Mixed Signals Read online

  He also needed to set up a first-class sting operation to take Teague down.

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE NEXT few months passed by in a blur for Frank. He spent as much of it as he could in the air, either on his regular LifeFlight shifts or on training flights with Benjamin. One was a lot more fun than the other, but Frank found a lot of personal satisfaction from both.

  Even better, the postflight not-dates with Benjamin continued and kept getting longer. Dinner turned into dinner and drinks, then dinner, drinks, and a movie. Once, they got into an argument about a science fiction book they both loved and ended up at the local big-box bookstore comparing the author’s other works. That of course led to Benjamin bitching about big-box stores ruining life, the universe, and everything, so they had spent the next postflight not-date at a small independent bookstore that specialized in nonfiction. Benjamin was whip smart, funny, and insightful in addition to being damn sexy, and Frank realized with awe that he was definitely falling in love with the opinionated geek.

  Unfortunately, Frank had to bail on Benjamin more often as Nancy’s campaign kicked into high gear for the primaries. While Nancy was the odds-on favorite to win her party’s nomination, she still had to put in the work to fight for it and show the public her best face. It meant that when Frank wasn’t flying lifesaving helicopter flights, he was on the road to rallies and speaking engagements. Camila had crafted his schedule so he got a few nights off, and he offered her his hand in marriage in exchange. She told him that he “owed her one,” and that was, in his opinion, much more terrifying.

  He finally managed to pin Benjamin down to an afternoon meetup at “their” coffee shop, which he felt bad about, but he was guest of honor for some LGTBQ+ charity that night (and it said a lot that he could not remember which one it was, only that it was being held at the historic Women’s League Building near downtown).

  “You look terrible.” Benjamin looked up at him as if smelling bad meat.

  Frank crashed into the lounger that he unofficially considered “his” and just nodded.

  “That bad, huh?”

  Frank closed his eyes and concentrated on not dropping his cup of coffee.

  “I’ve been keeping tabs on you, which sounds stalkery, but I mean just reading headlines, you know? Because of the primaries. No stalking involved.” Benjamin did jazz hands as if that meant anything to Frank.

  “Of all the things in the world I do not want to talk about right now, it’s Nancy’s campaign.” Frank did not even open his eyes.

  “Ohhhhkay. How about, I rewrote the business plan, and Alex thinks it’s solid.”

  Frank looked up at him. “Alex?”

  “Yeah, your father? He looked it over again and—”

  “You’re calling my father Alex?” Frank sat up, mildly outraged, or maybe just appalled.

  “Yes? I mean, yes. He said I could!”

  Frank only knew four people who called his father Alex; two were old medical school pals of his, one had been Frank’s mother, and the last one was his brother-in-law, Warren. If his father ever asked Beya to call him by his first name, she had obviously declined. He dropped his face into his hands.

  “What? He said I could!” Benjamin repeated, sounding like a five-year-old.

  “When have you been meeting with my father?”

  “Oh. Uh.” Benjamin stalled, confused by the question. “He’s asked me to drop by his office a few times over the last couple of months so we could polish it up. I told him I thought we should wait for you! But he mostly wanted to talk about… stuff.” He wrinkled his nose.

  “Stuff.” Frank peered at him through his fingers. “Stuff?”

  “Yeah. Just. Stuff?”

  Frank dropped his hands. He knew what his father was doing, because he had done it with Warren and, later, tried to do it with Beya. She, fortunately (or unfortunately, in Frank’s opinion) had a lot of experience dealing with overprotective father figures and had shut that down pretty quickly. Benjamin, clearly, had no idea what was going on. “You mean, he talked about my mother and how their vacations to Europe always ended up with him being called home to deal with business?”

  Benjamin looked surprised. “Yeah. That. I mean, Alex tells some great stories. Funny guy.” Benjamin looked conflicted about admitting that.

  Frank sighed. “Look… I should come clean here, because you need to know.” Frank sucked in a deep breath and straightened up.

  “That your father thinks we’re dating? That’s not exactly a secret.”

  Frank paled, stunned speechless, but Benjamin just waved a hand at him.

  “He asked if we were doing a prenup as part of the business arrangement, and when I finished having a stroke, he asked about the honeymoon. He’s pretty old-fashioned, for a liberal-minded kind of guy. He wanted to know what church I go to.”

  “You don’t go to church,” Frank said, as it was the only thing his brain could process. Other than vague plans involving patricide.

  “Well, duh.” Benjamin pointed at himself. “Secular Jew! Hello!” He stopped and studied Frank for a second. “You know, for a guy whose sexual orientation is common knowledge at CNN and who hit on me the first time we met in the waiting area of a salon, you’re acting pretty upset about this.”

  Frank shook his head.

  “Because it’s your father? Hate to break it to you, but he probably guessed you were gay when you got kicked out of the military for cock-sucking.”

  “Jesus! Kaplan, shut up!”

  Benjamin frowned at him. “What’s the problem? Is it me?” He looked comically insecure for just a moment before his expression hardened up. “I’m not leading your father on, Sheldon. He made those assumptions all on his own.”

  “I know he did! God dammit. I’m trying… look, I’m trying to say that I know he’s a pushy bastard. He likes you, because he likes smart people, and he’s been asking me to ‘settle down’ for about twenty years now, so I think he’s just doing his normal ‘welcome to the Sheldons’ routine. I don’t want you to think it’s because I put him up to it. Fuck.” He dropped his head back against the chair. “Just, fuck.”

  Benjamin was silent long enough that Frank raised his head to look at him. “What?”

  “He’s worried about you.”

  “No, he’s trying to poke his long fingers into my life again. That’s just the kind of father he is.”

  Benjamin pursed his lips. “He mentioned something about you reopening the discharge case.”

  “Fuck my life.” Frank closed his eyes again.

  “I just mean, he’s worried about that. Kept telling me how important it is to ‘stick by your man in hard times.’”

  “Fuck.” Frank decided to put the word on repeat.

  Benjamin was quiet again for a moment before speaking up. “He really misses your mother, I think.”

  Frank let out a breath. “He really does. They were so in love, it was painful to be in the same room with them sometimes. She didn’t come from money and didn’t really care about it too much, so Father always felt like he had to prove himself worthy of her while all she ever wanted was to make him happy.”

  “Disgusting,” Benjamin said, although his mouth was curled up into a smile.

  “Shut up. It was awful.” Frank chuckled.

  Benjamin sighed. “Look, I don’t care that your father’s got the wrong idea. He’s happy for you, and I’m okay with being a part of that for now. Wasn’t that the whole goal of this anyway?”

  Frank’s stomach twisted at the reminder of exactly how uninterested Benjamin was in him, but he nodded. “Well, that, and getting you the money you need for your research and plans.”

  “That too!” Benjamin grinned, but it faltered. “Why are you reopening the discharge?”

  Frank looked around. “You want to go for a drive?”

  “In your car? Hell yeah.” Benjamin grabbed his backpack and stood up. Frank led him out to where his Tesla was parked and tossed him the key fob. Benjam
in played hot potato with it as he tried to catch it, then hugged it to his chest. “Holy shit, you’re letting me drive it?”

  Frank nodded and waved him on. Benjamin stood next to the car with the fob in his hand, took a deep breath, then opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat. The car, sensing the fob and weight of a driver, turned on instantly. Benjamin laughed. “I love that part.”

  Settling into the passenger seat, Frank pointed out the windshield. “Let’s go.”

  Grinning like a madman, Benjamin pulled out of the parking space and took to the roads. They drove in silence until they reached the highway, where Frank put on his favorite jazz station on low volume.

  “Okay, you want to know about the discharge?”

  Benjamin blinked, obviously having forgotten about the discussion. “Uh, sure. I mean, if you want to share. I just brought it up because your father seems pretty intense about it.”

  “He’s been pissed that my discharge was other than honorable from the start. Besmirching the family name, people shouldn’t be punished for who they have sex with, it seemed like a setup, etcetera.”

  “Was it? A setup?” Benjamin merged into traffic on the highway, his focus on the road.

  “Maybe? Hell if I know. Hell if I care. It happened, and that’s that.” Frank maybe cared a little, especially if Paulie had done it as Nancy insisted, but there was little point in going down that road. “Ironically, I only did it because Nancy blackmailed me, threatening to tell Father that my whole video game investment was bogus if I didn’t do it.”

  “That’s hilarious, given that Alex figured it out for himself anyway.”

  “Continuing a long history of us underestimating our father.” Frank shook his head. “But Warren, Nancy’s husband, put one of his legal eagles on the case the very next fucking day. Next thing I know appeals are being filed with the Air Force and my life is upended yet again.”

  “If it was a setup, can’t you use that, though? For the appeal?”

  “I’m not entirely sure it was a setup. That’s Nancy’s theory, and I admit I have suspicions. But if it was, then there is no way to prove it.”

  “What about the other guy? The one who got caught with you?”

  “Right, sure, like he’s going to come forward after his administrative discharge and say he lied under oath.”

  Benjamin looked surprised. “Oh. Oh shit.”

  “Right. Doesn’t happen often, but they could reopen his case and make the argument for demoting his discharge. He’d lose benefits. Hell, even if he was willing to do that, I wouldn’t let him.”

  “Even if he was part of the reason you got kicked out?”

  “I’m not a bastard. I don’t remember much about him, but he was hot as fuck and seemed like a nice guy. Honestly the worst part in the eyes of the military was that I was getting a blow job from a non-comm.”

  Benjamin frowned.

  “Non-commissioned officer. He was a sergeant. I was a lieutenant. If he had been a woman, I might not have gotten kicked out, but I would have been in serious hot water for fraternization and abuse of rank. Anyway, he’s got his benefits and health care, for what that’s worth these days. I would not ask him to ruin his life all over again just on moral principle.”

  “Even if he offered?”

  There was something tense about the way Benjamin asked the question. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing! I just mean, maybe he would do it anyway?”

  “Why would he, though? It would be he-said/he-said. Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that my sister is right: my embittered ex decided to lash out and hurt me by arranging for me to get caught. And then what? My ex would say ‘wasn’t me’ and walk away laughing.”

  Benjamin was silent for a long time, flowing through traffic at just over the speed limit. “This car drives like a dream.”

  Frank was glad to take the segue into more mundane topics. He wasn’t sure where the sudden discomfort had come from, but he was more than willing to let it go.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE NEWS that Frank was in the process of petitioning to get his discharge reassigned was not entirely welcome. There would be no way that the sting Benjamin was orchestrating against Teague would not be linked to that. The fact that both situations were due to Teague’s run for governor was almost immaterial, in Benjamin’s opinion. It was going to be a clusterfuck that would put gang-bang porn to shame.

  But the road had been laid, and it was clear Corsak was at the point of doing the sting on his own if Benjamin backed out. He had no idea that the man behind MudzNewz was Dr. Benjamin Kaplan, recent business associate and “close friend” of the Sheldon family (as Benjamin was described in a short article in the local newspaper—he was just glad no major news sites had picked up on that yet, and that no one was pushing the envelope on “close friend” too much).

  The primaries had come and gone with very few surprises. Sheldon-Kane and Teague would be facing off for the governorship, and while everyone was playing aboveboard for the moment, things promised to become hard and dirty as the countdown to election day got closer. Benjamin thought the lull served the interest of the sting operation in that Teague would not be feeling attacked until the attack was well under way. Catching him off guard, and hopefully vulnerable, was going to be key.

  In any case, the wheels were in motion. Despite Benjamin’s good-faith warning that Corsak might lose his own VA benefits if his discharge was pulled up for review, nothing seemed to quench Corsak’s thirst for righteousness. Benjamin suspected it was partially a way for the guy to clear his conscience, which he personally thought was fair enough, no matter what Frank had to say about it.

  For his part, Frank did not talk about the case for his discharge reassignment. He was much happier working on setting up their business and giving Benjamin regular flight lessons, although due to his schedule they rarely met more often than every couple of weeks. He was a fantastic instructor, letting Benjamin figure things out but giving him enough coaching to actually learn as he went along. When he took over flying it was usually to demonstrate something, or, once in a while, show off.

  Those flight lessons were dates as much as the postflight antics; Benjamin had no illusions about that. He wasn’t sure what to do about it, having set the ground rule that they could not be romantically involved, but he was also not at the point of squashing the whole thing either.

  Benjamin wanted it too much, honestly. Falling for Frank Sheldon was absolutely the easiest thing he had ever done. Aside from being catastrophically handsome, Frank was smart and well-read and funny. His humor was dry and low-key most of the time, and sarcastic all of the time. He was a pilot with the mind of an engineer and the body of an underwear model. Benjamin had been doomed from the start and was way past fighting the inevitable.

  Still, he kept Frank at arm’s length. It was safer. Benjamin was less concerned about getting his heart broken than having all his future plans go up in flames. He had been struggling too long to take anything for granted, and with how he was enmeshed in both the business dealings and political aspirations of the Sheldon empire, he knew he had to play it safe. It was slowly killing both his heart and his libido, but he had more important things at stake.

  He flip-flopped by the hour on whether to tell Frank the truth about MudzNewz, but kept rationalizing his unwillingness to do so on the fact that the sting against Teague would have to be as clean as possible. In the meantime he had narrowed his search for an heir down to three active Mudzies on the Reddit forum, and was in the process of doing a deep dive into their backgrounds (one of them was proving to be impossible to ID with any certainty, which meant either they were the perfect choice or an NSA plant). Once he narrowed it down to two of them, he’d throw them his pitch and see if they were interested, and arrange the handover after the governor’s election.

  Thanks to Benjamin, Corsak had managed to text Teague’s personal phone number with an ominous-sounding threat, followed by a full
two days of silence. Benjamin told Corsak that it was priming the pump, ramping up Teague’s sense of panic and vulnerability, but it also created time for Benjamin to digitally track Teague’s reaction. Did he text anyone else? Did he start pulling funds from anywhere, or stockpiling? Benjamin’s guess was that if Teague was clean and guilt-free, he’d hire a private detective to track Corsak down and threaten to file a lawsuit or something equally transparent; the fact that Teague did no such thing confirmed for Benjamin, at least, that he was guilty as hell and Corsak was on the up-and-up.

  The next step was for Corsak to sound desperate, which was not hard for an ex-addict to mimic. He even captured the erratic kind of communication that someone who was heavy into drugs or alcohol might exhibit, which would have worried Benjamin if the guy’s follow-up emails to Benjamin weren’t sober and shrewd. It was certainly enough to put Teague into full panic mode, at least in the personal communications Benjamin could track.

  It was the link Benjamin did not think to track that bit them on the ass.

  He and Frank were back at their coffee shop, which had turned into their “totally platonic bros out for a not-date NO HOMO” meet-up spot. Frank always got recognized, and there was at least one time a photographer snapped a few shots before Frank flipped them off, but generally, it was neutral ground. Which was why Benjamin was surprised when Frank sat up in his chair like a shot, snarling at his phone.

  “That fucker!” he hissed through his teeth. “How did he even get my number?”

  “Huh?” Benjamin squinted up at him from his laptop. He had been queuing up a demo of the video game for Frank, who had until then only seen screenshots of it.

  Frank looked up at him and Benjamin recoiled from the expression of rage. Frank waved his phone around, took a deep breath, then leaned over the table. “My ex.”