Beta Test (#gaymers) (4 page)

“Well, son, I’m afraid I have a huge favor to ask.” The
Space Villager
founder’s voice was distinctly strained. Usually, the man sounded a lot like Tristan’s mother’s politician friends—measured tones and always positive and upbeat, but tonight he sounded more like he was standing on a Lego and trying to talk through it.

“Yes, sir. Anything.”

“Tristan. I’ve told you, call me Robert. And I’m at the hospital, you see. My wife is very ill with food poisoning, and I’m not doing so well myself. And neither are Katya or Mark. Rex just called me with word that both of them are at the ER as well. It seems most of the office are terribly sick.”

“Oh, that’s awful.”

“We’re trying to pinpoint exactly what food item last night could be causing the issue, but the suspicion right now is E. coli based on how sick people are.”

“I didn’t eat any food at the party.” For the first time all day, Tristan was glad he hadn’t stayed.

“And that’s why I’m calling. Rex says that you left early. Katya and Mark aren’t going to be able to drive the exhibit up to Seattle, and we need someone from
Space Villager
to do it. I don’t trust hiring a third-party company.” Robert was a brilliant guy, but his paranoia about thieves and his need for top-secret reveals was well documented in the industry. Sane bosses of a company this size would probably have hired a shipping company for the exhibit, but Robert had an eccentric control-freak side.

“You want me to drive the presentation? And set it up?” The original plan had been for Katya and Mark to set up the booth, with Robert and some other senior staffers flying up Thursday for the actual convention. Tristan was way too junior to be involved in those plans, and it was an honor simply to get to work on the project.

“Exactly. The hope is that I’ll be well enough to still fly next week, but someone has to set out tomorrow morning, and we need someone unlikely to get sick on the road.”

“So me.” Not because he was so brilliant at his job, but because he was healthy. Okay. Tristan could work with that though. “Small problem though. I’m not sure I can drive a truck. The biggest thing I’ve driven is a Suburban—”

“That’s helpful, and I’m sure you’d do fine, but Ravi can drive a truck. Does it all the time for his charity work, apparently, and I’m sending him along too since he also left before the food was served.”

“You’re sending Ravi? Ravi Tandel?” Tristan asked as if there could be any mistake.

“Yes. The two of you know the project and presentation better than anyone else who’s still healthy.”

“Oh.” Whatever brief elation Tristan had felt at being selected for this trip was gone, replaced by a crushing dread that made the back of his neck sweat.

“Rex also shared that he thought the two of you had some sort of disagreement, which is why I’m calling you personally. Is there a problem? Something I should know about?”

Oh
,
nothing major.
Just he thought I’m a homophobe and I outed myself to the whole team and he’s possibly the most annoying guy on the planet and will probably get us lost before we even leave LA and he can’t be trusted to charge his phone much less operate a GPS and...

Tristan took a deep breath. “No. No reason. Just a minor thing.”

“I can count on you then?”

“Always.” That was what was really at issue here, and that was why Tristan wouldn’t be turning down the trip. He’d wanted to be indispensable to
Space Villager
and this was his big chance. If it meant dealing with Ravi Freaking Tandel and all his BS, then Tristan was just going to have to suffer because no way was he blowing an opportunity like this.

* * *

An hour later, Tristan had a color-coded packing list and was working on a spreadsheet for the trip, altering a similar one he’d put together for Mark and Katya, when his phone rang. His phone knew this number, however, and Tristan was seriously tempted to not answer.

It would serve Ravi right to have to go to voice mail, but Tristan picked up, more out of longstanding compulsion than any real desire to talk to the man.

“Tris! How do you take your coffee for real, man?”

“My...coffee?” Tristan was totally lost. This was not the opening he’d expected.

“Yeah. Your coffee. I was sitting here thinking how I really owe you something for last night and how I should get you a coffee on my way to pick you up with the truck.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Tristan said stiffly. “And I can meet you at the office.”

“No, you can’t. You don’t want to leave your car there for a week. I’ve got a friend dropping me off to get the truck. I’ll pick you up afterward.”

“You still don’t owe me...anything.” Tristan wasn’t sure he liked this new super-nice version of Ravi. Oh the man was
always
charming, but this was Ravi actively trying to...do what, Tristan still wasn’t sure.

“I do, I really do. But I was thinking how at work, you take your coffee black but then never take more than a sip or two. But every once in a while I see you with a Starbucks cup, so I know you
do
drink some coffee.”

“You pay that close attention to my beverages?”

Ravi laughed. “You’d be surprised what an artist notices, Tris. But anyway, what gives? What drink should I order for you tomorrow? And don’t say ‘nothing.’ I really do feel bad for last night. You got stuck with a lot of work, and instead of manning up and admitting that I fucked up, I got all defensive.”

Okay. This could be cool. They could just focus on the fact that Tristan got left with all the work and not talk about how he’d outed himself. Tristan could live with this very cautious dance around the facts of last night, could tiptoe around the big gay elephant in the room.

“
Any
drink?” Something in Tristan still wanted to order an Americano or triple espresso. Anything manly and refined, but the other part of him, the petty part of him, kind of liked the idea of making Ravi order what his dad always called his fru-fru drink.

“Absolutely. Fresh start, right? We’ve got to make this trip work. Rex lit into me for arguing with you. I can’t lose my job.”

“I don’t want you to lose your job either.” Tristan really didn’t. Ravi might be the most annoying nice guy on the planet, and his charisma was irritating as all get-out, but he was incredibly good at the design part of his job. He didn’t deserve to get fired just because Tristan was uncomfortable around him.

“Good.” Ravi sounded genuinely relieved. “Now. What’ll it be?”

“I want a cinnamon roll Frappuccino with whip.”

“Awesome. I love those. Don’t usually let myself have them when I’m training for a race, but what the hell. I’ll get two. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” Tristan said weakly as the call ended. So much for his bold plan of making Ravi all uncomfortable with the drink order. Of course Mr. Smooth wasn’t intimidated by a coffee order. Hell, the guy could be drinking a cosmo while wearing a pink glitter shirt and still be the most masculine guy in the room. And the coolest. Not only could Ravi drink and eat and wear whatever the hell he wanted, he had the innate gift of making everyone else want those same things.

Tristan had only ever known two other guys with that kind of talent, and both had screwed up his life in spectacular fashion. There was no way that this trip wasn’t going to end awfully—him, Ravi, tiny truck cab, three days on the road and then setting up the booth to reveal their employer’s top-secret new features. So much room for disaster.

He looked down at his laptop again, added another few columns to his spreadsheet and started a new list in a separate document: How to Survive Next Week.

Chapter Four

The rental truck only had one cup holder in the cab, so Ravi had to balance his drink on his lap as he navigated to Tristan’s neighborhood. He almost never drank something this sweet and was probably going to end up ditching half his drink, but he was down with whatever it took to apologize effectively to Tristan. He had sounded so uncomfortable about his drink choice that Ravi had felt weirdly compelled to put him at ease. Thus he ended up early Sunday morning trying to not freeze his nuts off while hoping he wouldn’t be in a sugar coma before they even hit I-5.

And praying he didn’t sideswipe a car in Tristan’s sleepy little neighborhood. That would be all this little venture needed. Tristan lived in exactly the sort of place Ravi would have guessed for him—a sedate white midcentury fourplex with an immaculate green lawn and perfectly spaced stone pavers leading to vaguely Spanish-style doors. Ravi double-parked, but before he could get out of the truck, the door to the unit on the right swung open.

Figured that Captain Perfect would have been watching for him, probably ready forty minutes early too. And of course Tristan had plaid suitcases, a little roller bag with a matching suit bag.

“Does that set come with a matching golf bag or is that extra?” Ravi couldn’t resist the quip as he got out and opened the back for Tristan to stow his luggage.

“It was a graduation gift from my old nanny.” Tristan frowned, deep furrow appearing on his forehead.

“Of course it was.” Ravi’s new resolve not to needle Tristan was fading fast. His own upbringing was decidedly upper middle class, but there were no nannies in his past, and something about Tristan always made Ravi think about old men having drinks at a country club, the same sort of guys who crossed to the other side of the street if they saw Ravi coming late at night.

He shut the back of the truck, then got back in the cab, waiting until Tristan was also in to hand him his drink. Tristan took a sip, and the look of bliss that crossed his face made heat rush to Ravi’s groin. Damn. Tristan smiled to himself, a sly little grin and his eyes drifted shut as he took a second sip. Ravi had to shift uncomfortably on the seat. Man. If Tristan got that blissed out over a coffee drink, what would he look like if...

Stop it.
He was
not
attracted to Tristan. He wouldn’t allow himself to even entertain that thought. He’d done the whole coworker-screwing thing before, and it had gone badly enough to have him resolve to never repeat it. Ravi swallowed hard and made himself look away, searching for a way to stop perving on Tristan.

“Nanny, huh? Let me guess...Hamptons? Martha’s Vineyard? You’re from the East Coast like me, right?” Ravi had been wondering about this for a while because he just didn’t know many Californians as tightly wound as Tristan.

“No. I grew up in Newport Beach, but my folks moved to Pasadena a few years back for my mom’s work.” Tristan stowed his laptop bag at his feet, but not before he withdrew a file folder.

“Ah. Yacht club and the upper crust of Orange County.” Ravi adjusted his assumptions about Tristan.

“We don’t own a boat anymore,” Tristan said, stiffer than his folder of papers.

“What does your mother do?”

“So, I’ve got our plan right here.” Tristan opened his folder. His hand shook subtly against the stack of papers within.
Interesting.
Clearly, Tristan’s family was as much of a loaded topic as Ravi’s own. “I put a lot of this together for Katya and Mark, so it wasn’t too much trouble to readjust it for us. But I’ve got the route mapped with time goals for each stage—”

“
Tris.
” So much for not getting frustrated. Ravi drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “This isn’t rocket science. We get to I-5, head out of LA, stay on I-5 for the next nineteen to twenty-four hours depending on what sort of traffic and road construction we hit, then turn on my GPS to get to the convention center in Seattle.” He punctuated his words by pulling away from Tristan’s apartment building and heading out of Tristan’s neighborhood.

“It’s the road construction and traffic that I’m trying to optimize with my map. I’ve annotated the places where we are most likely to experience delays—”

“You know Katya and Mark were planning to have
fun
with this drive, right? They were planning to take three days to do it so they weren’t pressed for time and could stop often and still reach Seattle on Tuesday in time for Wednesday’s build. I predict that I can do the drive in seventeen hours or so if we push, which would put us in Seattle late tomorrow and give us a whole day to goof off.”
Separately.
Ravi left that part unsaid, but seriously, the faster they got to Seattle, the faster he could get some space from Tristan and his annotations.

“The truck can only go around sixty miles an hour tops—”

“Tristan. Can you do your calculations
quietly
and just let me get to the interstate? I’ll get us to Seattle, I promise.”

“Fine.” Tristan took a long drink from his sugar bomb and shuffled his papers.

Ravi got out of Tristan’s neighborhood but then totally bungled the I-405 interchange, despite doing it all the time, and ended up accidentally heading south on 405.

“Now do I get to pull out my map and GPS or should I wait until Torrance?” Tristan’s voice was mild, but his face was more than a little smug.

“I’ll turn around,” Ravi said through gritted teeth. He took the next exit and got the truck headed north on 405 at last, only to hit road construction and have traffic slow to a bare five-miles-an-hour crawl. Okay, his personal drive-straight-through plan might need a bit of adjustment, but hell if he was admitting that to Tristan quite yet.

“Have you ever taken a road trip like this?” Tristan asked, fiddling with his file folder.

“Oh sure.” Ravi navigated the lane changes required due to the construction. “Tons of long road trips to see family and friends all over the Eastern seaboard. Then in college, I used to take off for Vegas pretty regularly or go camping in the desert somewhere with my friends. And I’ve driven New Jersey to Los Angeles twice now.”

“You go home a lot?” Tristan looked out the window. Ravi didn’t miss the weird emphasis on
home.

And heck if that wasn’t a damn complicated question. “Not so much lately,” he hedged, then quickly turned the conversation back to Tristan. “How about you? Not many road trips?”