Chapter 7

"Push harder," Frank growled in John's ear.

Leg day was much worse than arm day. John strained against the foot plate as the muscles in his legs shook. He cried out and forced his legs out straight.

"That's it! Now one more and you're done."

"I can't," John gasped, afraid to unlock his knees for fear of the weights slamming his legs back against his chest.

"You can do this," Frank said. "One more."

John tensed as he bent his knees, slowing the weights as they fell towards him. Gathering his will and adjusting his grip on the side handles, he focused on the foot plate and forced his exhausted muscles into one last push. The blood pounded in his head as his legs slowly straightened out.

"Great job," Frank said with a grin as he helped John lower the plate and get out off the bench. "Stand still for a second."

"My legs are gonna kill me tomorrow," John moaned as he stretched his back out.

"No pain, no gain," Frank said as he touched his shoulder. "Let's hit the showers."

The gym wasn't strictly for men, but when John described it to Lily she wrinkled her nose and announced she was sleeping in. They had left her making cute little snores with the sheet tucked under her chin. John smiled as he remembered the tender way he and Frank welcomed her home. Waking up together in bed had given him a warm feeling that had stayed with him all morning.

They stripped quickly, storing their sweaty workout clothes in the locker and retrieving their towels, soap, and shampoo. Frank led the way, the muscles in his legs and ass more clearly defined by their hard workout. His scent lingered after him despite the overpowering aroma of sweat and stink in the locker room. John could have followed him with his eyes closed by his scent alone.

Frank started two showers to let the water warm, but when he turned around his eyes went to John's waist. "Uh ... maybe you should have a cold shower instead."

John looked down and flexed his ass to make his half-mast cock bounce. "Maybe you should stop looking soâ€""

Frank looked past him as he stepped close, then kissed him for one long second. The flush extended down to Frank's chest when he stepped back into the steaming water. "Remember the ski lift?" he asked as he put soap on his wet hair.

"Yeah," John whispered, praying no one came in the shower in the next few minutes. They'd kissed in public the first time on the ski lift during their ski trip.

"Me too." Frank scrubbed hard and chuckled. "Me too."

The second day of work started with a brief status meeting where Frank introduced Lily to the team. He explained her role was strictly advisory, but that when they had a product to market she might be contracted to help.

For her part Lily charmed them all, making a special effort with the only other woman in the group, Soon Li. John grinned as he watched her work the same magic she had on the band and Frank's family.

John got out his laptop and set himself up again at the meeting table after everyone dispersed to their offices. Lily brought over a cup of coffee for them both and sat next to him.

"So what did you guys want to show me," she said as she took a sip from her white ceramic mug.

John got the demo tablet and began describing the product at a high level. Lily was quiet as he spoke, asking a few small clarifying questions. When he began to demonstrate the user interface, showing how to navigate through the volumes of static test data, she sat up. She took the tablet from him and began to quickly craft her own searches, intuitively grasping the gesture interface and drilling into the data for her own results.

"Holy shit," she whispered. "I have a client who is looking for a tool to search this mammoth set of court documents and rulings they have warehoused."

"You'd probably need to talk to Frank about their data is stored, but the way he explained it the interface could be coupled to almost any kind of back-end."

She kept playing with the tablet with a serious expression on her face. "I wonder if you could hook it up to that online encyclopedia so I could do some demos with real world data?"

"I don't know," John said as she continued to play with the device. "Let's ask the team."

They sat around eating pizza together when Lily brought it up again. Her question prompted a brainstorming session.

"I hadn't considered that," Frank said as he nodded his head. "I read somewhere they make their entire corpus available for download. I bet I could index it. The non-compete for the analysis techniques I sold ran out last month. Half of it was based on Open Source software anyway. Let me see what I can whip up."

By late afternoon Frank had not only downloaded and indexed the data, he had set up a private server that acted as a live back-end for the demo tablet. After switching to the live data source in the settings, he walked around showing the team the prototype and completely freaked everyone out.

"How the fuck did you do that?" Nathan asked. "The prototype UI was tied to the static index on the tablet."

"Which was just a URL in the settings. I pointed it to the live index to see what would happen." Frank shrugged. "I had no idea if it would work or not."

"It shouldn't be working." He took the tablet from Frank and drilled around the interface. "How can it be working?" Nathan asked Raj and Soon Li as they came out to see what was going on.

"Well, we had already written the interfaces for the back-ends we intended to support," Raj answered. "One of them was the REST interface that Frank had already specified." He shrugged and took the tablet from Nathan. "The control doesn't care where the model resides. One URL is just like another and the interface will fall through a series until one protocol works or they all fail."

Soon Li nodded. "The unit tests all passed. I guess we just never tried it with live data before. It is a bit laggy, though. I could probably cache the views so when you go back it doesn't have to re-query the model."

"Wait, so you're telling me it works?" Lily asked. "I could show it to people?"

Soon Li handed the tablet to her. "Well, the online encyclopedia is a big data source, but it's not data warehouse big. The stuff we need to write over the next few weeks will be scalable to really massive datasets and will require a cloud infrastructure with on-demand nodes for data storage, MapReduce functions, view caching. It's cool this works, but the prototype is really just a toy compared to what we will have working with real data."

"I could sell this right now," Lily pronounced with confidence. "Seriously, I could walk into ten different companies and sell this as-is. Not all my customers need that kind of massive scalability."

"So I guess you're in?" Frank asked as he leaned against his office door frame.

"You fucking bet I am," she said with a flush in her cheeks. "I need to make some phone calls to set up appointments."

By the end of the day, John noticed Raj's significant looks between Lily, Frank and himself. That didn't bother him, but when he noticed Soon Li doing the same thing he got angry.

Despite only knowing him a few days, John already considered Raj a friend. It didn't bother John that he knew about their relationship, but he had promised not to share his knowledge with anyone and now it was obvious Soon Li knew as well.

Waiting until Raj was alone in his office, John stepped in and closed the door.

"What's up?" Raj asked without a hint of nervousness.

"You told Soon Li about us," John said. Asking would lead to denials, but stating it as fact would encourage him to be truthful if he really had told her.

Raj blanched and swallowed hard. "I'm sorry. It's not like you think."

John took a seat and suppressed his immediate reaction. "So what is it?"

Raj began to twirl a pen between his fingers like a magician trick. "I know it's ironic, but you can't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you."

John smirked at the balls it took to ask that. "Okay, I'll keep your secret."

"And I'm still keeping yours, I promise." He took a deep breath. "I'm a first generation Indian-American, a good Hindu, and I respect my parents. Soon Li is a first generation Korean-American, a good Buddhist, and respects her parents as well."

"You're seeing each other," John said as it became clear to him.

"Our families don't know," Raj said with a smile that didn't hide the pain in his eyes. "We can't be together."

"I understand," John whispered.

"I know you do," Raj said. "I've known Frank for long enough now that I would have never expected his tastes to be so ... exotic. He's tended to favor brief relationships with beautiful women for as long as I've known him."

"He still does, but I hope this relationship may go a bit longer," John said with a grin. "Lily is the most beautiful woman I've ever been with."

"But he wasn't kissing Lily," Raj pointed out, his complexion becoming darker as he blushed.

"That part's new for both of us. I can't really explain it, but I can't deny it either."

"You're at least brave enough to attempt it. Soon Li and I hide our relationship and someday we will suffer because she will marry..." Raj took fast, shallow breaths as his eyes filled with tears. "I can't even fuckin' say it."

"I'm sorry for that." John said as the sympathy he felt overwhelmed him. "Maybe you two can find a way."

"And live the rest of our lives without our families?" Raj shook his head. "I couldn't do that to my mother. Our cultures are as different from each other as they are from yours here in the States, but I am a good Indian boy and someday my parents will call to tell me of my marriage, just like hers will."

John looked down at his fingers. "You're right. When my parents find out about the three of us ... I will be alone." It stung to admit that, but he realized he said when and not if.

"And I'm sorry for that," Raj said. "I know you feel differently about your families here, but that to me is a horror I could not face. And I could not ask Soon Li to face it for me either."

"Thank you for talking to me about this," John said as he stood. He felt tired and broken as he opened the door. "And if you ever need to talk to me again, please consider me a friend."

"I will and I do," Raj said. "Thank you for understanding. I do not keep things from her when she asks me directly. She will tell no one."

Frank had been mysterious about their dinner plans. Lily didn't seem curious as she played with the demo tablet in the front passenger seat of Frank's car. John had suggested a couple of places as they drove across town, but Frank ignored him with a chuckle. "Be patient. You'll love it. Trust me."

The small white building didn't look like much, but the parking lot was packed. When John got out of the back seat, the scent of wood smoke told him the answer. "Barbeque?"

"The best in town," Frank said as he locked the car. "Come on."

The place was packed, but the line moved quick as each of them picked from the assortment of meats and sides. The brisket and sausage combo was Frank's choice, so John and Lily picked it as well. Fried okra, beans, and garlic bread rounded out the meal, along with gigantic quart sized glasses of fresh brewed iced tea.

Frank led out into the dining room when John caught a glimpse of a familiar face. Emma, Frank's sister, was sitting by herself at a table for four and was waving them over.

"Surprise," Emma called as she greeted each of them with brief hugs. John felt like a microbe under a microscope when she looked at him.

"It's so good to see you again," Lily said as she sat across from Emma. "I can't believe Frank didn't tell us you were going to be here."

"I wasn't sure I would finish work in time. How was your business trip?"

The two of them chatted while John ate the best fucking barbeque he'd ever had in his life. He looked over at Frank who had little bits of sauce on his lips and wished he could lick them off. He whispered to Frank, "We need some leftovers."

"Why?" Frank asked between bites of brisket.

"Trust me," John said and licked his finger off without being too suggestive. "We need leftovers."

Frank got the gist and chuckled. "Good idea."

"What's a good idea?" Emma asked as she abandoned the conversation she was having with Lily about shoe stores. Lily gave John a knowing grin.

"Bringing some extra food home for lunch tomorrow," Frank said with a suppressed grin.

"You could cut the sexual tension at this table with a knife," Emma said as she leaned back to stare at the three of them. "When are you guys gonna come clean?"

"After eating leftovers later," John whispered, making Lily and Frank bust out laughing.

"Lily, what are you doing with these two reprobates?" Emma asked as she chuckled along.

"I don't know," she replied with a wistful sigh. "But I'm happy. Today I'm really happy."

"Why today especially?" Emma asked. John realized she was switching gears from Frank's sister to psychologist.

"Last night these two made me feel so ... special." Lily pushed her plate away and sipped her tea. "How much has Frank told you?"

"Only that in the middle of losing everything he found you two and hung on."

"I hit on Frank at the ski lodge bar. I could see they were close, but I had no idea they'd just met that day. I could already see their connection, even before they realized it themselves."

"She thought we were gay," John said and rolled his eyes.

"Aren't you?" Emma asked with a confused expression. "Or at least bisexual?"

"Always with the labels, sis," Frank growled. "Neither one of us ever looked at a guy before. I still don't. Except him. I guess I'm a John-sexual if you need a label to pin on me."

"The Kinsey Scale isn't a Slip-N-Slide, Frank," Emma growled back. "Your orientation sometimes shifts during puberty or late adolescence, but by the time someone is your age it just doesn't change. Not like this."

"Fuck you, Emma," Frank said. "A month ago I might've agreed with you but, without getting into personal details, you'll have to take my word that we're the data point that breaks your hypothesis."

John glanced at Lily. She appeared as uncomfortable with their heated exchange as he did. "Look, I don't really care how we got here. The three of us are going to try to work things out and remain ... together."

"Really?" Emma asked in surprise and glanced at her brother as if seeking his confirmation. "You're serious."

Frank shrugged. "Last weekend helped clear some things up. We're gonna be exclusive now, just the three of us. And John and I aren't going to try very hard to hide how we feel about each other." Hearing Frank say it plainly made John tent his pants. "In fact he's moving in with me for at least the next six weeks. Lily will be staying as well when she doesn't have to travel for work."

"Holy shit," she said. "I was just thinking this was a hangover from a wild ski trip."

Lily leaned forward as her fear bubbled up past her mask. "I'm gonna try, but I have some ... personal issues I need to work through."

"Do you want to talk about it with me?" Emma asked, suddenly sympathetic as she reached for Lily's hand.

"Maybe," she said as she squeezed Emma's hand back. "But not now."

"I'll give you my number. We can meet for lunch if you want," Emma said and wrote it on a napkin when Lily nodded. "What about Mom and Dad?"

"What about them? Dad already hates me and nothing ever sticks to Mom for very long." Frank looked away when he said it, like he didn't really believe it himself.

"What about your families?" Emma asked John and Lily.

"Orphan," Lily said lightly, but there was a tension in her voice as well.

"I'll be disowned when they find out about me and Frank, but I'm willing to accept that. We've had some issues before and aren't that close anymore." John shrugged. "My brother and sister might be okay about it. Time will tell."

"And you've only known each other for a few weeks." Emma shook her head.