I was used to people not liking me. Inheriting a family fortune tended to make people assume you were spoiled and stupid. And running a tech co
mpany where you couldn’t precisely explain what you did in an elevator pitch made people afraid you were shady. Punching out the photographer had been the final straw.
There had always been many assumptions about me, which was why I needed some serious PR help. Since it was finally time for our company to go public about what we’d been working on this year, it had to be done right.
I needed Jenna to like me. Not just so that she could get me invited to the VIP room at the Lightspeed party, but so that...I didn’t even know what I was thinking. Could I ask her out? Was I too old for her, or was it inappropriate for me to ask out a colleague like this?
Many of my friends mentioned meeting women at work. Although to be honest, that was a while ago. Since my parents died in a car accident three years ago, I’d been taking care of the business and my brother. My friends had all more or less disappeared because I didn’t have time to call them.
Pulling into the giant warehouse at the edge of town, I parked my gray everyday car under a tree and went to the side entrance.
It took me a moment to remember the passcode, since my brother changed it every three to five days. This was why I had to be the face of our company. My brother was a genius, but he was very suspicious, and not good around strangers.
Mom had him checked out when he was around ten, then again at fourteen, but the psychologist said there wasn’t anything specifically wrong with him. He just had a different level of sensitivity to certain things. Now it was up to me to shelter him from the world as much as possible.
Losing our parents had made him even more mistrustful of the world at large. He didn’t want to interact with anyone or anything except on his terms.
Terry had finally agreed to see a psychotherapist again when I pointed out that he was becoming a little too withdrawn. It turned out that he wasn’t officially on any sort of spectrum. He was just a bit particular, paranoid, and fragile. The doctor had commended me on providing him with a work environment where he could have as much control as he needed. Keeping him calm was easier if I just let him do whatever he needed to feel safe.
Keying a pass code to enter the warehouse that had become more of a bunker, I went through the first door, then fifteen feet down the hall to key in yet another security code before making my way into the main room.
Video games were scattered throughout the area, with couches and controllers everywhere. It was our testing lounge, where we brought in carefully-selected gamers for their opinions.
We’d grown up playing video games like most boys these days, then I went to university to study business, while Terry went to our basement to learn how to take the computers apart and put them back together so they worked more efficiently.
He took some strangely specialized engineering courses, electronics, plus some unusual things like the human eye and its function, and visual focus theory.
Everyone knew that Terry was a bit different. Sometimes it was useful, and sometimes it threw others off schedule, because we would have to change our routines to work around his energy carefully.
He couldn’t stand large crowds or new people, but over the years I’d learned that if he had a little information about the people in advance, he could usually handle it for a short time.
Most people hated being interrupted when they were in the middle of important work, but it drove Terry absolutely crazy.
When we constructed the warehouse and offices for our company, he devised a stoplight system over his workroom door. If the light was red, he was not to be interrupted unless something was literally on fire. The yellow light meant that he could be interrupted, but he would be annoyed if it wasn’t necessary. I rarely tapped on the door unless the green light was on.
He also created a security system that was so intense that it annoyed the other employees. The outside passcodes changed every week, but the door into the work area changed every day. We would be sent a text with a four-digit code every morning, then we were to add our own personal three-digit code to the end of it.
As always, I played along, not wanting to ruffle any feathers. Anything that kept Terry calm and working steadily was the best plan.
Over the past five years, my little brother had designed several small inventions, and made notable upgrades to existing computer chips and processors. We’d made more than enough money to keep our company going indefinitely since we were streamlined and frugal.
But for his latest breakthrough, with its incredibly lucrative potential, I was pulling out all the stops.
Walking through the main room and down the hall, I went straight to Terry’s workroom door. The yellow light was on, so I didn’t dare disturb him. We needed everything to be absolutely perfect with the demo laptops, and there were only six days left.
I took a scrap of paper from the hallway shelf and left a note on the bulletin board outside his door. With a paper system, Terry told us, our movements and communications couldn’t be tracked.
“Just to keep you posted, I’m inviting our PR person Jenna to drop by tomorrow so that I can explain what it is we actually do. I’ve already checked her out. Went to school with her boss. Everything is cool.”
I didn’t want him to be jumpy if he saw a new person here. Our three other employees also knew to check that bulletin board regularly for info. I barely noticed them otherwise, as they soldered chips and created circuit boards according to Terry’s specs in a lab far down the corridor.
Strangely, for someone who lived and breathed technology, Terry always preferred these notes over text or email. He said it was for security, but I just think he preferred paper when he was thinking. His workspace was usually a whirlwind of notebooks and loose sheets of paper everywhere.
Walking upstairs to my office, I found myself actually tidying up the place in the hopes that Jenna would drop in when I invited her. Clearing off the desk, I removed three old coffee mugs, took out the trash, and cracked the window to freshen the air.
Normally I would do a security clearance on anyone before permitting them access to our facility. But I could see in her eyes that Jenna was an open book. I already trusted her completely. Hell – I’d almost give her my computer passwords if I didn’t think it would totally freak out Terry.
As I sat down at my laptop in my huge leather chair, I realized with a start that I’d never cleaned for a woman before in my life. I’d never been so jumpy from the thought of a woman coming into my space. And I was absolutely dying to see her sweet blue eyes again.