Chapter Sixteen

Old man dancing

Matthias

Matthias walked into the office and was greeted by his grinning assistant, which made him frown. Dane looked like he wanted to laugh, and he was usually a pretty cheerful guy, but this was different. He was also not the first one who had seemed uncommonly happy this Monday morning.

“You look like you’ve had a good weekend,” he said.

“Absolutely,” Dane said. “Probably not as good as yours, though.”

Matthias stared at the young man who had been his assistant for four years. The young man was suddenly laughing happily.

“What?” Matthias asked.

Dane shrugged, and said casually, “It looked like you had fun.”

“Where?”

“At the party.”

“You were at the same party as me?” Matthias asked. “Why didn’t you stop by to say hi?”

Dane had been in the process of gathering up some papers but stopped moving and turned slowly.

“You don’t know?”

“It feels as if we’re talking about different things here,” Matthias said. “What is it that I don’t know?”

“Matthias, you do have Facebook, right?”

“Sure,” Matthias said because he did. 

He didn’t use it, but Jackie had created an account for him years ago. 

“So, you’ve seen what Si posted?”

“Si?”

“Your son.”

“I know who Simon is, Dane,” Matthias said patiently. “What did he do?”

“I take it you’re not using your Facebook account very often.”

“That take would be accurate.”

Dane sighed and reached for his phone.

“When I show you this, please remember that I am just the messenger.” He moved his finger over the screen, paused, and added, “Simon worked here last summer, and we are friends on Facebook.”

“Okay.”

What the hell had his son done?

“He posted this late Saturday night,” Dane said and held the phone out.

Right. Simon had apparently posted something from the party, which seemed to be a video, and he’d added a short text.

“Saw my dad dancing for the first time in my life, and it kills me to admit it, but he has way cooler moves than me.”

Beneath it, the damned boy had added, #oldmandancing

“Fuck,” Matthias muttered, and clicked on the white triangle to show what he was pretty sure would be...

Yes.

It was a video of when he and Nina joined the crowd on the dancefloor, and he heard Simon call out to Suzie, ”Suze, holy fuck, look at dad!” 

He winced when the wobbly video showed him and Nina, and he heard how his daughter squealed. After a few seconds, he let out a breath in relief, and couldn’t hold back a small lip-twitch.

They didn’t look half-bad, actually. 

“If that isn’t what my future husband and I will look like, I’m divorcing him right now!” someone shouted in the background. Simon called out that he was available, someone else chimed in, and then the camera was abruptly turned around to show a fake-shocked Simon.

And then it went black.

Matthias raised his head slowly and looked at his assistant.

“Jesus,” he said with emphasis.

“What?” Len said from the door, looked at Dane, and then the phone. “Ah. You’ve seen the video?”

“Have you?”

“Sure,” Len said. “I’m friends with Simon on Facebook.”

“I’ll just...” Dane murmured and moved toward the door. “There’s coffee if you want some.”

Matthias was about to express his gratitude, but the door was closed firmly, and he turned to look at Len.

“Huh,” he said.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Len said. “People like seeing you like that.” He raised the coffee pot and his brows. “You looked happy.”

“People?” Matthias asked and waved his hand, hoping that Len would understand that this meant he wanted black coffee. Lots and lots of it.

“Simon likes social media.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. 

This probably meant that Dane and Len weren’t the only ones who had seen the video, which would explain the happiness he’d been blasted with that morning.

“Shit.”

“Matty,” Len said and handed him a cup. “I liked seeing it too. Looked at it and thought... Yeah. I know that guy.” He smiled crookedly, and went on, “I grew up with that guy. Haven’t seen him in a while, but I know him.”

“Did I change that much?” Matthias asked, knowing the answer but still needing to hear it.

“Yeah, you did,” Len said. “I changed too, and it happened so slowly I didn’t really think about it. Not until you started changing back again.”

Matthias pulled a hand through his hair and grinned wryly.

“I’m not the same as back then, but I’m figuring it out,” he said. “I think I mostly forgot how to have fun.”

Len snorted out a short chuckle and tilted his head slightly to the side.

“Matty, bud, I’m sure Jackie has a lot of qualities that I’m unaware of...” he drawled. “Don’t think fun is one of them.”

This was true, but what had happened wasn’t all due to his ex-wife’s lack of humor.

“I know,” Matthias said. “But you know how it was when I met her. The company was doing well, but it took ten years each from Dad and me to get us to where we are right now. I was young and so damned ambitious. Wanted to make it so fucking much, and she fit in with my image of who I was.” He shrugged and added, “Or who I thought I wanted to be, perhaps. It wasn’t all on her that we split up.”

“You’re okay with it now, though?”

“Hell, yeah,” Matthias said with emphasis. “I didn’t want the divorce, but it wasn’t because I still loved her. It was...” He paused and thought about how to explain. “You know me, Len. I fix things, and I don’t fail, so when Jackie said she wanted a divorce, I kept saying we’d fix it. I would fix it. Then she moved out, and I still thought we’d... I don’t know. Fix it somehow.”

“If you really wanted to sort shit out, then you would have,” Len said, and the absolute confidence in him felt good.

“Maybe,” he said. “Dad sat me down and yelled some at me, and that cleared my head. So, yeah, we could perhaps have tried to save our marriage, but I didn’t want to anymore.”

“Jacob is pretty awesome.”

“Yeah,” Matthias agreed because his dad was the best, unlike Len’s father, who was someone they both had done their best to avoid the past forty years.

“Jackie wants you back, though.”

What?

Fuck no.

“She left me, remember.”

“I saw how she watched you and Nina this Saturday. She’ll come asking, so you need to figure out what to say.”

“No.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“You don’t get it, Len. I don’t need to figure anything out when that’s all I have to say. No.”

“Good,” Len said calmly. “I like Nina.”

“I like Nina too,” Matthias said.

“You really are happy, right?”

What a bland way to describe how he felt after he’d spent a fantastic night with their friends, and then gone home to peel off Nina’s dress and take her from behind until she was moaning and shaking beneath him. Once their respective hangovers had been cured with pizza and lots of fluids, they’d gone back to bed and started an old movie, which turned into making slow love, and that had been good too.

“Yeah,” he said. “I really am.”

“Good.”

“You?”

“Sucks.”

Matthias blinked a few times and wondered what could have happened.

“Are you seeing someone?”

Len winced and shook his head slowly.

“I was dumb enough to fall for a woman who doesn’t want me.”

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“She might change her mind,” Matthias suggested.

“She bats for her own team.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

They looked at each other in silence for a while, but then Len grinned his usual happy smile.

“So, it sucks a bit to be me, but I’ll get over it,” he said with a shrug. “Not dating right now, but I will eventually.”

“Okay,” Matthias said. “You’ll let me know if I can help?”

“Of course.”

“Tony is a serial dater and doesn’t want to settle, and you’re pining for a gay woman,” Matthias muttered. “What about Luke? Nina and Lay are forever giggling about how he looks, so he can’t be single because of a lack of options. What’s the deal with him?”

“He also fell for a woman he can’t have.”

“What?”

“Went down like a fucking rock.”

“Really?” Matthias said. “Who?”

“Matty...” Len said and looked calmly at him. “Think about it, and you know.”

Matthias thought about the tall man, and how he behaved when they were at bars, at dinners, and how they had –

“Fuck it,” he wheezed out. “I do know.”

“Yeah.”

“This is not good.”

“I know. Don’t worry, he won’t act on it.”

A knock on the door made them both jump, and then Dane popped his head inside.

“You will be late for your phone meeting with the regional veeps,” he said and pointed at Matthias. “And you,” he turned to Len, “Have a meeting with your management team.” 

“Right, thanks,” Matthias said and looked at Len. “Let’s get shit done, and then sneak out for a long lunch.”

“You two have a lunch meeting,” Dance cut in. “There will be bagels in the cafeteria at noon.”

“Gotta run,” Len said and looked at his watch. “See you at noon, and you might want to give Nina a call first,” he grinned and added over his shoulder, “In case she hasn’t seen the Facebook post.”

Shit.

She probably hadn’t seen it and might not appreciate it at all.

 

***

Nina

The sun was shining from a clear blue sky, I had a latte in my hand, and everyone was smiling happily as I walked into the company.

What a fantastic day, I thought as I shrugged out of my thin coat and opened my computer. It would only get better as well because it was my last week on the assignment, so things were winding down, and I’d polish my report a little but then send it to Jacob and Matthias. We had a meeting scheduled where I would present it to the management team at the end of the week. After that, I would be an advisor to a woman who I was pretty sure didn’t need one iota of advice, which meant I could cruise around the office and drink more soy lattes.

Or sit on the rooftop patio to work on my tan.

I finished the last bits of the report in a few hours and leaned back, thinking that I should perhaps go on a trip somewhere. Maybe Matthias could take a week off, and we’d go to Italy. Or London, no Paris. I loved Paris, and we could go to that Bois de whatever it was called, which I didn’t remember, and eat crepes with chestnut –

“Hey, Nina, you sure have some moves!”

I blinked and stared at Peggy.

“Uh... hey?” I said when she just grinned widely.

“You looked freaking amazing,” Peg said and wiggled her brows. “And Matthias? Who knew? Deep waters and all that.”

Deep waters?

Matthias?

“What are you talking about?”

“The video?”

I tried to not look like an owl on Xanax, failed at it, and pushed out a confused, “Video?”

“Shit.”

There was a video of me and Matthias where we both were out on deep waters and looked amazing? And I had some moves?

This was disturbing, to say the least.

“Video?” I asked gingerly. “Of Matty and me?”

“I’m friends with Simon on Facebook,” Peg said as she tapped her phone. “I guess you aren’t?”

Relief washed through me, and I felt my heart rate slow down immediately when I realized that someone hadn’t accidentally filmed us when we went a little overboard on my back deck the other week.

“I am friends with Simon on Facebook, actually, but I don’t use it much.”

Or at all. I had eight-hundred-fourteen friends on Facebook and never posted anything. I had nothing interesting to say, most of my so-called friends were former colleagues, and every time I checked the app, there were mostly ads or pictures of someone’s feet in the sand or skis against an outline of mountains, depending on the season.

“He posted a video of you and Matty dancing, and it’s awesome,” Peggy said and held her phone out. “There hasn’t been such a buzz in the office since our former ComOps VP was caught smoking pot at a club downtown.” She wiggled the phone to get my attention. “Look!”

I braced, but it didn’t look bad at all. My dress really was fantastic. Matthias moved his hips like a pro and also in a way that made his fitted shirt stretch nicely over his chest. We were laughing, and I heard Simon yell something, but then Matthias slid a hand over my hip and let it skim my butt, which made Si turn the phone and make a face before he turned it off.

The silly boy had added the hashtag oldmandancing, which was a clever way of playing with words.

“Has Simon connected with other people in the company?” I asked.

“He worked here last summer. How long did it take him to send you a request?”

Well, crap. Simon had sent me the friend request while we waited for news about Matthias in the hospital, so probably within thirty minutes.

That would explain the happy smiles greeting me that morning.

“What’s the gossip about the clip?”

“He’s über-hot. You’re über-cool. You’re great together. It’s good to see him so happy when he’s been known as all business and no fun for as long as anyone can remember. Everyone is expecting the next office bash to be less stuffy and more yay-partay...”

“No one cares that we’re...” I trailed off and made a circular movement in front of me to somehow illustrate Matthias and me.

“Of course not. This isn’t a monastery.”

“It is slightly unprofessional.”

“Nope. You’ve kept it out of the office and have been professional about everything you’ve done. No one cares, Nina. Or, they care, but they think it’s a good thing.”

Okay then.

“Lunch?” I asked.

“Dane told me they messed up his order at the bagel shop, so there might be some extra for us if we hurry.”

There were two bagels left, and we snatched them up right under the hands of a group from marketing. Matthias and Len were at a table, and they waved at us to join them, so we did.

“I tried to call,” Matthias said. “Got voicemail.”

“Shit,” I muttered and checked my phone, which was black. “Forgot to charge it.”

“Ah.” He smiled, but it looked a little tense, so I waited silently, and then he murmured, “Simon is on Facebook.”

“I know.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“Peggy showed it.” I couldn’t hold back a small giggle, and added, “We looked good.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll talk to Si about posting videos without asking, but we did look good.”

“I guess it’s not a secret anymore that you’re dating,” Len said and got up to gather up their wrappings and napkins.

“We’re not dating,” I said around a big bite of the friggin’ heavenly bagel.

“What?” Len chuckled.

“We’re absolutely not dating,” Matthias agreed, but he sounded almost angry suddenly. 

Oh.

We hadn’t made any promises to each other, so he was right, but I hadn’t expected him to declare it quite as emphatically.

 ”Exactly,” I mumbled, but my throat suddenly felt a little too tight, so I had to swallow a few times to get rid of the bagel.

Matthias leaned forward and watched me with narrowed brows. Then he put his finger in my face and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like the f-bomb.

“Babe, we’re living together. I eat that sugary fucking granola you like so much, and you pick up beer when you go grocery shopping. We’ve also had sex on just about any flat surface available, and more than a few vertical.” 

“Matty –”

“Nina,” he said firmly. “We’re not dating for fuck’s sake. We’re in a pretty serious relationship.” 

“But –”

“We are,” he declared. “Just get over it.”

Then he turned and walked away, followed by an openly laughing Leonard Jackson.

I was still staring at their disappearing backs when someone made a choking sound behind me. I turned and found myself facing an openly grinning woman who, judging from her apron, worked in the cafeteria.

“Girl,” she said. “I had a man like him, looking at me like that, I’d get over it faster than Carl Lewis crossed the finishing line back in the day.”

“Carl, um?” I mumbled, not entirely sure what was going on.

“Another fine, fine man,” she said. “And a good dancer too.”

“You’ve seen the video.”

“Simon worked here last summer,” she retorted. “You looked good.”

Matthias’ son seemed to have connected with a lot of people during his short internship.

“I should get over it?” I asked.

“I would,” she said and winked before moving on to wipe off the rest of the tables.

“I would too,” Peggy said.

Matthias hadn’t exactly declared his undying love for me, but it had been kind of sweet, and I had a warm, fuzzy feeling in my belly, so I smiled back at Peggy and decided that getting over it was probably the best thing to do.

It was what I wanted anyway.

 

***

 

I held my presentation, and the management team listened and nodded while I went through areas where I thought they were on par with best practice in peer companies, areas where they had improvement opportunities, and finally a rather long list of things I suggested they sort out. 

I did not mention George and his unfortunate invoices, but I did talk about setting up a structure for regular internal audits. And the importance of proper authorization of payments.

The meeting was mostly for show, though. Matthias and Jacob had read the full report, and we’d talked about it already, and I’d had pre-meetings with Peggy and Len, so they knew what to expect. The others asked some questions but seemed okay with my conclusions.

After the meeting, Jacob asked me to come with him to Matthias’ office.

“You did more than I expected, Nina,” he rumbled. “And I expected quite a lot.”

“Thank you.” I hesitated but figured that I might as well put one more fish on the table. “Can I tell you one more thing?”

“Sure.”

“I didn’t want to say this in front of the others, and it’s just an observation I’ve made, so take it or leave it.” I swallowed and filled my glass with fresh water. “I didn’t get it,” I said and looked straight at Matthias. “I went through a lot of old projects and asked for material from as far back as they could dig up because some projects are wildly successful. Delivered on time, with high margins, to happy customers. And some went down the drain for no reason at all.”

“Okay,” Matthias said when I paused again.

“Before you became the CEO, you worked in sales and marketing, right?” I asked, which I knew that he’d done.

“What?”

“It took a while, but I found the common denominator.” I smiled a little, and added, “It’s you, Matthias. In the past fifteen years, virtually every project you touched turned into gold.”

“Really?”

He looked surprised, but I saw the flash of satisfaction in his eyes.

“Objectively,” I said and put my water down again. “You shouldn’t be the CEO. The company would make a lot more money if you headed Commercial operations and Marketing.”

“Huh,” he said and blinked a few times in surprise. “Someone needs to run the company.”

“Len.” 

“Len?” 

“Leonard Jackson,” I clarified.

“I know who Len is, Nina.”

“He’s better at it than you,” I said quietly and braced for a possible explosion. “He’s been behind a lot of your decisions in the past years, and he would be good.”

“Len should be CEO because he’s better at it than me?”

“Pretty much, yeah. You’d make more money that way.” I winced and added, “Much more. So, I just felt I should tell you.”

“And I should work with Com Ops.”

“If you can handle stepping down,” I murmured.

“I’d still own a third of the company.”

Oh, wow. It looked like he was seriously thinking about it.

“Yeah, but it’ll raise some brows,” I said.

“Matthias,” Jacob suddenly said. “I’ve been thinking about making the company public. You will not want to run it forever anyway. Si and Suzie have zero interest, Jake doesn't either, and his kids are too young. Might be better to let go now.” 

“Really?” Matthias said, and then there was a long silence.

“I’ll leave,” I told them.

“You don’t have to –”

“Thank you, Jacob, but this is something you should sort out without me. Call Jake, sit down and hash out what you want to do.”

“Yes ma’am,” Matthias said with a lip-twitch. “Will do.”

 

***

 

I was on the couch with Pippin next to me, reading a book about some seriously hot guys living in the Colorado mountains. It wasn’t bad at all, and I wondered if skiing in Steamboat Springs next season wouldn’t be totally appropriate. I had a hard time keeping my focus on it, though, so I sighed with relief when I heard the front door open, and Pippin jumped off to greet his daddy as if Matthias had been off to war for years.

I watched him in silence when he walked in and put his jacket and briefcase on the kitchen table.

“We voted,” he said. “We’ll go public.”

“How do you feel?”

It had been a considerable part of his whole life and still was. Jacob had retired, and Jake had never worked in the company, but Matthias was the current CEO.

“The vote was unanimous, baby,” he said gently. “It’s weird, but I feel mostly relief.”