Photographing Memory: A Friends To Lovers Romance Read online

  George scoffed and turned his head away. Cindy leaned forward, graying red hair falling toward her omelet. “Is this because of that boy you’re dating? Because son, you can’t let your head get turned around by him.

  “I know he’s probably very handsome, but he’s still a corporate drone. He’s no better than the rest of them, and you can’t be turned away from your important work by someone who only thinks about money.”

  Under the table, Jordan brought his hand to his abdomen. Deep inside of him was Alex’s baby. “Mom, he’s not that boy, he’s Alex. You remember Alex; you used to give him dinner more often than not, back in Ohio.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” George turned back to them. “He’s serving corporate ends now. He’s the enemy, and he has to be taken down.”

  Jordan bit his tongue. “He has his reasons for the lifestyle he picked. He’s supporting his parents back in Texas. I don’t like the path he chose either, but I understand why he did it, and it’s not for me to judge. And the funds he manages don’t have anything to do with pipelines. That’s not the point.”

  “You’re right, it’s not.” George pointed at him. “The point is that this boy is owned by that bank, and you can’t sit there and not fight against that bank because he’s got some kind of sob story to justify working for oligarchs trying to end the world.”

  Jordan’s stomach rebelled, and he had to pause a moment before speaking. “The point, Dad, is I can’t go chaining myself to bank doors anymore. I’m pregnant. I just found out this morning.”

  “Pregnant?” Cindy covered her mouth with one hand. “With a baby?”

  “No, Mom, I’m pregnant with kittens. It’s still early, but we’re thinking there are probably six or seven in there, all Tuxies.”

  Jordan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, with a baby. Alex is actually pregnant too. We were going to hold off on saying anything, but now that we’re both pregnant, I figured I might as well spill the whole sack of beans.”

  “I’m going to be a grandma!” Cindy’s whole face lit up.

  George’s face had grown more speculative than joyful. “They wouldn’t attack a pregnant person. It’s too bad you’re not showing yet.”

  Jordan stared his father down. “Dad, my baby is not a prop. I’m willing to do a lot for the cause, but the baby has to make their own choices in life. I’m not dragging them into battles and putting them at risk for causes they didn’t choose to support before they’re even born.”

  “Nonsense.” George waved a hand, spilling his coffee. He didn’t seem to notice. “Your mother chained herself to a tree in California while she was pregnant with you, to keep them from cutting it down for condos.

  “She brought you to a rally against nukes at a nuclear site while she was pregnant with your brothers. There’s no reason under God why you shouldn’t use the gifts you have to further the cause.

  “People have a visceral reaction to pregnancy, Jordan. They see a pregnant person and they’re very willing to cut a deal, stop attacking protestors, whatever. And if they do keep attacking, well, the outcry is usually so great that the enemy loses the war, even if they win that battle.”

  George clasped his hands together, the seriousness of his words evident in his tone and the set of his face. Jordan pulled back. He couldn’t remember the nuclear site protest. He must have still been a tiny baby at that point.

  He’d think less of anyone in his circle bringing children to a nuclear site, or using their unborn babies as a weapon against law enforcement. “Look. I’m willing to make any personal sacrifice, and you know that, but I have to draw the line at taking away my kids’ free will. That’s just sketchy. I’ll raise my kids right, and hope they make the right decisions when they’re older. That’s the best I can do.”

  Cindy heaved a sigh and reached across the table to take Jordan’s hand. “Look, son. I understand you want, as a parent, to keep your children safe. That feels like your number one priority, doesn’t it? Because you’re their parent.” She nodded as she spoke, eyes wide. “Think of it this way. In making the world a better place, you’re helping to ensure they’ll be safe for generations to come.”

  “You have a responsibility, Jordan. You can’t shirk it just because of an accident of biology.” George looked down his nose at Jordan.

  “No one’s shirking anything. I’m still organizing, and I’m still marching. I’m just being more judicious in the actions in which I participate. There are ways to fight that don’t endanger my baby, and I’m going to stick to those for now.”

  Jordan bit down on his tongue. He could hold his temper in. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could do it.

  At least, he could until he got home. Then he’d lose his mind as much as he wanted.

  15

  Alex looked over at his calendar and bounced, just a little bit, in his seat. Only two more hours and he was free, headed out to go on a date with Jordan to the MFA. Jordan said he had some big news for him, which sounded great. He couldn’t wait to hear it. More importantly, he couldn’t wait to see Jordan, any way at all.

  Maybe it was hormones. Maybe it was just the inherent insecurity of being pregnant. Maybe it was just Jordan, and his own personal magnetism. Whatever the reason, Alex couldn’t stop wanting him, and couldn’t stop wanting to be near him.

  The Allston house had always been perfectly adequate to his needs, if messy, but now it seemed like a fetid firetrap that needed to be torn down. His workplace companions were enough for him, but if he tried to cuddle up or climb into one of their laps, he’d wind up fired or in jail. Deservedly so, too. He needed Jordan, and that was all there was to it.

  Two hours from now, he’d have what he needed.

  Anna walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Her back was rigid, and her eyes were tight. “Alex, hey, how’s it going?”

  “Awesome.” He smiled up at her. “I’ve got a date tonight!”

  Anna winced. “You do?”

  “Yeah, apparently the Museum of Fine Art stays open until nine on Friday nights so young professionals can enjoy it. They have hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and people can mingle and enjoy the exhibits. I haven’t seen Jordan in a week and a half, so.” He drummed his hands on his desk.

  Anna frowned. “Isn’t that the guy who got arrested last weekend?”

  “Er, yeah.” Alex tugged at his collar. “I was kind of differently thrilled about that one, actually. But he was protesting a brutal shift in immigration policy, so I have to be willing to support him.”

  He shrugged. “They weren’t destroying property or anything, not like those people who got arrested on Wednesday for chaining themselves to the bank doors. That’s a little weird.”

  “Right?” She snorted. “I don’t know what they thought would happen. But whatever. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

  “Anyway, I hate to do this, since you’re obviously looking forward to tonight, but we’ve just had a ton of data disappear from the system. It’s in there somewhere, it’s locked, I can’t figure it out. And we can’t run the reports we need for the quarterly outlook if we don’t have that data.”

  Disappointment pooled in Alex’s gut, and he hung his head. Maybe Jordan was right, and the bank was swallowing his soul.

  He could quit. He could say fuck it all, leave his security badge on his desk, and walk right out that door.

  How he was then supposed to support two aging parents, a child, and an activist partner who kept getting arrested without a salary was a mystery for the ages.

  He looked back at the calendar, and then back at Anna. “Okay. I’ll get it fixed.” It seemed like a job for IT, not him, but it probably made sense. Alex was here, and could make it a priority. IT would fill out a support ticket and probably get to it in December.

  He sent Jordan a text. Just had a crisis at work. No idea when I’ll be done, but I’ll probably miss the MFA. I’m so sorry. I know you wanted to tell me something.

  Jordan messaged him back a few minutes later, just as Alex was
getting into the data file with the issue. I’m disappointed, but we can talk later. If you get out at a decent hour, let’s still get together. I want to tell you this sooner rather than later.

  Alex beamed. He didn’t know what the news was, but if Jordan wanted to see him, it was all fine with him. I’ll let you know when I have a better sense of the timing.

  Then he got to work. He could see where the problem was right away. Someone had uploaded six hundred records, but designated them all as belonging to the test environment. There was no way to convert them all easily. It had to be done manually, which would take Alex about six hours.

  Alex seethed. He hadn’t gone to school, and worked his butt off, to sit there and manually correct someone else’s mistakes.

  As he worked, he noticed something that the system automatically recorded the username, date and time of every change made to each file. He could see exactly who had made the mistake that had cost him his wonderful Friday night with Jordan. He wished he could say he was surprised when that “someone” turned out to be Chad Milton.

  Chad himself sauntered over to Alex’s work station at six, tie loosened and jacket discarded. “Hey,” he said with a smirk. “What’s with the long face, buckaroo?”

  Buckaroo? Alex looked up at Chad with suspicion. “Chad, did you change those files on purpose?”

  Chad pressed his hands to his chest. “Moi? Would I do something like that? Come on now, you’d have to be talking, like, six hundred files. Who has time to mess around like that? All to do what, keep you here late enough you couldn’t go hang around with your pet felon?”

  “He’s not a felon, Chad.” Alex growled at his ex. “He’s a good guy, who’s trying to make the world a better place. It may not coincide with your worldview, but that doesn’t make him a damn felon.”

  “He spent last weekend in the drunk tank, okay? You absolutely cannot be associated with people like that!” Chad leaned forward, resting all of his weight on his knuckles. “You know better than that!

  “Sure, I saw that ‘date’ on your calendar. And I might have done something to make sure your priorities were where they belonged — right here at your desk, and not out with that smelly hippy.”

  “He doesn’t smell, Chad. And he certainly doesn’t try to manipulate me by sabotaging the entire team’s work.”

  Alex gestured to the whole room. One or two people glanced up, but no one stepped in or did anything.

  Chad just laughed. “Come on, Alex. Everyone knows you have to keep your nose to the grindstone around here. If they’re going to get mad about not getting to go home on time on a Friday, they know exactly who to blame. Y-o-u.

  “If you’d just listen to the advice I’m giving you, and stay away from that jackass, I wouldn’t have to resort to things like this to make sure you do what you’re supposed to. Are we clear?”

  “Oh, we’re clear enough, Chad.”

  Chad put a hand on Alex’s shoulder, bent down, and kissed his cheek. When Alex recoiled, Chad just laughed. “Oh come on, my dad’s an EVP. Who’s going to say anything to me? I’ll be back when you’re done with this and the quarterly outlook is done, to make sure you get home okay.”

  Chad walked away. Anna was back at Alex’s desk before he’d even turned the corner. “Did he just say and do what I think he said and did?”

  “Yeah.” Alex sighed and ran his hands through his hair.

  “Hell no.” Anna clenched her hands into a fist. “That’s so many layers of not okay it’s a damn cake.”

  “I don’t want to make an issue of it, Anna. I need this job too badly.” Alex bowed his head and turned back to the task at hand.

  Anna hesitated, and then she put her hand on his shoulder. “Okay. I won’t make you make an issue of anything. But I’m going to be right here waiting. And I’m going to encourage you to have Jordan here when you’re done.”

  Alex nodded. He sent a text to Jordan, asking him to be there at nine, and cc’ed Anna so she could let him into the building. Then he got back to work. He let his fingers fly, so there would be no danger of missing his nine o’clock deadline. He typed as fast as he could go, fingers aching.

  He finished at eight-thirty. The rest of the team had been held back, so they could run the reports they needed to get the quarterly outlook. Once the reports had been run, Anna could populate her forecast. The entire process was done by nine, which meant everyone had a free weekend.

  Chad’s sabotage hadn’t gotten him anywhere. He’d failed.

  Anna showed Jordan up to the office just in time for Chad to reach Alex’s desk. Chad’s smirk shifted into a snarl of hate when he saw Jordan’s face. “I thought I told you never to show your face on bank property again.”

  Anna stepped in between them. “Mr. Davenport is here at my invitation, Chad. And I’m pretty sure I’m still above you on the org chart. You’re welcome to go take that up with your father, I suppose. He should get to hear more than one side of the story, after all.”

  Jordan put a hand on Alex’s shoulder and squeezed, just a little bit. Alex hadn’t realized he wasn’t breathing until that moment. He stood up to hide his deep, shuddering breath, grabbed his things, and took Jordan’s hand.

  “Thanks, Anna. Thanks, everyone! Have a great weekend!” He pulled Jordan toward the elevators, and didn’t breathe easy until they were out and in the fresh October air.

  Jordan raised his eyebrows mildly. “I think I can probably guess what that was all about. Do you want to walk to my place? Do you need that to burn off some of those nerves?”

  Alex nodded and rested his head on Jordan’s shoulder. “Chad manufactured that whole crisis. The one that made me cancel. And when I called him on it, in front of witnesses, he said, ‘My dad’s an EVP. Who’s going to say anything to me?’”

  He straightened up as they walked, hand in hand, toward Jordan’t apartment. “It’s not like I didn’t know the guy was an ass, but this is, like, final proof or something.”

  “I’ve always thought the guy was after you.” Jordan pressed his lips together, and then he exhaled and smiled. “But you know what? You’re pregnant. With my baby. That’s something he can’t ever take away.

  “Your firstborn will always be mine, no matter what happens in the future.” He cleared his throat noisily. “And, um. They did a test, a routine test, when I got arrested last weekend.”

  Alex stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Jordan grinned, brighter than the streetlights and wider than Broadway. “And my firstborn will always be yours. Scummy Chad can’t take that away, either.”

  Alex couldn’t take enough air into his lungs. His calculations hadn’t taken two babies into account. How were they going to afford child care? How were they going to get the babies from place to place? How were they going to —

  He stopped that train of thought before it ran away with him. Jordan needed support just as much as Alex did. He grabbed Jordan’s face and pulled it in for a kiss. “I don’t know how yet,” he said, “but we’ll find a way to pull this off. Together.”

  Jordan laughed with surprise and delight. “You’re damn right we will. “Together.”

  Alex’s brain ran thick with calculations and formulae. Coming up with a solution that worked to keep a roof over everyone’s head wasn’t going to be easy, but he would have to find one. Family was important to him, and his was just getting bigger.

  16

  Jordan hid his head under a pillow as his phone pinged with an incoming message. It was only five in the morning. He was pregnant. He needed his sleep, damn it.

  If he didn’t get his sleep, he was going to have to find someone and drown them. He didn’t care if it was one of his buddies looking for bail, or his parents looking to give him a hard time about his slacking as an activist; he needed to rest.

  When he fumbled for his phone and checked it, he couldn’t be mad anymore. The person texting him was Alex. Alex, who was also pregnant. A
lex, who hadn’t been able to sleep more than a couple of hours at a stretch since Jordan told him about his good news.

  He’d tried to be positive and cheerful for Jordan, but his concerns about money had spun out of control in only a week.

  How much do you think we could get if we sold my wardrobe on eBay?

  Jordan stared at the text. He couldn’t bring himself to believe what he’d just read. Don’t do that, he said instead. Get in a cab, come over here, and we’ll talk about money after a nice, long nap. Okay?

  Alex always slept better when he slept with Jordan. He still didn’t sleep great, probably because of the whole anxiety thing, but he slept better with Jordan. Jordan would love to bring Alex here to live with him.

  The fact was, Jordan slept better when Alex was here with him, too. The only problem was, he didn’t think he could handle Alex’s hours. He didn’t want to subject Alex to the hours he kept, either. They’d both have to adjust to each other’s hours eventually, but it felt daunting right now..

  Okay.

  Alex arrived half an hour later, with a blanket and a bag and not much else. Jordan let him in, locked up behind him, and cradled him in his arms. The two of them fell asleep in seconds, Jordan drifting off with a little smile on his face.

  He woke up a few hours later. Alex was awake, but his spot on the bed was still warm. Apparently he’d decided coffee was the best thing a pregnant insomniac could do for himself, and Jordan figured he knew his body best.

  “So,” Alex said, and kissed him on the cheek. “Selling my wardrobe on eBay. I can get some cheaper suits at thrift stores, and I’m going to have to switch to paternity suits soon enough anyway.”

  It was too early to deal with this shit. Jordan slumped into a chair. “Um. I think if it makes you feel better, go for it. I don’t know how much you’d get; I’ve never tried to sell used clothes on eBay. I think most cheap suits look kind of cheap, though, so if you’re concerned about how your stuff looks at work, maybe just get a paternity panel tailored in?”