Mixed Signals Read online

  But he was a pilot, and he was a pilot because he loved to fly.

  Benjamin picked up on his lack of response. “Right. You’re a pilot. You want to fly.”

  “It’s why I became a pilot. I’ve loved planes since I was a boy, so I was always going to get my pilot’s license at some point. That said, I can’t turn my back on the future.” He thought of the offers from RAND and other aerospace think tanks begging him to sign on as a consultant, offers he never told his father about for fear of somehow being maneuvered into accepting one. He didn’t want to sit behind a desk writing white papers and decoding spreadsheets in order to build a future where pilots weren’t even needed. He sighed. “I think within twenty years even my job with LifeFlight will be done by drone, or UAS.”

  “Unmanned aircraft systems are where it’s at. Drones are just the stepping stones.” Benjamin bounced in his seat a little. He was utterly, fuckably adorable.

  “Well, either way, I’m out of a job.” Frank shrugged, trying not to sound too depressed about that, since that was hardly the way to impress a date.

  “Dude, you’re rich. You can fly for fun whenever you want.”

  “And I do. No point in denying it, you know how wealthy my family is. But it’s not the same as having some purpose in life, being in service to my country.”

  “There is a reason they call the Sheldons the mini-Kennedys.” Benjamin rolled his eyes.

  Frank ignored the jibe. “Back to the point: Why aerospace? Not video games? Not, I don’t know, creating the next Google?”

  “Well, as coincidence would have it, I love to fly too.”

  That made Frank pause. “You have your pilot’s license?”

  “What? Of course not!”

  Frank looked at him over the top of his sandwich. “Nothing stopping you.”

  Benjamin gave him an incredulous look. “Do you have any idea how much flight lessons cost? Much less plane rental fees and… and fuel!” He waved his hands around. “I’m still paying off my sister’s extremely exclusive cosmetology academy fees. My doctorate cost less—I mean, if I had paid for it. Point stands.”

  Frank, in fact, had no clue how much flight lessons cost, much less the price of a plane rental. He knew fuel costs far too intimately, on the other hand, so he nodded anyway.

  “I mean, I’ve always wanted to learn, but Mom and Dad didn’t make a lot of money, and when they died, I had Rachel to look after. She’s, uh, eight years younger. So it was… a bit rough.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Frank was used to playing sympathetic and compassionate—it was a required skill for anyone whose family was involved in politics at any level—but in this case he felt genuine emotion behind the gesture. Benjamin gave him a quick, piercing look, then turned back to his sandwich.

  “I spent a lot of time and money on flight simulator games as a teen. So what do you fly? On the job.”

  Chances were slim that Benjamin would have a clue as to what Frank flew, but Frank was curious, so he answered simply, “EC-145.”

  Benjamin nodded thoughtfully. “Right, by Eurocopter.”

  Surprised, Frank nodded. “Doesn’t fly like a dream, but doesn’t fall out of the sky either. When it’s busy I can do four or five flights in one night; the choppers can easily handle the abuse.”

  “I’m sure being a LifeFlight pilot gets you all sorts of nookie.”

  “Nookie?”

  “Sex. You know what I mean.”

  “Honestly, spending most of my workday carting around people on the verge of dying isn’t much of an aphrodisiac.” Frank dropped his sub with a bit more force than he intended. Benjamin looked over at him, his expression guarded.

  “Yeah, I can see that would be a downer.”

  “Kinda.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do whatever I did.”

  Frank felt his eyebrows rise. “Whatever you did?”

  “Well, yeah. I tend to upset people without meaning to. Rachel says my brain-to-mouth filter is… uh—”

  “Nonexistent?”

  Benjamin grimaced but nodded.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “You don’t?”

  Frank leaned back in his chair, slouching a bit, and looked off to the side. “When you’re good-looking, people tend to tell you what they think you want to hear.”

  “Most people would love that kind of handicap,” Benjamin said, and Frank thought he heard a trace of bitterness there.

  “Sure. It’s great. Until the day you realize you can’t trust a single thing anyone says.” He looked over at Benjamin again, to find him wearing a look of complete and utter shock.

  “I never thought of that.”

  Frank nodded. “Most people don’t.”

  “That sucks!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Although, admittedly, the regular sex probably makes up for it?” Benjamin looked hopeful at that, and Frank realized this was just too easy.

  “Depends. Am I getting lucky here?” He eyed Benjamin with his most lecherous gaze, the one that made otherwise upstanding men and women drag him into closets for a quickie.

  Benjamin shook his head. “No offense, but I’m past the quickie-hookup stage, and I’m basically the lone parental figure in my sister’s very messed up life. So, probably not.”

  It wasn’t a “no,” but it was less encouraging a reaction than Frank usually got for a lot less effort. He leaned back again in the booth seat, taking Benjamin in for a long moment. The other man squirmed at the intensity of Frank’s gaze, shoving some chips into his mouth and looking out the window. Insecurity was never a turn-on, but there was more to Benjamin’s comments than that. Finally it clicked. “You don’t trust me?”

  Benjamin bobbed his head in thought. “Guess I don’t. I mean, it’s been fun talking to another adult who isn’t a hairstylist, my sister the hairstylist, or someone waiting to get their hair styled. And honestly I could talk about planes and autonomous flying machines for, like, years. But you’re you, and I’m just not convinced we have anything but planes and a mild case of physical attraction going on. Sorry.” He looked a little glum for a moment, then gathered his trash. “I need to head back; my sister’s shift is over in about five minutes.”

  Frank nodded. “How’s her DUI ironing out?”

  “The usual. Pay a lot of money for a lawyer, then court fees and fines and community service.”

  They stood up at the same time. “She learned her lesson? I don’t ever want to be on the job and have to pick her up.”

  Benjamin sighed, stopping in front of the trash can. “She’s had to learn a lot of lessons the hard way. Therapy helps. Costs a hell of a lot of money, but helps. So, maybe? It’s going to be year before she saves up enough money to buy herself a new car, so that’s good. Gives her a lot of time to feel the regret.”

  Frank laughed. “Yeah, good.” Before they parted ways outside of the sub shop, he grabbed Benjamin’s arm to stop him. “I understand that you have responsibilities, and I’ve got a bad reputation, but email me. Let’s do lunch again soon.”

  Benjamin took the business card out of Frank’s hand with narrowed eyes. It was not his official business card. Instead it was his personal card with his private phone number and his email and, of course, the family crest embossed on fine heavy card stock. Benjamin’s eyebrows shot up at that, and he nodded mutely at Frank once before turning and scurrying away down the sidewalk.

  Frank wondered for a moment why he was pushing at this. Usually when someone was not interested, they were not interested in him at all and all parties were happy to keep a polite distance, but that was not the case with Benjamin, who admitted he was interested but wasn’t taking the bait of Frank’s advances and was keeping his distance. Frank was used to people playing hard to get—he knew that game very well—and he was not immune to the lure of the chase. He liked it when someone made him work for the payoff, and normally he was up for the challenge if the person in question was smart enough to make things interes
ting. In those cases, though, there was always some sort of understanding from the outset that they were playing the game, that the winner would take all, and that Frank was odds-on for winning. He wasn’t getting signals like that from Benjamin. Frank could not decide if he was getting mixed signals, or if he was just unable to understand Benjamin’s signals. He figured it was fifty-fifty odds either way, and most likely meant that he was probably digging around in something he should not even touch. He could go to any club and get laid a lot faster with a lot less work.

  The very idea was exhausting and depressed him, though, and he realized with a pang of frustration that his interest in Benjamin Kaplan was a lot more than mere sex appeal.

  When had his life gotten so complicated?

  Chapter Six

  BENJAMIN WAS torn about the Teague vs. Sheldon-Kane contest. His own personal preference, politically speaking, was Sheldon-Kane, and as he had told Rachel, he had real suspicions about Paulson Teague. It would not take a lot of effort to put feelers out via his MudzNewz followers about Teague either. If the man were even a little bit sloppy, Benjamin would get a lead he could follow back to a crime. Being gay himself, he was not all too anxious to out the guy but so far, Benjamin’s sixth sense about corrupt politicians had been on the money, every time. Teague being in the closet just meant he was either more vulnerable to being blackmailed and bought by criminal interests, or he was sketchy as hell himself.

  Benjamin was itching to find out, but all his best intentions had slammed to a damning halt because of the gorgeous, flirtatious, smart, and terrible Frank Sheldon.

  There was no way Benjamin could pretend to be impartial to either Teague or Sheldon-Kane if he was banging Frank Sheldon. It would put MudzNewz directly in the kind of place he had no intention of it being: namely, partisan.

  But….

  Did it have to? If Teague were clean, there was nothing to worry about. Benjamin would not out him just to out him, as a matter of principle. On the other hand, if Teague were legitimately involved with anything shady, it wouldn’t matter if Benjamin and Frank were boning. Or dating. Or whatever. Teague would bring his downfall on himself either way.

  Benjamin had to be honest, in that he had already given Sheldon-Kane some good coverage just with the article about Frank joining the campaign. That article had been written by one of Benjamin’s anonymous volunteers, the Mudzies as they called themselves. He did not use much they sent his way, because they were obviously not investigative reporters (except for possibly that one out of Kansas, who Benjamin secretly called Clark Kent in his own head, where no one could make fun of him), but that had the ironic result of making it a much higher honor. If a story got the approval of “Big Boss,” as Benjamin was referred to on the Reddit forum r/mudzies, then the person who wrote it got points. Benjamin did not keep up with the scoring system because he had nothing to do with it, and he rarely visited the Reddit site anyway. He found it hilarious, though.

  It had seemed like a harmless post to put online, and he had done it mostly to see if it kicked any of the Sheldon-Kane camp into revealing dirty secrets the governor-wannabe might have. Even if Benjamin doubted there was anything there, he had to follow through.

  He added the campaign to his “Throw Some Mud!” page, along with a few others he had suspicions about.

  Then he went back to his secret project, which had nothing to do with politics or video games.

  Automation and artificial intelligence were the future of everything, which Benjamin thought was exciting while everyone around him thought it was terrifying. He could not wait for autonomous cars. They would drive Rachel around with no fear of crashing no matter how drunk or high she was. He was excited to have delivery drones bring food, clothes, and all necessities of life to his house. And virtual reality porn? He was only human. It was going to be awesome.

  Flight, though, was his first love. Planes, spaceships, drones—all of it, he didn’t care. He loved the idea of flight itself, and if he could develop wearable wings like those used by the comic book superhero Falcon, he would. He was pretty sure he had draft versions of that very thing sunk down deep in his miserable high school archives (a bunch of plastic bins in the attic). While spaceflight was alluring, he really preferred aeronautical engineering—he loved things that flew inside the atmosphere of the earth. When he had been young he had thought of becoming a pilot, but a combination of poor eyesight and poor parents meant that never happened. The Air Force was very obviously out of the question. All that was left for a genius-level super-geek like himself was aerospace engineering and a career with NASA. Or RAND. Or SpaceX, although Benjamin was pretty sure he and Elon Musk would end up in fisticuffs or something.

  Benjamin had a slight problem with authority figures.

  In any case, it meant whatever he was going to do, he had to do it on his own. None of the major aerospace engineering hubs (LA, DC, Houston, and of course Melbourne, Florida) were even within a day’s drive of his home. And his PhD was in comp-sci, not aerospace engineering. He cursed his younger self a lot for taking the easy way out, but he also knew he would never have done anything differently. Uprooting Rachel during high school was just point-blank out of the question because she was having enough problems as it was back then. He had been sorely tempted to leave town after the Lamarque incident, but then Rachel settled down and started getting good grades again and agreeing to therapy. Benjamin knew he was a terrible, awful excuse for a “parent,” but he at least had known enough not to rock the boat when it wasn’t sinking.

  That left him with the option of going back for a second doctorate in the field he really wanted to work in in order to get jobs he would probably hate, or working in secret on his own project, independently, on spec. It was not as difficult a choice as he sometimes made it out to be.

  He realized he was spaced-out and playing with Frank Sheldon’s card. Sighing, he shoved the card under his keyboard, got up, and went to the living room. Rachel was there eating ice cream and watching makeup artist videos on YouTube using their television. He flopped down next to her.

  “I figured out why you are moping,” she said by way of hello.

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes! And I think you should totally ask out that helicopter pilot who is hitting on you.”

  “I hate Jane. So much.”

  Rachel waved her spoon around before spearing more ice cream. “She’s only looking out for you. Or him? Dunno. He’s a longtime client of hers, and she was having a hard time choosing between being excited about the fact he seemed genuinely interested in you, and being horrified by the idea that he’s genuinely interested in you.”

  “That’s easy: she hates me.”

  “No, she doesn’t.” Rachel knocked her knee against his.

  “It’s a deep, profound relationship based on mutual animosity. Someday you’ll get married and understand.”

  She laughed. “Ugh, don’t make me imagine you and Jane as a married couple, my life would be a living hell.”

  He snorted in laughter. “Yeah, that’s an awful thought.”

  “Especially since you have a truly excellent piece of ass stalking you.”

  “Please never say ‘piece of ass’ in my presence again. And he’s not stalking. It was an apology lunch. He was saying sorry for getting me locked in the chem closet.”

  “Well, you did call him a hooker,” Rachel said, shaking her head.

  “No! I didn’t! Fuck.” He rubbed his face while Rachel laughed at him.

  “It’s not unbelievable that you would. Social niceties aren’t your thing.”

  He shrugged. “True enough.”

  “And he is good-looking.”

  “And I am jobless, living in my parents’ home with my sister, who works part-time as hairdresser.”

  “Stylist,” she snarled.

  “Right.”

  “Don’t mock my ten-year plan. I’m going to have a cosmetology empire, just you wait.”

  Benjamin did not, in fact,
mock her ten-year plan. Between the two of them, Rachel was the ambitious one when it came to business and money. For Benjamin it was all about being able to work on things he found interesting—he took after their father that way, who as a musician had not cared at all how much money he made or if anyone ever bought his albums. He genuinely had no interest in “success,” far more wrapped up in his ethnomusicology studies and playing one of his wide, eclectic variety of instruments from around the world.

  Rachel, on the other hand, took after their mother, who was always chasing stories to get her bylines and win awards. Not that their mother wasn’t an excellent journalist, but part of the meaning of success for her was being perceived socially as important and respected. Rachel, who had been interested in makeup and hairstyling since she was probably three years old, wanted to become a world-famous stylist with her own brand of hair care and makeup products. She needed to be rich to be seen as important. Benjamin suspected that part of her newfound zeal for business over the past six years was in order to have complete control over her life, but he wasn’t foolish enough to say that to anyone but her therapist, and even then only when asked.

  “You gonna email him?” she asked, mouth full of ice cream. And people called him the philistine.

  “Maybe.” He sighed.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’M NOT trying to break into politics, Dad.” Frank sighed, spearing a piece of steak off his plate.

  Dinner on the estate was not a very formal affair anymore, not since Frank’s mother had died, and it was unusual to have the entire family together for it. Magically, schedules had aligned and they were all sitting in the breakfast room instead of the main dining room, dressed in business casual and only using one fork for the whole meal (the butler, Harris, still twitched at that, but he was imported from England and prone to excessive formality).