Page 54 of Like the Season
“Not yet. I was going to, then with the trip out to Oregon, and my daughter nearlydying, it got away from me. It was on my list of things to do early this week.” He realized Caleb’s hand was trembling in his and he gave him another gentle squeeze.
Stay strong, boy.
“All right. Boyd, I need you to return to your office for a little while, please. Stay available, because I’m going to talk with you again shortly. Caleb, you stay. I need to speak with you. Alone.”
Now Caleb looked at Boyd, wild fear filling his sweet green gaze.
Boyd couldn’t help it—he turned in his chair and gently palmed Caleb’s cheek with his other hand. “Answer his questions,” he softly said, hoping Caleb had processed he’d said it’d only been a couple of weeks. “You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to.”
Fortunately, Caleb only nodded and didn’t let aYes, Sirslip out. After giving Caleb’s hand one last squeeze, Boyd stood and returned to his office.
* * * *
Caleb thought he might be sick when he heard the office door shut behind Boyd. He still couldn’t bring himself to look Ed Thorton in the eyes and instead focused on his desk.
“I’ll keep this short—how did your relationship with Boyd start?”
“Outside work, just like he said. We didn’t recognize each other at the party.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Help me understand this. He hired you in and you work with him. You see himeveryday. How could the two of younotrecognize each other?”
“It doesn’t have to make sense.” Caleb drew in a breath. “Mutual friends didn’t know we worked together, and they introduced us to each other at a…costume party. No one was using their real names. We didn’t know each other’s real identities until nearly a week later. Even then, when Boyd found out who I was, before I knew who he was, he wasn’t even going to have a relationship with me, at first.”
“At first?”
“I talked him into it.” It was close enough to the truth.
Thorton leaned forward. “At any time did Boyd pressure you for a relationship, or make inappropriate advances toward you, or use his position of authority to manipulate you into a relationship?”
“No, never. We had lunch the day before I found out it was him I’d met, and Istilldidn’t know it was him until after the fact. I didn’t even know he wasgay, if that tells you anything.”
Ed’s brow furrowed. “I thought everyone knew he was gay.”
“Well,Ididn’t. I’m rarely on Facebook, and I wasn’t Facebook friends with him at that point. We never discussed things like that because,hello, work. We were both professional. That’s another reason we didn’t put it together at first, because he didn’t know I was gay, either. Ever since, we’ve been careful at work. If anything, he’s way tougher on me now than he was before. I’m expected to be here earlier and work later, and harder, than anyone else. I’m not cut any slack. We were planning on keeping things secret until after I changed positions, then we knew it’d be okay.”
Thorton picked up a pen and twirled it in his fingers. “Do you want to file a sexual harassment complaint against Boyd?”
Now Caleb found his courage and met Thorton’s gaze head-on. “It’s not a good situation, but we were trying to remedy it without letting anyone know. That should mean something. If you try to file a report about this, I’ll lie and say I have no idea what you’re talking about. That, and that my mother really is a religious whackadoodle trying to cause trouble for me just because she’s mad that I’m gay, which is absolutely the truth. I will claim I feel that you are persecuting me and Boyd because of our sexual orientations, and Boyd and I will probably have a damn good lawsuit against the county for it since there is nothing in either of our personnel records that would show we’re anything other than exemplary employees. I don’t want to do that, but I willnotlet you ruin Boyd’s career, or mine.”
Thorton rubbed at his forehead. “Okay, okay. Point taken. I’ll talk to Calvin Estes and transfer you over to Zoning without a swap. They have a bunch of heavy stuff coming up over the next couple of months with the comp plan work the BCC has to do. It’d make sense to move you in there early to get you up to speed. Plus you already have an extensive background in zoning. If you and Boyd keep things on the down-low for a while, it shouldn’t raise any questions.”
He met Caleb’s gaze with an icy stare and tapped his desk with the pen for emphasis. “Give it at least a couple of weeks before either of you mention anything around coworkers. In fact, the less you say, the better. I receive any complaints from anyone about the two of you, at that point it’s out of my hands. This is your only mulligan. Got it?”
Caleb felt the sick fear that had been tightly lodged in his stomach start to ease. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“I’m not going to tell Calvin the real reason why you have to be transferred, obviously. I’ll parse this so it looks like it’s coming directly from me because of the upcoming workload. There’s no money to hire anyone extra in either department right now, and we were going to have to transfer someone in anyway. It would behoove you both to go along with that story, because that’s how I’m selling it. Understand?”
Caleb nodded, close to throwing up from how relieved he felt.
“All right, we’re done here. Leave the door open, please.”
“Thank you.” Caleb fought the urge to run from his office. Instead of heading to his desk, he stopped by the bathroom and locked himself into the wheelchair-accessible stall so he could splash water on his face. At least he worked in a cubicle by himself, but he’d have to pass Boyd’s office to return to his desk without taking the long way around the office and having that look…strange.
Staring into the mirror, he felt rage wash through him, struggling to dominate the fear already filling him. Part of him wanted to call his mother and scream at her, except he knew that would very likely make the situation worse.
I can’t do anything before I talk to Boyd.
* * * *
