Mixed Signals Read online

  The fact that being a video game developer had already made him a personal hero to Alexandra was just a bonus. Frank was man enough to admit that he loved the fact that his niece thought he was “awesomesauce.”

  He got up and got dressed, wandering down to the kitchen where Amelia had baked fresh cinnamon buns and set them out with the usual variety of juices, coffee, and milk. Harris could be heard out back, instructing the gardeners about something. When Frank raised his eyebrows in question, Amelia waved a hand around. Thick, pale, ageless, and tall like a Midwestern farmer’s wife, she had little patience for Harris’s persnickety ways, despite the fact that they had run the mansion together for over twenty years. She had seniority and never let the man forget it.

  “Something to do with the roses. You know how he is.”

  Frank nodded. Everyone knew how Harris felt about the rose garden: he hated it. Loathed it with the passion of a man whose heart had been broken by a woman who wore rose-scented perfume—or, at least, that was the theory Frank and Nancy championed. Geoff had decided it was something dark and twisted and having to do with thorns, but he was a professor of Russian literature, so they ignored him. Amelia insisted it was because Harris had no soul, and Frank’s father stayed out of the speculating entirely. But the garden was beloved by Frank’s mother. Before she died, resting out on a lounge chair, propped up by dozens of pillows, surrounded by her flowers was about the only thing that made her smile. The rose garden stayed, and Harris made the gardening contractor’s life miserable.

  Frank was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t that fussing at the gardener was Harris’s form of flirting.

  He resolved to never think of that idea ever again and put a cinnamon bun on his plate. He sat down in the morning room just off the kitchen, where Warren was ensconced with black coffee and his tablet.

  “Good morning. The girls still asleep?”

  “It’s not even eight yet,” Warren said by way of confirmation.

  They sat in companionable silence like the military men they were until Warren pushed his tablet aside. Frank glanced up at him from where he was scraping the last of the vanilla glaze off his plate. “What?”

  “Jorge will take the case.”

  Frank set the plate down before he started licking it. “Already?”

  “Like I said, he’s eager. I could send him an email at three in the morning and he’d reply within fifteen minutes.” Warren shook his head. “Like he needs to? He was top of his class at Columbia. He’s a vet and he’s bilingual, and most importantly he’s fucking smart. He’ll make partner in record time. This case, though? It’ll help. High profile, very positive, makes everyone look good.”

  Frank sighed. “Okay.”

  Warren kept staring at him.

  “Look, I’m doing this for my sister and my father. I would not fucking bother otherwise, and you know it.”

  “Don’t underestimate the fact that she’s doing this for you. She doesn’t say it, but she’s not thrilled about using you in the campaign. The old man was right, though—having you on board is helping her numbers. You’re her younger brother and the baby of the family, and she wants to protect you.”

  Frank splayed his hands out. “And I want to protect her. She’ll make a great governor, and it’s a worthy cause to help her out, so I’ll have her back as long as she needs me.”

  “Hm.” Warren straightened up. “And the video game thing?”

  “Believe it or not, less of a lie than everyone thinks. Beya was right. I have someone in mind. Hell, it might even turn out to be something.” Frank was laying it on thick, but if he could get Warren’s buy-in, then the rest of the family would follow. Geoff was the smartest and Nancy the most ruthless, but Warren was the most levelheaded. If Beya was the heart of the family in the wake of their mother’s death, then Warren was the soul. It seemed ironic to Frank that it was the spouses who ended up setting the Sheldon siblings all to rights, but that was how it happened. He idly wondered what kind of person it would take to handle himself, then quickly shoved the thought aside when he flashed on Kaplan’s face.

  “Keep me posted,” Warren said with a salute of his coffee mug before getting up to fill a carafe to take up to Nancy.

  Frank left the estate later that morning with a clear goal in mind. Girding his figurative loins, he drove to his salon, marched up to the front desk, and asked to speak to Benjamin.

  “Who?” Marie blinked at him in surprise.

  “Benjamin. Kaplan. Dr. Kaplan, Rachel’s brother?” Frank waved a hand over at the empty waiting area. “I need to speak with him.”

  “You do?” She kept looking at him with an expression of shock.

  “Yes, I do. Where is he? Did Jane stick him in the supply closet again?”

  Marie was still having trouble processing his request, so he gave up and walked through to Jane’s stall.

  “Hey, handsome! Back so soon?”

  “Jane, I need to get in touch with Dr. Kaplan.”

  “Who?”

  Frank ground his teeth. “Benjamin. Rachel’s brother.”

  “Oh!” Jane gave him the same surprised look as Marie had. “You do?”

  “Yes!” Frank managed not to stomp his foot in frustration.

  Jane raised her hands in surrender while her customer gave them both nervous looks.

  “Rachel.” Jane pointed to the sister, who had just walked out of the back room. Frank zeroed in on his target.

  “What?” Rachel looked between them.

  “I need to talk to your brother.”

  “You do?”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “Give me his number.”

  She looked at him like he was unhinged.

  “Please?”

  “Sure. But he won’t answer. If he doesn’t recognize the number, he doesn’t pick up.” She pulled her own phone out of her pocket.

  “Does he text?”

  “Yeah?” She held up her phone, which showed a contact labeled “Jerkface.”

  “I’ll text him first.” Frank quickly entered the number into his contacts.

  “Just don’t tell him I gave him up! He’ll try to ground me again.” She walked off.

  Not wanting to end up explaining himself to anyone, Frank left the salon and strolled down the parkway to a bench under a tree. He texted Benjamin a terse “this is Frank Sheldon—answer when I call” and after waiting two minutes, put the call through.

  “What?” The annoyed and slightly distracted voice snapped after barely half a ring.

  “Benjamin. It’s Frank. I need a job.”

  There was a long pause, then a sigh. “You should try modeling. I hear ‘mature’ men are hot right now.”

  “For fuck’s sake, did you just call me old?”

  “No! That was my professional career advice!”

  “Well, it sucks.”

  “Why ask, then? Hey, how’d you get my number?”

  “I want to be a business partner in your video game thing.”

  “My ‘video game thing.’ Do you even know what you are talking about?”

  “Not really, no. That’s why I want to meet up with you, to talk about it.”

  There was another sigh. “Seriously, do you ever give up?”

  “I’m not hitting on you!” Frank yelled, and a woman who was passing by on the sidewalk stepped carefully away from him. “Okay, look, can we just meet and talk about this? Not at the sub shop,” he qualified quickly.

  “Not until you explain the sudden interest.”

  Frank could almost see Benjamin leaning back and crossing his arms defensively, which only made him smile. He stopped quickly, realizing that maybe his brain was focusing on the wrong thing. “Look, it’s either back your damn video game, or my father is going to start micromanaging my political career.”

  “You have a political career?”

  “No! And that’s kind of the point: I don’t want one.”

  “Soooo, you randomly picked helping me develop a video game as a wa
y to look respectable to your old man?” The sarcasm dripped from Benjamin’s voice, and Frank had to admit that when put like that, his idea sounded stupid. He slumped.

  “Something like that.”

  “But you have a career being a dashing, heroic LifeFlight pilot.”

  Frank sighed. “It’s not so much a career as a hobby, at least by family standards. And hey, did you just call me dashing and heroic?”

  Benjamin snorted in his ear. “Beside the point.”

  Frank tried not to groan. “Kaplan, are you going to help me escape the clutches of my father the evil billionaire or what?”

  “Is your dad really a billionaire?”

  “Maybe. I honestly haven’t checked his net worth since I was in high school. It’s interesting you asked me that instead of whether or not he’s actually evil.”

  “Honestly, if he’s a billionaire, I’m just assuming that evil is given.”

  Frank pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we meet or not?”

  “You know, I had this same crisis when I was, oh, fifteen.”

  “Kaplan!”

  “Okay! Okay, fine. You know the coffee shop on Harper Avenue, the one by the drugstore? Be there in twenty.”

  Frank hung up and started walking. By the time he got there, Kaplan was ensconced on a lounger chair with a super-size cup of coffee. Frank got his own small, plain cup of regular and sat down in the lounger chair opposite him.

  “Video game?” Benjamin prompted after they had sat there blinking at each other for too long.

  “Right. You need a backer? Or something?”

  “No.”

  “Look.” Frank stopped there, thinking, while Benjamin stared at him unhelpfully. Frank sighed again. “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

  Benjamin’s jaw dropped. “Did you? You did! I can’t believe you did that!” He was yelling and some people in the shop glared at them, but Benjamin obviously did not care, and Frank thought he was cute. “You can’t do that!”

  “I just did.”

  “Unfair.”

  “Too bad.” Frank was enjoying the banter, but he honestly had no idea what Benjamin was so worked up over. It was just a pop culture reference.

  “How did you even know to do that?”

  “I’ve seen the movies, Kaplan,” Frank drawled.

  “Yeah, but that’s a sacred line.”

  “So now I’ve said it, you have to help me?” Frank grinned, pleased that he had won a game he didn’t even know they were playing.

  “Yes!” Benjamin shouted in frustration. He realized he was being obnoxious at that point and shoved himself back into his chair. “Dammit.”

  “No regrets,” Frank said with a grin. He was feeling so very, pleasantly smug.

  “Okay, but here’s the problem with tricking me into helping you.” He stopped there.

  “And that would be?”

  “There is no video game,” Benjamin whispered, leaning in close.

  Frank paused. “What?”

  “There is. No. Video. Game.”

  “Dammit.” Frank groaned. It was too good an idea to work anyway, he knew that, but it still hurt to have the rug yanked out after what he had told his father. Now he’d have to come up with something else and endure his family’s heckling of his “video game venture.”

  Benjamin gave him a pained look. “You already told your dad about this, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Benjamin squinted at him. “Why does your father care?”

  “He’s interested in my welfare. He wants me to stop dillydallying around, settle down, and carry on the family name in the manner to which he has become accustomed. He knows I hate the business side of the family business, and so he thinks politics might be a good fit for me.”

  Benjamin waved a hand at him. “He’s not wrong.”

  “Only in the sense that I would hate my life.”

  “Huh. Okay. So you told him about this awesome video game start-up and he said, ‘go for it’?”

  “Only after my niece dragged him into an epic game of Minecraft and blew his mind.”

  Benjamin blinked at him. “Minecraft.”

  “Apparently it’s really popular.” Frank shrugged.

  Benjamin started laughing so hard he cried, slapping his thigh, his whole body shaking with mirth. Frank watched him with a pleased smile, a warm bubbly feeling in his stomach. He was so sunk, and he almost didn’t care. Benjamin was adorable.

  “Oh my God. Popular!” Benjamin took a big breath. “Yeah, you could say that,” he said, wiping his eyes. “You don’t know shit about video games.”

  “I really don’t, and I have no intention of learning. The whole point of this meeting was to see if we could help each other out. I figured I could invest in your game, which would give you money to work on it and give me some reprieve from my father.” Frank shifted around in the chair.

  Benjamin looked around the room, but his eyes were not focused, and it was clear that he was lost in thought. Then he slapped his thigh and pointed at Frank.

  “Deal.”

  “Deal what?”

  “I help you, and you help me.”

  Frank narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he somehow still knew this was not going the way he wanted. “How? There is no video game.”

  Benjamin shrugged. “There could be. If Angry Birds could be a breakthrough app, who knows what depths to which we can sink? I can certainly code a fucking game; I’ve got a few I could resurrect which I put together for the hell of it during college. But that’s not what I need backing for.”

  “Exactly what would I be backing?”

  Benjamin leaned forward. “We’re close to a real breakthrough point in technology, where the artificial intelligence flying a plane will be smarter and more flexible than any human pilot. Sentient robots. Nanotechnology.”

  “The singularity. Yeah, so I’ve heard. Doesn’t leave much room for aerospace engineers or pilots, by my calculations.”

  “Two words, Sheldon: flying cars.”

  It was Frank’s turn to laugh at him, but Benjamin looked deadly serious.

  “There is already a lot of investment in the idea. Some companies have done test flights of what are, basically, really big drones. They are all ugly as shit and nowhere near ready to be autonomous. This is the combination of three huge industries: cars, drones, and artificial intelligence. And oh, fancy that! I’m an expert in all three.”

  Frank tilted his head. “Automotive engineering?”

  “Okay, not that, but the only real resemblance to cars in this scenario will be the bucket seats and cup holders.”

  “Flying cars.”

  Benjamin heaved a sigh. “Look, I get that for you flying is an esoteric art form, but the fact is that a lot of people who might want to fly, can’t. Like me.” He pointed at himself. “Short of passenger jets and flight simulators, I will never fly. Or at least not anytime soon. But if there are flying cars, anyone can fly. Even me.”

  “So you’re building a flying car?”

  “Not exactly.” Benjamin slumped. “That takes a lot of money. And a staff. And materials, and a lab, and a wind tunnel…. It’s expensive, okay? I’m working on designs and an onboard brain. I feel like half the time I’m in competition with the entire faculty of MIT.” He paused. “I might be, actually.”

  Frank chewed his lip. “Do you need money for that?”

  “Right now? Not the kind of money that requires an investor. I’m purely in the speculation and coding stage, mostly. Building a few models with my 3D printer…. But I could use a bit of money. I mean, if you need to spend it. I need much more computational power; I want to outsource a few bits and pieces, but I’m not at the stage of needing a full-blown staff or anything, and quite frankly I don’t want a bunch of people sniffing around my work yet.” He pointed at Frank. “Which is why I accept your deal.”

  “So I’m going to invest in flying cars?”

  �
��No. You’re going to invest in a video game I’m writing, but I’m secretly going to use that money to fund my flying car development.”

  “This sounds suspiciously like a money-laundering operation.”

  “Oh, you’re familiar with those, are you?” Benjamin smirked.

  Frank rolled his eyes in reply.

  “Look, I have a corporation set up already. Rachel’s vice president.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  Benjamin laughed. “No, it’s necessary. She’s a hothead, but she’s got a sharp mind for business. Quite frankly? I don’t. The business end bores me to tears. Accounting? Ugh. Anyway my point is, that is our umbrella corporation. Her hair-care and cosmetics company is already set up under it, as is my R & D division. So my company also dabbles in video games? Who cares?” He settled in his chair, smug beyond measure, and Frank damned himself for finding that attractive. “All aboveboard.”

  Frank nodded, already planning out all the “intimate” business planning “meetings” he could lure Benjamin into at his place, or specifically, his bed. Things were looking up. “Okay, that sounds—”

  “But we can’t date.”

  Frank felt his jaw drop as his plans for seduction evaporated. “What?”

  “That would be suspicious. Suddenly you’re dumping a lot of money into a company belonging to the guy you are ‘coincidentally’ dating? Would not fly. And not with your sister’s campaign.”

  “People date business partners all the time!” Frank crossed his arms, feeling petulant. His plan had been going so well until that point.

  “Not this time.”

  “Look, if you aren’t interested, you can just say so.”

  Benjamin looked genuinely uncomfortable for the first time. “I’m not saying that.”

  “Then why the moratorium?”

  There followed a long pause, which surprised Frank. Benjamin did not strike him as someone who held back on his opinions. Finally, after a heavy sigh, Benjamin shrugged. “Lots of reasons. Some more valid than others. But that’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

  Frank rubbed his chin as he thought it over. It wasn’t as if dating had been a requirement of the deal, but he had thought it would be a perk. Benjamin was being cagey, and that unsettled him a bit. Yet, for all of that, it was still a good win/win deal, and if he played his cards right, he might be able to do a long-game courtship of the challenging brainiac.