“You do?”
It’s like we’ve switched roles. Normally, I’m the one with all the information and Gordo trailing after, repeating what I’ve said because the words only make sense in my head, not the real world.
“I worked at Rolls-Royce and then at Boeing. Seattle has great Chinese food.” He wiggles the chopsticks in my direction. “Then I got a job at Microsoft and—”
“Wait, wait.” I put a hand on his wrist. “The Microsoft. Like you know Bill Gates?”
He shakes his head. “Not really. We only met a few times.”
“A few times?” I should have ordered a drink after all.
“And then I went out on my own and worked in development.”
Now he’s lost me. “What kind of development?”
“Programming, mostly. My business partners handled most of the customer-facing stuff. They let me stay behind a computer and I managed the technical side.” He runs a hand over his throat, like his collar is too tight. “We designed a chip that was supposed to be used for commercial airline navigation, but then one day we got approached by a defence contractor. They offered us a lot of money to buy the patent and IP.”
“How much money?” Suddenly I’m remembering him the night before, chatting up my coworkers and shaking Ed Morton’s hand like he had met men like him before, and now I’m wondering if he has. I mean, Bill Gates. But who else?
Gordo says, “I didn’t want to sell. Didn’t want what I’d built going to something that might hurt people. So the guys bought me out and sold the chip.”
Oh. I don’t like the sound of that. “They forced you out?” I’m thinking about poor Lachlan, who’s a dead man walking and doesn’t even know it.
“They paid me for my time and equity. And I had a good lawyer, so I still got a cut when they sold the patent. But I didn’t want the money. That’s how I started the reptile rescue.”
My brain is spinning, doing math, realigning what I know, struggling to envision Gordo behind a lab bench or at a computer, building something that flies jets—actually, I can almost see that—and sitting at a table with black-suited lawyers demanding his cut of the cash—that part is harder.
“How much could it possibly cost to run a rescue?” I laugh, trying to sound casual.
“The animals I bring home to our place don’t cost much. They’re the healthiest. But not everyone we take in is doing as well, and eventually it became easier to open our own clinic rather than paying vet bills every time someone brought us a sick tortoise.”
I blink. “You own a clinic? Like with veterinarians?”
“A few now. It started out that what we made off pet owners covered the cost of the rescue, but then it turned out to be a pretty good business model. Everyone has a pet that needs looking after, and our rates are fair. So now we’ve got animal hospitals and rescue volunteers in five cities in Canada and another sixteen in the States.”
“And you, what?” I’m still not sure I’m understanding. “You take a percentage off the top and live on that?”
Gordo laughs. “No. They’re not that profitable.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I live off the interest of what I got paid in the buyout.”
I was about to bite into a wonton, but it slips through my chopsticks and lands back in my soup with a splat.
I’m not afraid to talk about money. We make a lot of it at BGS&M. And while it’s rude to compare paycheques over dinner, if I’m going to be with Gordo, I think I need a little more context.
“Gordo,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm and quiet. The restaurant isn’t exactly busy, but I’m not about to ask him to show me his bank balance in a public place. “When we’re talking about the buyout, how big are we talking?”
He presses his lips together. “Pretty big.”
“Like . . . how many zeroes, would you say, before you get to a real number?” God. Maybe I am being rude. I don’t care what the number is. I have a good job. But I’m learning things about Gordo here pretty quickly, and I think the answer to this question is going to tell me a lot about how and why he lives the way he does.
He squirms a bit in his seat, and I almost tell him not to worry about it, but before I can, he says, “Seven. No, eight. Depends on interest and how much I have to spend flying animals around the country in any given year.”
I have to run the sequence in my head a few times before I picture a number clearly in my head. Eight is . . .
“Holy shit. That’s a lot of zeroes.”
“It is. I worked hard for them. But I don’t want something I do to be used for things I don’t believe in again. I didn’t like playing those games. All the strategizing and backbiting. So now I do what I actually like.”
Yes, he does. He shuffles around our condo and microwaves mice. He disappears for days at a time to . . . what? Check in on his clinics and the volunteers who support the same things he does, probably.
I chew on my wonton as I consider what to say next that won’t be weird. Finally, I say, “So you’re what people call independently wealthy?”
“I guess so.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Yes.” I let out a relieved breath. “Yes, we absolutely can.”
We talk about food. Gordo likes the mushroom dumplings best. I like the pork. We talk about animals. Gordo still wants to see the mustangs, and I don’t know how we’re going to do that, but I promise we’ll make it happen. We talk about going to see a show after dinner, but Gordo finds my calf with the side of his foot under the table and makes it clear that we’ve been out in public for long enough.
I can definitely get used to coming home with Gordo. We fall into the bed and into each other—Gordo more into me more than the other way around—and again I regret that it took us so long to get here. Because Gordo’s body on mine, as he pushes into me and runs tickly wet kisses along my back, is pretty much the best thing over. We have a chat about condoms and health status, and when he comes this time, there’s no latex, and the smear of his spunk on my thighs as he pulls out is pretty much perfect, as is the careful way he cleans me up when we take our second shower of the day together.
We fall asleep, me tucked against him in a way that is already becoming familiar, and I’m sorry that we don’t have many more days left in Vegas. Because we don’t need to leave the things we’ve said to each other behind. They don’t have to stay here. But the real world won’t quite be the same. Gordo says he doesn’t want to live this life. The corporate one with the games and the strategies. But I’ve got a job offer on the table that will push me into it deeper than ever before. As he snores softly in my ear, I wonder if the life I lead will be enough for him. It’s the life I’ve been working for, but it’s one Gordo walked away from.
I’m not sure how I get to have both.
13
Waking up to sex with Gordo is pretty much fantastic. Only slightly less fantastic—but still utterly amazing—is waking up to Gordo letting himself back into the room with a tray of coffee cups and a bag full of pastries that are ninety percent butter and still warm.