Are you busy today?
It was a simple message. A bit vague, perhaps, but it had certain overtones. It was suggestive because that was sort of the way you might ask someone out on a date, but it was not suggestive at the same time.
Gene stared down at the text message for a long time. What was the perfect reply? How to get the tone right? What tone should he even strive for?
He had showed up at Ethan’s house and practically demanded a job from him. Obviously the man was not flirting.
Specifically, the next message read. Are you available at 3?
Gene glanced at his calendar. Most of the debriefing and hustle work trailed off after lunch.
I could be, he texted back. Why?
First round interview. Meet me at Mountains and Clouds at 3.
Excitement faded in. It brought hesitation along as an escort and it showed up late, but as the minutes ticked by, the weight of Gene’s quarter-life crisis began to feel lighter. Ethan was going to give him a shot.
Did he really want to be a lobbyist though? Forget about the vampires, what if he hated it exactly like Ethan thought he would? Could he be one of those people who worked a high paying job for the money and fled as soon as his financial goals were realized? And how long would that take? A year? Two years? Three years? More?
He couldn’t focus the rest of the day. His thoughts kept drifting towards worries and fantasies, a rollercoaster of optimism and dread. The deepest drop from his common sense reminding him that he didn’t have the job yet.
Mountains and Clouds was a large sculpture in the Hart’s building’s atrium. The mountains were several stories tall, a stabile of ominous black growing up through the atrium’s boxy frame. The clouds had been removed in 2016 out of concern for their structural safety, but were meant to float like dark alien bodies over the heads of all that traveled past.
Ethan Gatwick was wearing a suit so dark its navy color looked black in the indoor light. He’d paired it with a crisp white shirt and a sapphire tie that brought out his eyes.
He was actually really attractive. It took some time for Gene to appreciate that fact, it was easy to let his annoyance and righteous indignation distract him, but the slight curl in Ethan’s short brown hair created waves Gene could imagine running his fingers through. He was fit, broad in his well-tailored suits, lean muscle and the smoothness of a decent wellness routine—massages, facials, possibly Botox although if so it was very subtle. He had high cheekbones and a chiseled jaw.
Certainly, if Ethan was any indication, a tour through the world of corporate interests could do Gene a lot of good.
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