Chapter 1

Topher's last full day at NationComm ended at four. He'd come in an hour early to justify leaving now. For the last eight months, he'd been on site from nine in the morning to five at night or later, five days a week. Even though he'd done roughly one hour of work today, he'd stayed at or near his borrowed desk until now. If he was going to bill eight hours, he would be on-site for eight hours even though his last timesheet had been signed since the day before yesterday.

He'd left his laptop home today, knowing he wouldn't need it. As the clock ticked the last few minutes of the hour, he slid his e-book reader into his empty laptop bag. He rifled through the pages of his pad, making sure there was nothing that could be considered NationComm's property written in there before he slid it into the bag.

Next, he sorted through the pens in the desk, removing the two with the URL of his consulting company printed on them and placing them in his bad. He smiled to himself, remembering how he'd had them printed on a lark. Topher was very particular about his office supplies. The pad, the pens, the spiral-bound notebooks and binders he'd already brought home, he'd bought them all for himself. If he could help it, he never used the office supplies a client provided. Provided by the lowest bidder, they were often flimsy and unreliable. A twenty-five cent pen could interrupt the flow of a million-dollar idea.

Besides, Topher was always afraid that, if he wrote something down on a client's paper with a client's pen, some judge might be convinced that it was therefore the client's idea. His idea written with his pen on his paper would have a much clearer provenance.

He'd expressed that fear only once - to a woman his sister-in-law had set him up with. First, she'd argued that the idea was ridiculous and illogical. Topher had readily agreed. The idea was just as ridiculous and illogical as the law itself. He had no faith in the legal system to come within shouting distance of common sense.

Once he'd said that, the woman - Carol or Karen or something like that - had accused him of megalomania for thinking that anyone was out to steal his ideas. When he'd repeated this to his friend Estrella, she'd stated that it sounded more like paranoia mixed with egomania. Topher had considered that and decided that none of the terms applied. He didn't believe that people were out to steal his ideas. He didn't expect to ever wind up in court arguing over the esoterica of intellectual property and the provenance thereof. His attitude was based on the nature of his work. Whatever the final product - whether it be a web site, a back office billing system, or a custom reporting engine, what he was really selling his clients were his ideas. They were his only currency and he protected them like they were money in the bank.

He drew out a pen again and rolled it between his fingers, the URL printed white on black. The body was lacquered with a rubber grip and thicker than most client-supplied pens, though not the thickest he'd seen.

The first time he'd seen the model, it had a different logo on it. He'd received it as swag at a training seminar, called the company, and eventually gotten the information about the vendor and model. He had fond memories of a long weekend spent building the website at the end of that URL after ordering two gross of the pens just in case anyone typed in the address.

That had been ten years ago. He'd been an independent consultant with two hundred eighty-eight pens. Now, he had fourteen consultants working for him and just over a hundred pens left.

He looked up at the clock. It had ticked over to 4:03. Topher rose, sliding the bag onto his shoulder. As he walked out of the office, no one looked up or said goodbye. There had been no going-away cake like employees got. It might be because he wasn't really going to be gone. He was leaving two junior developers here, writing the code to implement his ideas. If they got too far off track, he'd come back for a day or two to set them right.

Or it might just be because Topher hadn't really made any friends at NationComm. He was friendly with many of his coworkers, but there wasn't one person in the engineering department he ever expected to see socially after today.

He checked his bag, making sure it was zipped shut as he waited for the elevator. He'd left an hour earlier than normal because there was one person he did hope to see after leaving here and he thought this might be his last chance to talk to her on the job.

As he rode down to six, he reviewed the plan he'd laid out in anticipation of this conversation. One of the details worried him. The location was ridiculous, but better than talking to her in front of everyone or trying to contrive some ridiculous "chance meeting" so they could talk privately.

On the sixth floor, he stepped into the document-processing area and stepped into the supervisor's office. The sixth floor had only one office and two conference rooms. The remainder of the floor was open with lines of desks populated mostly by women, most of whom were young. Topher always found the atmosphere oppressive, the ceilings imperceptibly lower, the overhead lights not quite reaching the floor.

After a brief conversation with the supervisor, Topher stepped into one of the empty conference rooms. When Allegra joined him a few minutes later, he instinctively rose and shook her hand, asking her to take a seat. She did, tucking her skirt underneath her and keeping her eyes on him the whole time. Topher glanced away. He'd watched her through the room's glass walls as she walked up the long aisle of desks. Tall and sleek, she moved with a casual grace that accentuated the wrongness of the room.

When he looked back, he saw Allegra studying him thoughtfully. Their position relative to each other at NationComm was maddeningly vague. Neither was an employee with a defined place on the org chart. The only real indication was that the man who signed Allegra's timesheets answered to the man who signed Topher's and had been known to do what Topher asked him to on occasion.

Still, they were both temps of a sort. Allegra had been Topher's go-to when he needed to talk to a "typical user" of NationComm's document management system even though there was nothing typical about her. She was remarkably efficient and serious-minded at first, never cracking a smile. Only after repeated meetings had she started to laugh at his jokes and even displayed a wicked sense of humor of her own. Unlike a typical user, she'd clearly thought a lot about her job and how it could be done more efficiently. She'd come up with a number of the ideas in Topher's design spec and, if she was still working at NationComm in a year, would be one of the primary beneficiaries of the improvements made.

But, the design spec was done. They'd had their last meeting a week ago. She had no duties that touched on Topher's in any way. There would be no logical reason for this meeting.

Realizing this, he said without preamble, "I'm leaving NationComm today. I'd like to see you again. Would you meet me for dinner this Friday?"

Allegra tilted her head like a cat faced with a new puzzle, blonde hair cascading down over one shoulder. She had often surprised Topher with her perspective on the world and he realized he had no idea what she would do or say next. He found himself holding his breath as she considered him.

"That depends," she said. "Are you asking me on a date?"

Topher almost said no. He didn't feel ready to ask Allegra on a date. He'd been hoping for something along the lines of a friendly consultation on the question of whether she would be amenable to a date. He wanted more information before he risked rejection. He was reasonably sure she was single, but she was twelve years younger than him. She had more education. Even if he accepted his sister-in-law's assurances that he was a "good catch," Allegra was still more attractive than him. And, she was a woman. All relationships between a man and a woman had to first bridge that built-in gap.

Still, he knew that people had found his cautious approach off-putting. Afraid he was losing any chance of being friends with Allegra if she turned him down for this, he said, "Yes. I'm asking you on a date."

Allegra drew her hair back from her face, gripping it behind her in one hand like she was about to tie it back, then let it drop. "Before I say yes, there are some things you need to know. Maybe we should meet after work and discuss them."

Topher raised an eyebrow, "Like a pre-date consultation?"

Allegra nodded. "I like you, Topher. I just don't date casually and I don't want to lead you on. How about we meet for coffee at BTDT at five thirty?"

"Sounds good." Topher did his best to hide his relief. "I'll meet you there."

Bean There, Done That was a little coffee shop tucked underneath a bookstore specializing in mystery novels. Topher wasn't sure how either stayed in business in the era of Amazon and Starbucks, but they had good coffee and a steady clientele. He went there directly to wait for Allegra's shift to end, choosing a seat near the window so he might have some warning she was approaching.