amazing, and the technology we're building is fascinating." He pauses for a second, and Joe tries to picture him worrying at his lower lip with his teeth, deciding how to continue the discussion. It's a lovely picture; he might bring it back again later, just for fun. "Why? Are you miserable here, Yusuf?"

The worst questions, Joe thinks, are the ones you don't dare ask yourself, because you already know the answer and are just too chickenshit to deal with it. 

"Yes," he says. "Sometimes."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I mean, no one expects work to be a joy all the time, but you shouldn't have to stay in a job that makes you miserable." 

"That's what my mother says."

"She sounds like a smart woman, Yusuf."

Oh, Nicky ,  she really is, and she would adore you.  The thought of Nicky meeting his mother hits Joe like a truck and is gone in an instant, leaving him feeling like his chest has been crushed. Right now, Joe has about a week before Nicky stops talking to him, if he's guessing right, and after that, daydreams like that one will just hurt worse. Best to avoid as many as he can.

"Thank you, Nicky. I'll tell her you said so. Don't worry, though, I've got a few ideas for how to make work less miserable. I'll let you know how they turn out."

"That sounds great, Yusuf." Joe can hear Nicky's fingers on the keyboard. "It worked! I'm unlocked!" There's a pause then the sound of a pen tapping on a desk. "I know I say this every time, Yusuf, but thanks again for your help today. You're always amazing."

Joe can feel the back of his neck get hot. "Well, I know I   say  this  every time, but I'm here for anything I can do to help you, Nicky. Anything, anytime."

Nicky's voice gets soft, and Joe waves goodbye to any chance of getting through the rest of the day without more daydreams about him. 

"I knew that, but it's always nice to hear it again."

As soon as Joe hangs up, he drops his head back against his chair and sighs. Pressing the heels off his hands into his closed eyes, he groans. "Yusuf, you asshole."  

Nicky's calling nearly every day now, and God help him, Joe loves talking to him every single time. He doesn't love living with himself, knowing he's been lying to Nicky since the beginning.  Next time he calls, I'll say something. 

The Weasel's weekly project update meeting is the next thing on Nicky's calendar.

"Does it still count as a weekly status meeting if he manages to have a different kind of status meeting for this project every single day?"

"I feel like we should get recognition for this on our performance reviews," Nile says. They're early for the meeting because, although there are plenty of chairs in the conference room, Nile wanted to bring her own. Nicky's carrying her notebook, phone, and coffee while she pushes the chair.

"Nile? What are we doing with the chair?"

" We  aren't doing anything with it."

"Fine. What are  you  doing with the chair?"

She takes her coffee from his hand. "Don't spoil my fun, Nicky." 

He's long since given up trying to argue with her when she's smiling like that. For one thing, whatever happens shortly after that smile is usually hilarious. 

The Weasel and the subcontractors file into the conference room and the rest of the in-house team. Once everyone is around the table, Nile sits primly in her chair and opens her notebook, the very picture of innocent attentiveness. Nicky's status update comes first.

"We were able to get the stress testing performed against the servers simulating production load; I just need to get those numbers complied and sent out."

"The deadline for this milestone was two days ago," The Weasel says.

"For performing the testing, yes." Nicky takes a deep breath and reminds himself to keep his temper. This project will end in a few months, and Nicky will be able to get off this team. Maybe he and Nile will go together. "We met that deadline; we finished the testing advance of the target date. The reporting on those numbers still takes a couple of days to finish."

There's a sneer on The Weasel's face. "When I see a milestone with a deadline, I expect that deadline to be for all the work involved, not half the work. I expect—"

A high-pitched metallic squeal cuts him off. Every gaze in the room snaps to where Nile is rocked back in her chair. "Oh, wow. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that."

The Weasel shakes his head, disgust plain on his face, but when he starts talking again, he seems to have forgotten Nicky's public flaying and moved on to Booker.

Nile continues using her chair's sound to cut The Weasel off mid-tirade for the rest of the meeting. Not every time, but enough that when it's time for the subcontractors' update, there's a little vein bulging at The Weasel's right temple.

"Were you able to find the documentation you needed?" The Weasel asks.

The lead contractor leans forward to rest his elbows on the conference table. "We found some, yes. We're still missing a few things that will help us with the last stages of work we have to do."

"If you need anything, see one of these two," he waves his pen in the direction of Nicky and Nile before shifting, so he's speaking specifically to Nicky. "I'm letting you know directly that you're to assist them in any way they need. This should help clear up any requirement for business justification." He sniffs, and Nicky flicks his eyes over to Nile, trying to figure if he needs to fling himself into her path to keep her from stabbing The Weasel with her fountain pen.

She likes that pen. It would be a shame to mess up the nib.

If he gives them all the permissions he says he wants to, they'll be able to access work done by other subcontractors, some of whom are direct competitors. He's also potentially exposing confidential information. Either The Weasel thinks he's very smart, in which case he's wrong, or he doesn't realize he's very stupid, in which case he's also wrong. It hardly matters which, as Nicky is pretty sure that won't be a required field on the ethics complaint form he'll be filing when he gets back to his desk.

To Nicky's left, Booker asks the subcontractors, "When will we be able to see your component? I'd like to be able to start building the test scenarios for it now."

"When it's ready," the lead contractor says. 

Booker looks startled. "Is there a proof of concept? Or even a design document I could see? It would really help the rest of us meet the—"

"I believe the update was clear," The Weasel says. "The code for their component of the application will be—"

Another metallic shriek from Nile's chair, and Nicky is nearly biting through the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. 

"God, I can't seem to find a good position in this chair. Every time I even turn a little, it makes the worst noise!" She has the absolute balls to look sheepish, and Nicky wants to give her a medal for her acting. "Sorry," she says, looking at The Weasel, "I'll call the facilities team as soon as we're finished here to have them take a look at it."

"Perhaps you'd like to move to another chair for the remainder of the meeting," The Weasel says.

Nile's smile is sunny and warm as she says, "Oh, no, thank you. I wouldn't want to disrupt things by moving all my stuff around. I know we're almost finished anyway."

The last update is from their logistics lead. The Weasel doesn't interrupt; neither does Nile.

The Weasel is the first one out of the conference room when the meeting is over, and the subcontractors are immediately behind him. Eventually, it's just Booker, Nicky, and Nile. 

"Nile, Friday lunch is on me. I don't care where you want to go, I'm buying," Booker says. 

"You don't have to do that."

"You're right; I don't. That was quality entertainment, though, and it deserves a reward."

"Well, I was going to try to drag Nicky out for sandwiches with my hot friend from Networking and Security, but you buying me lunch sounds like a much better option." She grabs a chair that absolutely isn't the one she wheeled in here and starts pushing it back to her desk. "Nicky, can you grab my stuff? "

"Of course." 

Booker waves to them and heads off to his desk. 

"If I buy you lunch, will you stop trying to fix me up with your friend in Networking?" Nicky asks her.

"Maybe."

"What if I told you that there's someone I'm interested in that I've been talking to, and I'm about to ask him out?"

"Nicky!" She swats him on the arm. "That's amazing! Where did you meet him? Was it an app? You can tell me if it was a dating app. I won't judge."

"Mostly it's over the phone." Before she can ask another question, Nicky cuts her off. "Nile, if I promise to tell you the rest of this later, will you forgive me for running away from the conversation right now? I have something I need to do before I lose my nerve."

"Are you going to ask him now?"

"No. This is. Something different. I promise, Nile, I'll tell you all of it."

She looks at him, and Nicky wonders if she can read everything he's thinking. If she can, she takes mercy on him. "Good luck," she says. "With whatever it is."

Once she's gone, Nicky pulls up the internal page for Ethics and Compliance and clicks on the link to file a report. It feels like suddenly, his week is full of possibilities. Maybe he  will  say something to Yusuf the next time they talk. 

Yes. This is a plan. He's going to pluck up his courage and lean into the strike zone. What's the worst that could happen? And wouldn't it be better to know for sure no matter what the answer is? It's true, Yusuf could decide that Nicky asking him out is grounds to call off their friendship—it must be a friendship by now; it has to be—but Nicky doesn't really want to be friends with someone who'd do that, anyway. He scribbles, Fortune favors the bold, on a sticky note, and slaps in on the corner of his monitor. A reminder for tomorrow, he thinks. 

Joe hadn't lied to Nicky. The first round of investigation on those complaints is done entirely within the E&C team, with no external knowledge or involvement. If that team decides the complaint has grounds for further investigation, they notify the relevant parties that an investigation is beginning.

The notification email goes to himself, the Chief Security Officer, and a member of their legal team. A copy of the original complaint is attached, though scrubbed of names, and the date on it is yesterday. Even stripped of any identifying data, Joe recognizes the scenario instantly. Usually, the initial review process takes at least a week. Joe has to wonder how incompetent these guys are that the first round of investigation takes less than a day.

It's out of his hands now, and it's out of Nicky's hands as well.

He's still flicking through his mail when Joe hears a knock on his door and looks up to see the Facilities team member assigned to this floor.

"Hey, Dani."

"Hi, Mister K. The receptionist at the front desk called to say you had a delivery." She hands him a thick document envelope.

"Fantastic, I've been waiting for these. Thanks, Dani."

"That's my job," she says before sketching a quick salute and heading back to her desk. 

There is a very short list of people Joe would be sad to not work with anymore, and Dani is fully a third of it.

He tears open the envelope and starts going through the pages, reading over the notes left by his lawyer. There are surprisingly few of them, mostly simple modifications. He's nearly finished when the phone rings.

"Yes?"

"Yusuf?"

"Nicky." Joe tries to keep his voice from giving anything away. He's doing fine until, with a breathy sigh, he says, "Hey." 

Well. That was an abject failure.

"Hey yourself. Got a few minutes for me?"

"Always, you know that. Am I helping you skip another meeting?"

"No," Nicky laughs. "I'm just about to take lunch, actually. The reason I'm calling is that I need to set up some training calls for our pilot program at the end of the month, and I want to make sure that each person is invited to at least two sessions. But when I try adding groups to meetings, I can't see the members of that group. It's making it hard to keep track of who's been invited to which sessions."

"Let me see what I can find." 

For the first time, Joe legitimately has no idea how to resolve Nicky's issue. He barely knows where to start troubleshooting it. More than that, though, he knows this is absolutely not an issue that needs to be handled over the phone. Nicky could have sent an email to the helpdesk and gotten the problem resolved in plenty of time. Leaving Joe with one question blaring in his mind. How much of this is just Nicky wanting to talk to him? 

Joe's not stupid. He knows that Nicky's called for things that a quick search would help him fix on his own. He's called for things that should have been tickets rather than calls, also. On the other hand, Nicky talked about how their calls got him out of boring meetings, so his problems' solvability might not have been a sign of anything.

He also knows that Nicky is nicer to him than most people are to their IT techs when they call a help desk. The problem is that every other piece of evidence Joe's seen tells him that Nicky is a genuinely nice guy, one who goes out of his way to be kind and helpful to everyone. If that's true, the way he treats Joe is nothing special.

Right now, though, Nicky isn't skipping a meeting. He's spending part of his time, part of the time he could be using for lunch, talking to Joe. Talking to him like a friend. It's too soon for Joe to hope for anything else, but friends? He can do that. Especially today.

"I'm pulling up your group membership to check your permissions. So how are things on your side of the house today?"

"They're fine. Not as good as yesterday."

"What made yesterday good?"

"I think I got my teammate to stop trying to fix me up with a guy she knows in another department."

Joe's heart lurches in his chest. Taking a deep breath, he tries to remind himself that just because he'd have used that same kind of phrase to casually introduce information about his target dating demographic doesn't mean that's what Nicky's doing.

On the other hand, it  is  the way Joe would get that into a conversation, and now is right about the time he'd try it. "I used to work with a guy like that. He tried to fix me up more times than I could count, and always with the worst men."

Nicky laughs, and Joe feels it curl up in his chest like a contented cat.

"She's not that bad, and she means well."

"Okay, I've looked over your permissions, and I hate to say it, because I don't like not knowing the answer, but I'm stumped."

"Well, at least I know it's not just me being dense."

Joe can't hold back his laugh. "Not at all. I'm going to need to open a ticket on your behalf, and someone from the Access team will reach out to you."

"Sounds good."

"Give me just a minute, and I'll have that ticket number for you."

"I'm not going anywhere," Nicky says, unaware that he's wreaking havoc on Joe's good sense. "Hey, Yusuf?"

"Mmm?" 

"Have—"Joe can hear Nicky take a breath. "Have you had lunch?"

"No, but I'm—"

"I brought leftovers today. I just thought that we could hang out on the call and have lunch together if you were up for it. You've become one of my favorite people to talk to here, but I'm always worried I'm messing up your ticket numbers by keeping you too long when you're on the clock."

This is the worst idea Joe's ever looked at, known it was a bad idea, and done it anyway. It beats even the time he let his cousin talk him into a duet of 'Party in the U.S.A.' at karaoke.

"That sounds great. Write this ticket number down for me, and then give me a second to go get my lunch."

While Nicky's on hold, Joe pulls the stack of documents close to him. He quickly checks the last two flagged pages, scribbles a follow-up request on page seventy-three, and writes 'Clear these updates with her, and get me a final copy before end of day if possible,' on a post-it he slaps to the front page. Stuffing the pages back into the courier envelope and sealing it, he calls for Dani.

"I need this to go out in the next half hour. Can we do that?"

She glances at it. "No problem."

"Thanks, Dani." He tries to put into those words how much he appreciates her going above and beyond, how much he hates being that boss who has last-minute emergencies. From the way she smiles and waves away his thanks, he thinks she understands.

Joe slips his headset on and clicks back into the call. "Okay, where were we?" he asks as he pulls his lunch from the mini-fridge next to his filing cabinet.

For the first fifteen minutes, it's mostly polite pleasantries about how Nicky's current project is going, what their weekend plans are, and what they brought for lunch.

After that, they both relax a little. Nicky, in particular, relaxes enough to start venting about his team lead.

"He thinks we'll move faster if he just follows up with us more. As if somehow that does anything but slow us down."

"No one gets more done just because they have more meetings."

"Exactly," Nicky says. "He can't fill my day with four hours of meetings and then wonder why I didn't get eight hours of work done."

"Right? I have the same problem. Too many meetings talking about doing my job, not enough time to actually do my job."

"As if all that wasn't bad enough, he's also that kind of manager who just waits for you to make a mistake so he can point it out. Like he's using some kind of shame-based motivational system." Nicky makes a disgusted noise and takes another bite of his lunch.

Joe picks through his rice, trying to find another piece of chicken. "He sounds like an absolute shit. Pardon my language."

"No, he is. That's why we call him The Weasel."

Having met the man in question, Joe hears that nickname and laughs for nearly half a minute. "Nicky, that's perfect."

He can hear the smile when Nicky says, "Thank you." It's quiet for a second while they both chew, then Nicky asks, "What's the worst name you've ever given to a manager at this company?"

Yusuf, Joe thinks, but now is not the time to get into that. "There used to be two guys from the Operations team who were collectively known as Hunger Games."

"Do I want to know why?"

"Because we all wanted to put them in an arena and watch them fight to the death."

Nicky's laughing so hard he starts coughing. "That is brutal, Yusuf."

"I'm glad you approve. Hey, remember when I said I had a plan for helping me not be miserable at work?"

"I do! How's that going?"

"I've made really good progress. I'll have an update for you next week, though I probably won't be in the office much."

"Are you quitting?"

"Not. Exactly."

"How—"Nicky starts, but then there's nothing but silence for a while. "Sorry, I don't know what to say. How will you update me when you're gone? I can give you my personal email. How about that?"

"We'll figure it out, Nicky. I've got an idea already. You'll know as soon as I do." He doesn't want Nicky's personal email, not while there's still a chance this could go very, very wrong. This way, if Nicky never wants to speak to Joe again, he can be sure that Joe doesn't have a way to reach him.

"Well, okay." Nicky doesn't sound thrilled. 

"Nicky? However it turns out, I've really enjoyed talking to you for the last couple of months."

"I have too, but stop talking as if you are about to leave for the moon."

"Okay," Joe laughs. "I'm serious, though. These calls have been the best part of my day for weeks."

"Yusuf—"

Joe's other line lights up, and he sees the incoming number. Perfect, just the woman he's been waiting for.

"I need to go, though. There's someone on the other line I really have to talk to. Thanks for lunch. I promise, Nicky, as soon as I know, you'll know."

"Okay. Have a good day, Yusuf."

"You too, Nicky."

Three hours later, Dani brings him another envelope. He asks if she has the time to wait while he signs a few pages and then send it back out for him. Smiling, she says she's happy to.

Joe makes a note to talk to her the next day. He has a few questions.

Try as he might, Nicky can't come up with even the thinnest excuse to call Yusuf the next day. Just before he signs off, he promises himself he'll call tomorrow and just ask Yusuf for another lunch call, no pretense required. He taps the post-it still on his monitor and heads out the door.

Any plans he might have had for the next day are blown out of the water before he even checks his mail.

Nile knocks on the top of his cubicle wall. "So. All of our status meetings are gone from the calendar."

Nicky stares at her like he's just figured out she didn't actually throw the ball. "What? Why?"

"I asked myself the same question. So I went to see if they were still on The Weasel's calendar. Nicky? The Weasel is listed as a 'former employee.'"

For a moment, it feels like all the air's been sucked out of the room. Nicky pulls up his calendar. There is precisely one meeting scheduled for today, and it starts in ten minutes, in a conference room five floors away. Nile is also listed as a required attendee. 

"Right. Yes. Let's go see what's going on."

They're alone in the conference room for a few minutes, staring at the novelty of new and different boring conference room art while not saying a word to each other. Precisely one minute before the scheduled start, they're joined by a man dressed like he has agreed to the concept of business casual rather than suits, but he's not happy about it at all .

"Thank you both for joining me. I'm Ivan Williams. I'm with the Ethics and Compliance team."

Nile looks like she's about to start sweating, and Nicky wishes he could reassure her that it's nothing she did, but his mouth has gone completely dry.

"First, let me say that neither of you has done anything to warrant any interest from my team. You're not here because you're in trouble."

Relaxing, barely, Nile sits back a bit in her chair. Nicky finally takes a deep breath.

"You're here because you're the most senior members of a team that has undergone some very recent restructuring, and your help would be appreciated in properly assigning work during this transition period."

Now he's got Nile's interest, but Nicky's still withholding his trust a bit. 

"As of end-of-business yesterday, Stephen Merrick is no longer employed by this company, and the members of Keane Associates he had brought in to assist on your latest development project have had their contract dissolved. They are no longer eligible for placement on any contracts with our organization."

Nile gapes at Nicky and mouths 'What. The. Fuck?' She's not as subtle as she thinks she is.

"Indeed, Miss Freeman. That was a not uncommon reaction among the investigators for this case. It was also an unfortunate surprise to Mister Merrick himself. I regret to say that he did not go gracefully. The good news is that the security guards were able to persuade him to leave. Eventually. In addition, no viable intellectual property or valid work product was removed by any of those individuals."

Nicky and Nile both take a second to imagine what it must have looked like—the two women who man the lobby security desk tossing The Weasel out on his ass. Possibly literally. 

"How is that possible that they didn't get any data?" Nicky asks. He clears his throat. "Sorry to interrupt, it's just that they had widespread access to several sensitive repositories."

"That's true, Mister Genova, but at some point recently, the at-risk information in those repositories was replaced with incorrect, invalid, or misleading files instead. As that information was not valuable to your current work, or indeed any project you've worked on during your time with this team, you were unaffected."

"Someone left dummy documents in our repositories."

"Essentially, yes."

"Who?"

Ivan swallows, and Nicky watches his collar bob as he does. It's starched. Who starches the collars on business casual shirts?

"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to tell you that particular piece of information at this time. Should that information become available, I'll pass it on." He flips to a new page on his legal pad. "Let's discuss what your temporary duties will be while we look for a replacement for Mister Merrick.

Nile nods like someone who is behind the conversation by a few minutes still. Nicky asks a couple of easy questions to give her time to catch up. When she shakes her head and looks at them, clear-eyed and says, "Right. What's first?" Nicky sighs. 

She's going to step in and take the reins, he thinks, and maybe they can finally get some work done.

For the next three days, Nicky is so busy working with Nile on task distribution, trying to figure out what, if any, actual work the Keane guys had done while they were on the project, and resetting milestone dates, that he only has time to stare wistfully at his phone a few times. He misses Yusuf. Misses his friend who is smart and patient and listens—the friend who could help now more than ever.

If he's honest, Nicky also misses the guy with the lovely, warm voice and the wicked sharp sense of humor. The guy Nicky was going to ask out to an actual lunch this week. He'd been hoping for—Not right now. Now isn't the time. He's late for another conference call. 

As if the week hadn't been full enough, on Thursday afternoon, there's a company-wide notification sent out about some updates to high-level staffing and what the announcement insisted on calling 'exciting changes.' As if that would somehow stop everyone on the attendee list from being scared shitless until they knew more. Frankly, on poorly delivered announcements, the' scared shitless' state sometimes last weeks before the 'exciting changes' start happening. Whoever sent this announcement has the good sense to schedule a video call for later that same afternoon, limiting the amount of time people can spend sitting around making up worst-case scenarios.

The plan is for his entire team to gather in one of the smaller conference rooms to watch the call together, but when then meeting time rolls around, Nicky is still in line for the lunch he said he'd grab for everyone as a thank-you for working so hard this week. Checking the invitation, he doesn't see a dial-in number, so he calls Nile instead.

"Has it started?"

"Yeah, we're watching the head of Operations give us some bullshit pep talk about dynamic business environments. Oh, here's CEO Hottie."

"Nile," Nicky sighs. "Don't call him that."

"Well, he is. Okay, let me just put you on speaker so you can hear what he's saying."

Something in the acoustics of the room they're in makes it impossible for Nicky to make out more than about half of every fourth word. He texts Nile, hoping she'll see it on her phone.

"What's up?" 

"I can't hear a damn thing, can you just tell me?"

"Sure. I might sometimes stop so I can listen to him. We've got the captioning on, though, so that helps."

"Nice."

"So far he says that he values and respects all of his employees and their work, that he's so proud of what we've accomplished. It's a lot of blowing sunshine up our asses for not a lot of—Oh, holy shit."

"What?"

"Holy. Shit."

"Nile! Tell me!"

"He's selling the company."

Nicky's heart drops. He likes his job, likes his team. News like this never means anything good for teams like his.

"Did he say who he's—"

"To us, Nicky. He's selling it to us."

Nicky is standing in line, waiting for his food order to be ready, his mouth hanging open and a look of total disbelief on his face.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

"One second, I'm—Okay. I think I've got it. He's started the process for an ownership sharing program, it's a specific kind, I don't understand what that means, but we can look it up later. It sounds like. Yeah, we're going to have to hear more about this, but Nicky, it sounds like he's got a plan for the employees to own the company. Holy shit."

"I don't know what to say."

"None of us do! This is a shock— Oh, fuck. He's stepping down as CEO, too. No more surprise sightings in the atrium."

Nicky's grabbed the lunch bag and is heading back to the office. He's only got two blocks to cover, and he's all but sprinting. "Tell me more." 

"He's brought someone in that he knows and trusts. She's going to be CEO and overseeing the ownership transition. After that, we can decide if we want to find a replacement for her. He seems pretty confident. Oh, man, Nicky, he seems like he really respects her. That's nice to see."

"That's pretty serious praise from you."

"I have high standards. He's got some fail-safes in place. He'll be staying on as a consultant, mostly for transition and historical knowledge, for a couple of months, but won't have any control except— Well, that's interesting."

Nicky's jabbing the button for the elevator. "What? What's interesting?" 

"He says he's negotiated with her that there—basically he's found a way to guarantee us that there won't be layoffs as part of this transition. You can still get fired for not doing your job—"

"Like The Weasel."

"Yeah, like The Weasel, but no other sweeping changes unless the employee-owners agree on them. Blah blah legal term blah blah oh he's introducing her. Oh fuck, it's her from the lobby!"

"I'm going to lose signal, Nile. I'll be there in a minute." Nicky hangs up as the elevator doors slip closed. He's bouncing the balls of his feet, trying to imagine how the next year is going to look. This might be the first time the phrase "exciting changes" had been accurate in a positive way. As soon as the doors open, Nicky is sprinting for the conference room.

He arrives just in time to see a woman with short, dark hair, smiling, and thanking the CEO—well, the former CEO, Nicky supposes. He recognizes her, and Nile's right. She's one of the two women who had been standing with the CEO the day Nicky said hello in passing and totally missed hearing the most beautiful man alive say his name. He's still pissed about that.

"—will try to live up to all of those compliments, Joe. Thank you. Hi everyone. What Joe didn't tell you is that he and I have been friends for decades, and so if we need him for anything, I know where he lives, and if he pisses us off, I have his mom's phone number." She smiles, and Nicky feels like he did when Nile stepped in during the meeting with Ivan the Terribly Over-starched. He feels like this change might mean something amazing is in store for them.

Nicky drops into one of the free chairs and starts handing out sandwiches as he listens to their new CEO talk about her plans.

It's another three days before Nicky gets a chance to call Yusuf. He just picks up the phone as soon as he sits down in the morning. It goes straight to voicemail. Yusuf's voice raises all the hairs on Nicky's arms. "Hi, please leave a message."

"Hey. It's. Um. I really hope this isn't a shared voicemail box. It's Nicky, and I just wanted to check-in. We've had some pretty wild changes lately, and I wanted to see how you're doing and tell you about how things turned out with The Weasel. If you're going to be near the home office at any point, maybe we could grab lunch. In person. It would be nice to say hi." Nicky can hear himself winding up for a good babble, so he slams the phone down before his mouth makes anything worse.

Yusuf doesn't call that day. 

On Friday, just before noon, Nicky's phone rings, and he sees on the readout that it's a conference room on the third floor.

"This is Nicky."

"Hey, it's—"

"Yusuf! I'd been wondering how you were doing with all these changes."

"They've been great for me, actually."

"That's fantastic news!"

"Let me tell you all the details," Yusuf says. "I've been over here doing some paperwork, and I thought it might be a good day for that in-person lunch you mentioned in your voicemail."

Nicky's trying to figure out what emotion he hears in Yusuf's voice. Is he nervous? What if, Nicky thinks, I'm not the only one who's been getting a crush. He sees the post-it on his monitor. Fortune favors the bold. 

"Sure, let me grab my food."

"Okay. There's some stuff down here, too."

One of the rarely acknowledged perks of office life—leftover meeting food.

"I'm on my way," Nicky says before he hangs up. He taps on the top of Nile's cubicle. "My savior in IT is in the building, and we're going to get lunch, I should be back in an hour or so."

"Look at you, feeling all confident. Is this going to upset the guy you've been talking to?"

"Um. No."

Nile stares at him. "This  is  the guy you've been talking to, isn't it?" Nicky shrugs. "You owe me the whole story. Now go to lunch and see if you can't add some fun details to it before I hear everything."

He grins at her and hurries to the elevator.

The third floor only has one conference room, so it doesn't take Nicky long to find where he's going.

Nicky's not sure who he was expecting to find in the room, but it certainly wasn't the former CEO. He's standing by the window, looking out at the people passing on the street, so Nicky takes a second to appreciate the view. It should be against the law for this man to wear anything that isn't fitted, Nicky decides. Today it's a dark red shirt that looks both stretchy and soft as it spans his back muscles and a pair of jeans that look as though someone tailored them until they begged for mercy. Perfect asses are a rare thing, and Nicky's pretty sure he's never seen one as perfect as this.

After a minute, Nicky realizes that he's visible in the reflection on the windows, and it's only a matter of time before he's busted staring like an idiot—time to figure where his lunch date went. Just as he's about to turn, the man at the window looks back over his shoulder and smiles.

It's the same smile from the atrium, and it has the same effect on Nicky. He feels like everything takes a second to catch up. "Mister al-Kaysani, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I was just looking for someone."

The smile falters a little, starts to look hesitant. "It's Joe, actually. Though," he takes a deep breath, "my family and friends call me Yusuf."

Nicky, for lack of anything better to do, frowns. There's something about his voice, but—this makes exactly zero sense, and Nicky can feel the separate halves of his brain whirring as the teeth of their gears utterly fail to connect. "That's who I was coming to meet."

Joe looks at him, that smile looking terribly sad now. "Let me try something. Close your eyes."

He does, though he's not sure to what end.

"Hi, Nicky," says Yusuf's voice. It's Yusuf's voice,  and he said his name was—   Nicky opens his eyes. "I'm sorry. For lying to you. For not telling you sooner."

"Why were you answering the IT line?"

Joe sinks into a chair near Nicky. "I wasn't. You were calling my direct extension."

Nicky thinks about the sticky note Booker had handed him with the extension scribbled on it. He thinks about Booker's notoriously awful handwriting. "Shit. I feel like an idiot."

"You aren't. It was just a mistake. It's my fault for not clearing it up as soon as you asked if you'd called IT."

Nicky looks up, making eye contact with Joe. "Why didn't  you clear it up right away?"

"You'll appreciate this, I think." Joe sighs and says, "I was trying to get out of a meeting."

The corner of Nicky's mouth curls in a little smile. "I do appreciate that."

"After that," Joe drops his head onto the headrest of his chair. "You know how some days it feels like you work all damn day and at the end, there's not a single thing you can point to and say,' That's what I accomplished.'" When Nicky nods, Joe goes on, "I wanted to accomplish something. I knew I could help you, and that would be something I could say I did. Something I finished. I needed that, Nicky, and I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you."

Nicky looks at this beautiful man, who has always looked more than a little sad, and thinks that it wasn't so long ago that he'd wanted to make Joe smile. He just didn't realize that he already had.

"I liked talking to you," Nicky says.

Joe lets out a quick exhale, and his shoulders sag. "I liked talking to you, too. That's why I picked up the phone the second time, and every time after. You're funny, and you're smart. You also helped me remember what it was like to love my job, helped me remember what kind of work made me smile. Yusuf was the name I was still going by when I first learned to love technology. It was nice to be that guy again for a few minutes."

"Why are you telling me now?"

"Nicky, you're one of the best people I know. You deserved better than me lying to you, and I thought, maybe if you knew the whole story, if you knew why, and why I hadn't said something sooner, you might be willing to take a chance on being friends with me, not just Yusuf."

"You said you are Yusuf."

"I said that's my name, but it's not who I am. Or not all of who I am anyway. Some of me is Joe." There's a long pause. "You have every right to be angry, Nicky."

"I'm not angry. I just feel stupid. I must have seemed like such an idiot not to know who I was calling."

"No. No, never. You seemed like someone who needed help and was reaching out to the best resource. Nicky, I know I have no place asking for your trust, but I'm hoping you believe me when I say that other than my name, I've never lied to you."

"That's a pretty big one."

"It is. But it's also the only one. Everything else was the truth, including when I told you that my calls with you were the best part of my day. I never thought you were stupid for not looking up the number for IT. I was too busy being so damn glad you hadn't, because it meant I got to talk to you again."

Nicky feels something loosen in his chest. He has a few more questions, though. "They fired The Weasel. Did you do that for me?"

"No, Nicky. I swear. The Ethics and Compliance officer was able to gather enough data based on the information you gave him. I just made sure they couldn't do any damage while the E&C guy was looking."

"You put the dummy data there."

"I did. I figured they wouldn't have stuck around if they'd already gotten what they wanted, and I hoped that meant they taken anything big yet. So I did some research and some cross-referencing to see what projects you were involved with and what someone contracted to your team would be able to access. Then I just replaced anything that might have caught their eye."

"What if we'd needed one of those?"

"I was pretty sure you wouldn't, but of course, there wasn't a way to be certain. I just had to hope that if you saw a problem, you'd call E&C, or maybe you'd call IT."

"Call you, you mean."

"Or the real IT. They'd have escalated it, and someone would have gotten you the real information."

"Does the new CEO know?"

"No, she has access to the recent complaints, but no information on who filed them. The only way she'll know your name is because you're doing incredible work with your team."

Nicky moves to sit in the chair next to Joe. "You sold your company."

"I did."

"Why?"

"It wasn't what I wanted to be doing. Not anymore. I got into this business because I love technology, and I love using it to make life better for people. I didn't get into it to be in meetings six hours a day."

"Does this have anything to do with our conversations?"

Joe sighs. "No. I've been frustrated and fed up for a while. I just didn't remember what parts of this I loved until I talked to you a couple of times."

"So you're going to, what? Go work at an IT help desk?"

For the first time, Nicky gets to see that laugh in person, and it's utterly devastating. He feels warm, clear to the tips of his toes, and all he wants is to see Joe laugh again and again.

"No," Joe says. "I'm afraid I've gotten spoiled by being the boss. I just had to find a way to get to play with technology, make peoples' lives better, and get to be the boss all at the same time."

Joe's hands are resting on the table. It would be the easiest thing for Nicky to reach over and touch him. "What did you figure out?"

With one hand, Joe scrubs at the back of his neck. He almost looks sheepish, like this is the part that makes him feel the most vulnerable. "I'm going to be working with non-profits in the area: community outreach programs, civil rights organizations, places like that. Most of them run on painfully tight budgets, and while technology would often let them do their work better, and for less money, most times, they don't have the initial capital or technical skills on staff to make that happen. They need help planning and implementing the updates, they need training in using the technology best, and they need a break on equipment."

Nicky slides one hand forward a couple of inches. "You'll be—What? Running cables and giving them hardware?"

"Not giving, but more than a few companies owe me more than a few favors. There are grants out there, too. Money isn't an issue for me, Nicky, and I know how lucky that makes me. It's time to spread that luck around." Joe picks his hands up to make a gesture like he's either spreading seeds or dealing poker, Nicky isn't sure. What he  is  sure of is that when Joe puts his hand back down, it's closer to Nicky's than it was before.

"You're the networking fairy?"

Nicky fiddles with the cable at the back of the projector. He pretends it isn't because when he rests his fingers on the table again, they're so close to Joe's that he can feel the heat of Joe's skin. Nicky knows he might be reading into this, but it seems like Joe's made himself vulnerable in a way that's out of proportion with trying to salvage a casual friendship. Maybe Nicky's wrong, and all Joe wants is to be Nicky's friend. If that's the case, all Joe has to do is sit back in his chair and put his hands on his lap.

"Sure," Joe laughs again, and Nicky feels it pooling low in his belly. "And probably the server fairy sometimes, too. Nicky, I haven't run cables in years. I haven't gotten to play with actual equipment. I'm looking forward to it." He pauses for a second and takes a deep breath. "I have to be honest about something, though."

"What's that?" 

"What I'm going to be doing? That  is  because of our conversations. When you told me about your volunteer work, I couldn't stop thinking about working with tech in a way that doesn't just make life easier for some people; it makes the world a little better, maybe. Once I had an idea for what I wanted to do, it made me even more motivated to get out of the position I was in."

'Fortune favors,' Nicky thinks, as he reaches out and brushes one of Joe's fingers. It's the barest contact, just the ghost of Nicky's finger against Joe's knuckle, but Nicky can hear Joe's breath catch in his throat. 

"The new CEO seems like she's going to be great."

Joe lets his breath go like he wasn't aware he'd been holding it. "I think you're going to really like her."

Nicky's index finger curls around Joe's

"You said you signed the last of the paperwork?"

"I did." Joe's thumb brushes against the back of Nicky's finger. "I wanted to be legally clear of the company before I talked to you. Whatever you decided about my apology, I wanted you to be sure that it wouldn't affect your job at all." Nicky watches as Joe closes his eyes, takes a slow breath, then opens them again as he turns his hand palm-up on the table. 

Nicky waits until Joe is looking at him again, doesn't let Joe look away as he slips his hand onto Joe's. The skin of Joe's wrist is warm and smooth under Nicky's fingers as they brush back and forth. He thinks that if he held his fingers precisely the right way, he'd be able to feel Joe's heartbeat under his touch. It feels—right.

"I have a few more questions."

"Anything, Nicky. Anytime."

Nicky's smile plays at the corners of his mouth like it's not sure if it's ready to come out yet. "Do you need me to say I accept your apology?"

"You don't owe me anything, but it might be nice to know one way or the other."

"In that case, apology accepted. I know why you made the choice you did, you weren't trying to hurt or prank me, and you did always fix my problems." The smile starts on one side of Nicky's face and spreads until he can feel it pushing his cheeks up. Joe looks at him like the sun has just come out. 

"Thank you."

"Okay. Three more questions: Do you still want to have lunch with me?"

"Yes." Joe's smile is open, honest, and easy

Nicky grins at him. "Do you want to have dinner with me?"

Joe squeezes his hand as he says, "Yes."

Nicky sandwiches Joe's hand in both of his and bends forward just a little, resting his elbows on his knees. He looks down, seeing Joe's fingers peeking out from between his hands, curling around Nicky's wrist. He looks up at Joe from under a particularly unruly fall of hair.

"Do you want to kiss me?"

"Yes, Nicky," Joe whispers. "I really, really do."

Given their luck, he's expecting to slam into Joe's head as they both move to close the distance between them. Instead, Joe leans in a little, Nicky meets him halfway, and he feels Joe's clever, lush mouth pressed against his. It's the warmth of Yusuf's voice on those calls, the joy of Joe's smile in the atrium, the thrill of hearing him say Nicky's name or laugh. All of those things, folded together, sending sparks down Nicky's spine. It's perfect. With a wistful sigh, Nicky pulls back until only their foreheads are touching.

"One last question." Joe blinks at him, and Nicky thinks if it weren't for the fact that the walls of this conference room are glass, he'd be fine locking the door and forgetting lunch entirely. "Can there be more of those later?"

"Yes," Joe says with a huge grin. He tilts his chin up for another kiss, but at this point, it's really just two smiles meeting with the promise of a kiss to come. "Anything Nicky," Joe says, with his lips still mostly pressed to Nicky's. "Anytime."

If Nicky's math is right, and he's willing to eat when he's back at his desk later, he figures they still have almost forty minutes of kissing left. 

~

"Okay," Joe says, as soon as Nicky's finished helping ten-year-old Taylor debug their latest project. "The mesh network has the same name and password as the old wireless, so it should be pretty seamless for everyone." He stuffs his multitool back into his pocket.

"That's great, thank you again." Nicky brushes a cobweb from Joe's hair, taking the opportunity to twist one curl around his finger. Later, he thinks, he's going to help wash the cobwebs out of those curls and then run his fingers through them while they're watching TV. Not that Joe will complain. 

(Once, Joe had said he didn't understand Nicky's appreciation for his hair, insisting that after all, it's just hair. Nicky replied with, "Yes, and my eyes are just eyes." Joe, who only the night before had gone on at some length about the beauty of Nicky's eyes, was forced to concede the point.)

"You've been doing this kind of thing for almost a year now. Still having fun crawling around in the ceilings?"

"You know? I am." Joe says, and his smile is incandescent. Nicky wraps his arms around Joe's waist and leans back a little to grin at him.

"Have I told you lately that you're amazing?"

"You have, in fact."

Cocking one eyebrow, Nicky says, "Well, in that case, have I told you that I love you?"

Joe slips his hands into Nicky's back pockets. "Yes, but I'm always happy to hear it again."

"I love you," Nicky says, kissing the underside of Joe's jaw and catching the slightest hint of sweat overlaid by a bit of dust.

"I love you, too," Joe says, kissing him.

"Nico, is that your boyfriend?" Carlos calls from across the room. He's twelve and terminally curious. If he makes it past eighteen without electrocuting himself, he's going to change the face of engineering, Nicky's sure of it.

"Yes, Carlos. He's also the person who just upgraded the wifi so that you wretches can take the laptops back by the filament printers and still have a signal. So what do we say to Joe?"

A chorus of a dozen or so voices call out their gratitude. 

"I'm going to go drop off some equipment with Dani for tomorrow," Joe says, and Nicky grins. Dani's become Joe's partner in crime, helping with everything from the physical work to the post-implementation training. She'd been the only employee Joe asked Andy for permission to recruit, and Nicky knows Joe hasn't regretted it once. 

"After that, I'll pick up the last of the groceries for tonight. You'll be home for dinner at the regular time?"

"Yes," Nicky says, brushing his thumb over the curve of Joe's bottom lip. "By five at the latest."

It's their anniversary, and Joe is putting together an elaborate feast. The way he's channeling everything into the food is in response to Nicky insisting he didn't want a gift.

When Joe asked why, Nicky had tried to put into words what it means to wake up next to him each morning, to come home to dinner with him each night, to share this life with him. In the end, he'd merely kissed Joe, saying, "I have everything I could ever want."