A Fluffy Tale 2: Warm & Fuzzy (4 page)

Spen nodded. His dad was often exhausted by
the end of the week. He worked for the city as an engineer, and budget cuts
meant there was always more work than there were people to do it.

His mum made the tea while Spen made his
sandwich, and they sat together in the kitchen while he ate. “Mum, what do you
know about orphaned kids? Do they get much help?”

“Depends on their age. If they’re under
sixteen, then they go into foster care.”

“What if one of them is an adult?”

“Then I think the government only steps in
if there’s a problem. Thinking of someone in particular?”

“Sort of. I don’t really know the full story.”
Nor did he know if Daniel was really the only adult looking after his siblings.
Spen knew very little about his situation, and Daniel was very close-mouthed
about it. Which was a hint, if Spen needed one, that it was none of his
business.

“Something bothering you, Spencer?”

He shook himself. “No, not really. Someone
at work was talking about a new employee, and got me thinking.”

“Someone in trouble?”

“Not that I know of. Not yet.”

His mother, no fool, peered at him. “But
you’re worried.”

“I don’t know if I need to be. I’ll just
keep an eye on things.”

She patted his hand. “You do that, love.
Can’t do any harm to watch out for someone who might need help.” She yawned.
“Oh heavens. I think I better wake your father and go to bed. See you in the
morning.”

She lifted Myko off her shoulder and set
him down on the table, then bent over and kissed Spen. “You have a good heart,
Spencer. It’ll always steer you right.”

“Thanks, Mum. Sleep well.”

He was tired too, and should really find
his own bed, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Daniel. About what it would be
like to lose his parents so young, so suddenly. And about Daniel and Tony
Noble, and what, if anything, was behind the departure of Noball’s previous PA.

Spen was no innocent and had seen a few
things he couldn’t even tell his mother about, open-minded as she was. Even so,
he found it hard to get his head around the idea that a self-important idiot
like Tony Noble—someone in the same company as Spen, someone he saw on an
almost daily basis—would cold-bloodedly target an orphaned young man just
to get his rocks off. Yet worse things happened every day, and all too often by
someone described by neighbours and friends as “such a lovely quiet person”.

On the other hand, Luke did occasionally
get worked up about things which turned out to have no
basis at all. Like the time he became convinced the new office drinking water
bottles leached cancer-causing chemicals into the water, and tried to organise
a petition to get the company to change suppliers again. Jyoti finally got in
touch with the lab that did the quality control testing and asked them to email
Luke directly to allay his fears, at which point he gave up his campaign, and
Spen could stop worrying about how he’d replace an important team member who’d
been fired for stupidity. Luke was sincerely worried about Daniel, but that
didn’t mean there was anything to worry about.

Spen finished his cup of tea, then washed
up the plate and other things. He couldn’t do any more about this without more
information, and he couldn’t get that until next week, so there was no point in
fretting over it.

“Maybe I should get you to talk to Kani and
ask him about it,” he said to Myko. His kem tipped his head and appeared to be
seriously considering the idea, and not for the first time, Spen wondered
exactly how much kems understood about human affairs. “We can both keep an eye
on him, okay?”

Myko chirped and lifted up a paw. Spen
shook it, smiling at his kem’s strange gesture. “Right, off to bed for the two
of us. And no waking me up at dawn, you hear?”

Myko’s wide-eyed “Who, me?” expression was
entirely fake, Spen knew from experience. But a
very
convincing fake.

A weekend’s reflection on the subject of
Daniel and his boss didn’t bring any great enlightenment. If Spen could have
talked to his mother about it, it might have helped, but he didn’t like the
idea of spreading rumours any further than Luke had already done, and he felt
uneasy about making assumptions about Daniel’s home situation.

The obvious thing would have been to talk
to Daniel himself, but that was surprisingly difficult to arrange gracefully
without revealing that Spen already knew more than he really should do. Daniel
clearly liked Spen’s team, but he was rather hesitant and overawed by Spen
himself, though he tended to relax once he’d been in the section for a few
minutes. There was just no opening where Spen could casually say, “So, I hear
you’re an orphan”, or “You know your boss? We think he might be a bit of a
creeper”. How could you say that to
anyone
?

So all he could do was wait, be friendly,
watch Daniel—which wasn’t a hardship, because the kid was ridiculously
cute—and hope like hell Luke was wrong. Spen didn’t even have much chance
to keep an eye on him the next week, as he only saw Daniel twice, and that only
in passing. Daniel looked harried and worried, but he nearly always did. One
thing Luke had definitely pegged right was the hostility towards him. Spen saw
the looks and noticed the comments now he was alert to them. He overheard two
secretaries at the photocopier sneering about Noble’s “hopeless assistant”.
Infuriating, when Spen knew how far from the truth it was, but jumping down
these bitchy women’s throats wasn’t likely to improve Daniel’s reputation. Spen
didn’t know there was much he
could
do, since Daniel didn’t work for him. Yet. He had some vague ideas about
poaching Daniel for his own team, but as yet, they hadn’t resolved into
something solid he could put to upper management. He needed more time to observe
Daniel and his skills, and it was a political battle that would need careful
planning.

He could at least chase Daniel up for the
Friday pub outing. One of the perks of being the manager of a team in a secure
area was access to real-time security logs which tracked the movement of
individuals’ passes through RFID checkpoints. This meant he could check if
anyone had come into the IT section behind an authorised individual. So far he
never had to worry about it, but the access was occasionally useful to locate
members of his team who’d wandered off, without the hassle of calling and
checking on them. Now it came in handy to let him know where Daniel was taking
his lunch break—in the Legal and Donor Management staff kitchen.

Spen took the lift to the fifth floor, and
found his quarry. “Hey.”

Daniel looked up in shock, nearly spilling
his tea. “S-Spen. What are you doing here?” Kani, lying curled up on the table,
uncoiled and squeaked. Myko jumped down for a cuddle.

“Looking for you. Calm down. You’re not in
trouble.” Spen swung into the chair opposite him. “How’s
things?”

“Fine. Busy. Did you want something? I
thought the project was in client testing.”

“Yeah, it is. I just wanted to ask you to
come along tonight. It’s Friday.” At Daniel’s confused look, he added, “Pub
night.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, I can’t.” He shot a glance
in the direction of his office. “I’ve been working late most of this week and I
have to get home on time tonight. It’s not fair.”

“Fair on...?”

Daniel flushed. “My sister. She’s looking
after my little brother.”

“Parents away?” Spen felt like a bastard
for pretending he didn’t know, and Myko’s glance at his words only increased
his guilty feelings.

“No. Um, there’s just the three of us. My
sister’s taken on so much work since I started here and she’s studying for her
exams. I have to get home tonight.”

“I understand. Don’t stress it. Does, uh,
Tony know about your home situation?”

Daniel looked down at his sandwich. “Yes,”
he mumbled. “But there’s a big meeting of donors coming up and there’s a lot to
do.”

“Right. You realise that this company has a
very good reputation for supporting staff with family commitments, don’t you?”
Daniel looked up, but his glum expression didn’t change. “Just saying that Tony
should take them into account.”

“I’m still on probation. There are plenty
of people with kids and commitments here and they don’t ask for special
treatment.”

“Yes, but—”

“Spen, please? I’m fine.” He stood and
smiled, but there was no happiness behind it. “Tony’s a good boss. I want to do
a good job. I’ll try and make it to the pub next week, okay?”

“I’ll remind you. Daniel...if you....”

“What?”

“You know...need advice about how the place
works. You can ask me. Or Jyoti. Any of us.”

The smile was less tense this time.
“Thanks. I’m fine, really. I have to go. You should see my desk.”

“If you can see your desk, then you’re one
ahead of me.”

Daniel gave a little chuckle. “Uh, yeah,
see what you mean. Thanks for the invitation. I wish I could...you understand.”

“I do. Catch you around.”

Daniel dumped the dregs of his tea and
picked up his plastic lunch container. Kani climbed up on his shoulder, Daniel
gave Spen one last shy smile, then disappeared into
the corridor.

Myko ran after them. “Myko, no.”

His kem turned to look, chirping a little.
“No, squirt. He has to work.”

Still Myko hesitated, so Spen went over and
picked him up, nuzzling the top of Myko’s head with his chin. “Don’t worry.
I’ll keep an eye on him, okay?”

Myko trilled, affectionately wrapping his
tail around Spen’s wrist. His kem’s trust and approval were lovely, but Spen
wasn’t at all sure he knew what was going on here. One minute Noble was worried
Daniel was burning out, next minute he had him working overtime on multiple
nights. All the managers used overtime when they had big meetings and projects,
so it wasn’t strange of Noble to do that. Just...the
inconsistency.

Maybe Spen was making something out of
nothing, like Luke was prone to doing. He really was busy and if he wanted to
get away on time himself, he should shift his butt. He wished Daniel could come
along tonight. It would be good for him—but only if he wasn’t
stressing about home. Still, now the subject had been broached, Spen could pry
a little more out of the kid, see if he could do anything.

He smiled ruefully. Now he was doing
it—making it personal, like Luke. He couldn’t help it. Daniel had the
touch of the lost puppy about him, yet he seemed determined to do it all by
himself. Spen had worked with young people for too long not to be affected by
that.

Right now, Daniel was okay. Spen couldn’t
do anything for him until he asked for help, which he might never do.

~~~~~~~~

“Mr Godwin? I’m Mr Noble’s assistant.”

The pleasant-faced, sharply suited young
man in the foyer stood and smiled at Daniel. “Julian, please. And you’re...?”

“Daniel. Daniel Walkinshaw.”

Julian held out his hand. “Nice to meet
you, Daniel. This is Pyon,” he said. The black kem on his shoulder squeaked at
the sound of his name.

“This is Kani. Say hello, Kani.” Daniel’s
kem jumped across from his shoulder onto Julian’s. Daniel reached out for him.
“Gosh, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t apologise. Pyon loves company, don’t
you?” Pyon chirped and changed shoulders so he could perch precariously and
cuddle Kani. Julian simply adjusted his stance to accommodate the lop-sided
load. Daniel tried not to look as amazed as he felt. None of their other
clients had been this relaxed. “So, shall we go meet your boss?”

“This way.”

Still bearing both kems, Julian followed
Daniel to the lifts. “You’re new, aren’t you?” he said as they waited. “I think
when Leo...that’s
my
boss, Leo
Underwood...first got me to look into this, someone called Jan was working for
Tony.”

“Yes, he left. I’ve been here two months.
Still learning the ropes.” Though the thrilling question was, would he ever
finish learning them?

“I’m sure you’re doing fine.” They stepped
into the empty elevator and Daniel pressed the button. “Kani’s a sweet little
fellow, isn’t he?” Julian gave Kani a pat and earned an earlick.

“Is he bothering you? I can—”

“Oh, please don’t. He’s keeping Pyon out of
mischief.” Pyon looked up and gave his human an indignant squeak. Julian
laughed and stroked the swaying black tail. “Just teasing, brat. Here we are.”

Daniel liked Julian, but he wasn’t the
client—his boss was. Maybe the boss was a lot less pleasant, if he
couldn’t even bother to come along and see where his money might be going.
Daniel wondered if Julian liked his job and his boss, or if he wished he could
be doing something completely different, like Daniel did, but couldn’t. At least not now.

Daniel knocked at Tony’s door. “Mr Noble?
Julian Godwin for you.”

Tony stood, smiling broadly. “Oh, Julian,
please do come in. Nice to meet you finally.” They shook hands. “Tea? Coffee?
Water?”

“Green tea would be nice if you have it.”

“Daniel, would you?”

Daniel left to fetch the tea. Rather to his
surprise, Kani stayed put, grooming a quietly trilling Pyon as if his life
depended on it. Nice for him to have someone new to play
with. Kani didn’t like the office much, except when they visited IT.
None of the office kems seemed inclined to play with him, though they weren’t
as unfriendly as their humans were to Daniel. If it were possible, Daniel would
have left Kani at the house, but to be honest, without Kani’s company and the
occasional visits to Spen’s lair, Daniel would have gone a little crazy from
loneliness by now.

When he returned, Pyon and Kani had moved
to the floor and were tumbling around in a play fight. The sides of Tony’s
mouth were drawn down disapprovingly as he glanced at the kems. Daniel could
have picked Kani up and asked him to behave, but Julian showed no signs of
being bothered, listening with apparent attentiveness to Tony’s spiel about the
company’s current projects.