Beta Test (#gaymers) (3 page)

He carefully made his way toward the far side of the room where Robert and Rex were talking to Ted from the Austin office and two other senior-level managers.

“Tristan!” Before he could reach the management group, one of his team members, Katya, grabbed his arm. “We’ve got a table for the team over here. Come join us!”

There wasn’t really a polite way to say no, so he followed her to the table where her husband and a few other people were already seated. Nearby, Ravi was surrounded by what Tristan liked to think of as his fan club. His predominantly
gay
fan club because, of course, it wasn’t enough to have rainbows all over his cube. No, Ravi had to be friends with all the other out guys in the office and get them all on board whatever LGBTQ cause he was shilling for that week.

When the marketing manager had told him the office would be “cool with different types of people,” Tristan had figured that was a euphemism for “no one’s getting fired or harassed.” He’d appreciated the heads-up, not that he had a single intention of testing said tolerance. But what he hadn’t expected was that
Space Villager
wasn’t merely
tolerant.
No, it was filled with the sort of diversity that gave people like Tristan’s parents hives. And Tristan himself had no real idea how to cope with it either.

He’d vaguely suspected that Ravi could be gay when they first met—his gaydar might have a weak signal but it still functioned—but he was still thrown when Ravi adorned his cube with rainbow items his first week on the job. No, not thrown. Shocked. Intrigued. Fascinated. Mainly that last one. For a long time, Tristan very carefully avoided that area of the office because fascination was
not
what he needed to be feeling, but then they were thrown together on this project...

“Hey, Tristan!” one of the guys with Ravi called out. Josiah was around Tristan’s age and the youngest guy on the lead software development team. And he had a huge freaking crush on Ravi, something he didn’t even try to hide, stopping by their area of the office far more often than necessary, usually knocking something over or spilling a drink and leaving general chaos in his wake. Josiah needed a leash.

Not that Josiah was alone in his crushing—it seemed like over half the office, male and female, had a thing for Ravi. The guy got enough coffee and baked goods brought to him to open his own bakery, and never, ever ate lunch alone. And no matter how attractive he was and how much charisma the man exuded, Tristan refused to join the crush line.

Katya had immediately fallen into conversation with her husband, and no one at the table seemed inclined to look up to greet Tristan, so he went to stand next to Josiah, which unfortunately put him also next to Ravi, whom Tristan was still very much pissed at.

“Hey, Josiah. Ravi.” He gave Ravi a quick nod and Josiah what he hoped passed for a smile.

“I was just telling Ravi that my folks are going out of town next month and I’m having a big LAN party. You up for it?”

“Uh...” Tristan worried the corner of his lip with his tongue.

“Oh, Tristan’s not a gamer.” Ravi laughed, ice cubes tinkling in his mixed drink. His eyes sparkled, and he had the definite vibe of a guy with a buzz. “Especially not the FPS mod you guys are working on.”

“I game.” Tristan’s voice was far more defiant than he wanted. And he had
plenty
of experience with first-person shooter games, thank you very much.

Ravi snorted and Tristan gave him a
look.
He was so
done
being treated like some sort of adorable-but-clueless kid.

“Great!” Josiah seemed to ignore the tension simmering between him and Ravi. “You don’t have to be good at it. I can walk you through anything you don’t know. I’ll email you the details. Bring snacks.”

“And he means chips, Tris, not tea sandwiches.” Ravi laughed again, a deep chuckle that should have felt like a slap but instead felt like something softer and warmer. Tristan did not like that at all. He’d almost prefer condescension to easy teasing.

“I think I can
shop.
”

“You know, I think I’m getting another drink. What can I get you guys?” Josiah bounced from foot to foot.

“I’m good,” Ravi and Tristan both said at the same time, staring each other down as Josiah walked away.

“What’s your issue?” Ravi asked, swirling the cubes in his glass again.

“My
issue
is that you did
not
double-check the list I gave you.”

“Whoa. I did too.” Ravi held up a hand.

“No, you didn’t. The ship swag came yesterday evening. I put on your list to verify that flat packs would include all the pieces for each ship.” Tristan kept his voice low, but firm. Ravi had designed cardboard spaceships—each made up of three pieces to make a 3-D representation of a particular
Space Villager
ship. The flat-pack giveaway bags needed to contain one of each piece.

“And?”

“And, they sent three boxes of parts. One box per part. I spent all night assembling the flat packs for giveaways
by myself.
”

“You should have called...” Ravi trailed off and pulled out his phone. “Wait. Do you have a 626 number?”

“
Yes.
And I sent you two emails labeled Important
.
”

“I’m sorry. Thought it was a random number.” The ridiculous poof of hair on Ravi’s head wobbled a bit. “I was busy—”

“Doing what?” Ordinarily Tristan wouldn’t push him but he’d been over thirty-six hours without real sleep and with nothing but crap food, and all Ravi had was a muttered “sorry.”

“I had my weekly volunteer shift at the AIDS Project, then I had dinner with my friends—”

“Of course you did.”

Ravi blinked at him, and his voice went as cold as the ice in his glass. “Then I had a run this morning with my race group before a meeting this morning with Robert about a new concept ship and a conference call with the Germany office. That good enough for you?”

“You still should have checked your phone. Or your email. Or—”

“Or what? Not volunteered? You think I don’t see you sneering at my charity work? Or the way you twitch at my cube decor?”

“Your charity work isn’t the problem, it’s more about...priorities.” Tristan was floundering, skating across the treacherous conversational territory on a narrow little bridge with no safety rails. This was a conversation he’d gone out of his way to avoid, but now he was in the middle of it, and he was
pissed
and couldn’t seem to back away.

“Priorities? Is that your way of saying ‘be less gay at work, Ravi’? Because I think that’s what you’re trying to say here.”

Plop.
Tristan fell right off the bridge into churning waters. Oh heck. Ravi was angry. He was angry. This was not going to end well, but Tristan had to try to defend himself. “It’s not.”

“I’m tired of you and your homophobic looks and little comments.”

“Wait. Who’s a homophobe?” Josiah had returned with a fresh drink and his usual awful timing.

“No one,” Tristan said while Ravi shook his head.
Oh no
,
oh no
,
oh no.
Somehow this had gone from an uncomfortable little tiff with Ravi to the very real possibility of the whole office labeling him a homophobe. The whole, very liberal office, including the management Tristan
needed
to impress.

Panic bubbled up in his gut, made his hands shake. His throat spasmed and he tried to swallow, but words tumbled out instead. “Look. I’m not homophobic. I’m gay too, you jerk. You just want to distract from the real issue of you being lazy and disorganized.”

“You’re gay?” Josiah bungled his drink and splashed some on his shirt. “Shit. I owe Adrian a twenty.”

“Glad I stayed out of that betting pool.” Ravi shook his head again, smile teasing his full lips.

“Oh crap.
Oh.
Crap.
” What the hell had Tristan just done? Not only had he come out to Ravi in a fit of sleep-deprived anger, but he’d apparently just come out to the entire freaking office via Josiah. And, and,
and
...it didn’t matter how careful he’d been, there had already been speculation. Bets. Rumors.

His stomach heaved, soda rising in his throat, burning his sinuses.
I
just came out to the whole office.

“I have to get out of here.” He didn’t look back at Ravi and Josiah as he raced from the room, not stopping at the restroom but heading straight for his car. He got in, slumping against the driver’s seat. Maybe, if there was a god, all this would...magically disappear by Monday. Maybe Josiah and Ravi wouldn’t talk. Maybe the gossip wouldn’t dog him. Maybe he could go back to keeping his head down and...

His stomach heaved again, and he barely got the door open before he was hurling. No way was this passing quietly. He’d been here before, and he knew
exactly
how badly things were likely to go.

Chapter Three

Ravi watched Tristan retreat, a sick feeling gathering in his gut, gathering steam with each panicked movement of the other guy.
Holy fuck.
What just happened?

“Dude. Did you just out Tristan?” Josiah shook his fluffy head.

“Not on purpose,” Ravi croaked. He should be feeling a certain amount of vindication, but instead sweat ran down his back.

“I fucked up,” he said to Josiah. Man, Ravi wasn’t getting the image of Tristan’s face out of his head anytime soon. Tristan had turned all pale and his eyes had gone flat and lifeless.

“Fucked up what?” Adrian, who worked in software development with Josiah, showed up at the worst possible moment. Well, okay,
second
worst moment. No one had worse timing than Josiah, who was a nice enough coworker but about as subtle and empathetic as a ferret on crack.

“You were right! Tristan’s gay,” Josiah all but crowed, bouncing on his feet the way he always did when he was worked up about something. Ravi moved before he got accidentally elbowed in the stomach as Josiah dug out his wallet and offered Adrian a twenty.

“Whoa. Did he bring someone to the party?” Adrian pocketed the money with a smile.

“No. Ravi and he were arguing, and he just like blurted it out. Then ran off.”

Adrian’s smile faded, and he handed the money back to Josiah. “Not cool guys, not cool at all.”

“I
know
.” Ravi scrubbed at his hair, not caring that he was destroying his careful style. “And I screwed up a work thing, so he was right to be pissed at me.”

Might as well be honest about that, even though it made him more than a little nauseated to let the words out. That was why he’d needled Tristan to begin with. He’d been pissed at himself for fucking up and not answering his phone or checking his email.

“Fuck. I should go after him, shouldn’t I?” he said to no one in particular.

“Yup.” Adrian still looked concerned, with his forehead all crinkled and his eyes darting around like he was considering going after Tristan himself. Ravi hated seeing that look on his friend’s face, hated knowing he’d let him down, lowered Adrian’s opinion of him. He worked damn hard to keep people’s opinion of him high.
Fuck.
What a mess.

“I’m going to fix this,” Ravi said with far more conviction than he felt. “And in the meantime, how about we don’t spread this around?”

He knew that was largely a futile request. Adrian could keep his mouth shut, no problem, but Josiah had no filter between his brain and his mouth and had the uncanny ability to blurt the worst thing at the worst moment.

Ravi headed for the doors, head swimming with remorse. He, of all people, knew how awful an unintentional outing could be, and he’d been so firmly in the Tristan-is-simply-a-giant-dork camp of office speculation that it hadn’t occurred to him until it was too late what he was doing. And Tristan
did
act all weird and uptight about LGBTQ issues. Poor closeted guy was probably twisted all up, and while that didn’t excuse dick behavior, it did go a long way to explaining it.

Outside the restaurant, Tristan was nowhere to be seen. Ravi looked for the older Volvo Tristan drove but didn’t spot it either. However, what he did see was
his
baby being accosted by a tow truck.

“Hey!” he yelled, running toward his Mini Cooper. Electric blue with a sassy white roof, it was easily his most favorite purchase ever. And now a big burly guy was trying to attach it to his ugly black tow truck. “What are you doing? That’s my car!”

“Fifteen-minute zone.” The guy pointed at a sign that, yeah, Ravi should have noticed earlier and hadn’t because he’d been too pressed for time. Then the guy swung up into his truck, and the fucker drove off down the street, pulling Ravi’s baby behind him.

“Fuck.” Looking at the number of the tow place on the sign, Ravi pulled out his phone. There went the rest of his night.

Karma’s a bitch.
Oh well. Wasn’t like he’d been dying to go back in to the party and face Josiah’s curiosity and Adrian’s censure. And maybe some time apart was exactly what he and Tristan needed, time for Ravi to figure out how to make this right.

* * *

If you asked Tristan’s parents, there was plenty he wasn’t very good at. But the one thing he was spectacular at was vegetating and hiding. Which was what he did all Saturday, sleeping and re-watching
Firefly
and eating macaroni and cheese straight from the pot. In fact, he was in front of his stove in his little L-shaped kitchen when his phone rang very late on Saturday night. Unlike
some
people, he’d have to be dead not to answer his phone, even for an unfamiliar number. He swallowed fast and patted his mouth with a napkin before answering.

“This is Tristan.”

“Tristan. This is Robert Christopher.”

Holy crap.
Robert Christopher is calling me at eleven o’clock on a Saturday night.
This can’t be good.

“Mr. Christopher, sir. What can I do for you?”
Oh no.
Am I about to be fired?
Had word of his fight with Ravi reached the big boss? Had Ravi convinced Mr. Christopher to fire Tristan on suspicion of being a homophobe? Or had he screwed up in some other huge way? His pulse pounded in his ears.