Will said, still smiling, still rueful, but something was going on there, “You sounded very happy to see him.”
“Well, yeah. Sure.” He had been glad to see Ashe. Ashe had been a little wild, a little reckless back in the day. Taylor had wondered and even worried a bit about him over the years. Maybe not as much as he should have, but he had been very glad to see Ashe was okay.
He circled back to the safer ground of Will’s earlier comment. “Anyway, he’s not my type. Now. But it was college. I didn’t have a type.”
“Sure you did.”
Taylor’s smile twisted, but okay. Maybe. “He was different. I was different.” He shrugged.
“What happened?”
It was a fair question, given that Ashe was sort of their client, but Will had never shown any interest in Taylor’s romantic attachments before. In fact, he’d always been studiously not interested.
Taylor said, “It wasn’t like you and Madonna. We weren’t childhood sweethearts.”
“Yeowch.”
“Just sayin’. It only lasted a year. There weren’t any plans for a future together. I knew I’d be going into the DS.”
“What was Ashe planning to do after college?”
“He hadn’t decided. I was four years ahead of him.”
Will’s brows rose. “You’re kidding. I thought for sure he was older than you.”
“Nope. Anyway, I graduated, went into the DS as planned, and that was that. My first posting abroad was Japan.”
No further explanations needed. Will knew all about Japan. Come to think of it, given the messy nature of some of his romantic entanglements, no wonder Will didn’t want to know more than he already did.
Will said, “I see. How did the pledge of eternal fealty come about?” His tone was light, but yeah, there was a faint edge.
Taylor controlled his impatience. He wasn’t enjoying this, but he did not want secrets between himself and Will. Even if the truth was liable to confirm some of Will’s misgivings. “Ashe wasn’t out before he met me. I mean, neither of us were. Officially. But he hadn’t ever been with anyone. He was…emotionally vulnerable in a way I wasn’t.” Taylor met Will’s bright and curious gaze. “I did care for him, but I wasn’t in love. He was.”
Painfully so. He didn’t like remembering. Even now.
“I see.”
Taylor said—he needed Will to understand this, “It wasn’t just something I said. I meant it. About being there for him if he ever needed me.”
“I know you did,” Will said. “You never say anything you don’t mean.”
Well, that was maybe an exaggeration, but it was true he didn’t make promises carelessly.
They turned their attention back to their meals. To Taylor’s relief, when Will spoke again, he was back to business.
“You know, we probably need to think about bringing a cyber security expert on board sooner rather than later. All the top firms offer cyber security now.”
Truth. Gone were the days when firewalls and antivirus software could keep a company’s secrets safe. In their technically reliant society, cybersecurity risk was growing exponentially, driven by global connectivity and usage of cloud services to store sensitive data. Increasingly sophisticated cyber criminals meant the risk to organizations, both large and small, was steadily on the rise. While there were no national laws overseeing data breach disclosure, every state had their own data breach laws, with California leading the way since 2003. If they were really going to be a world-class contender, they were going to have to take a serious look at providing cyber security.
Frankly, something Taylor had zero interest in.
He didn’t say that, of course. What would be the point? They were all in now. No turning back. Not professionally. Not personally.
He said instead, “Who do we know looking to make a career change?”
“Let me think. Lousy hours, lousy pay, lousy benefits. Who wouldn’t jump at that?”
Taylor grinned because they had both jumped at that.
Will met his eyes, smiled in wry acknowledgment. “I don’t know, but the market is only going to get more competitive for prospective employers. We should put feelers out.”
A tiring thought. Taylor nodded, his thoughts circling back to their meeting that day. “Webster’s IT team manager got pretty defensive at the suggestion that cyber security should be its own department.”
“Predictable.”
“Nobody wants to think the threat could come from within, but that’s the truth.”
“Yep.”
Will’s cell rang. He checked it, and his face went blank. Of course, that very lack of expression was a tell to someone who knew him as well as Taylor.
“Who’s that?” Taylor asked, just to turn the knife a little.
“No one important.” Will put his cell down and met Taylor’s gaze steadily.
Taylor’s grin was crooked. “I guess Bradley’s back from parts unknown?”
“Probably.”
Taylor let it go. It wasn’t Will’s fault that his ex-boyfriend couldn’t seem to come to terms with Will having moved on. Or at least, it wasn’t completely Will’s fault.
Riley, Will’s German shepherd, was beside himself with joy when they finally walked through the Craftsman bungalow Taylor had restored with periodic help from Will.
“Hey, Riley. Hey, boy,” Will said wearily. It had been a long-ass day. And tomorrow looked to be even longer.
They shrugged out of their jackets as the dog ran circles around them, whining his complaints about the hours they were keeping. It turned out their work schedule was hard on the whole family.
“I’m going to take him for a walk on the beach,” Will announced.
Taylor, sorting through the mail, looked up, studying him. Will’s attention was on Riley, and his expression seemed remote.
And honestly? Taylor didn’t have the energy to deal with it. Assuming there was anything going on there besides fatigue.
“Sure. Watch yourself.”
Will nodded, hesitated, then called to Riley, who slid magic-carpet style on the hallway rug in his hurry to get out the front door.
Taylor went back to sorting the mail, absently listening to the front door close, Will’s deep voice checking Riley’s enthusiasm, the jingle of Riley’s tags, and Will’s footsteps growing fainter.
There wasn’t much of interest in the day’s post. Not even many bills,
