Page 52 of Sub Mission

He kept firing questions, not giving Ari a chance to answer before barking out another one. It was evident that Seth wasn’t going to have any difficulties in disliking Eli. I didn’t doubt for a second that Seth suspected Samantha had sent Eli to the satellite office to keep an eye on the two of us. He was wrong, though. I think Seth totally misunderstood the type of relationship Samantha and I had. It was nothing like the connection the two of us shared.

“Well, Seth, you remember the night you were whining around about Baker not loving you, Baker leaving you without a goodbye, Baker…blah, blah, blah. You remember that night, right?”

Seth rolled his eyes and I couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t like it brought me joy to know that Seth had suffered the same way that I had when we’d been apart…but it did make me smile.

“Yeah, I thought you did. Remember me telling you that I’d already been dumped seven times in my life, so you needed to quit whining about the one and only time somebody had left you high, dry, and horny? Well, Eli Wallace was my number seven. Bastard. He broke my heart and walked away with a swagger that screamed, ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck’.” He unfastened his seat belt and leaned up closer to us. “You just don’t do that to people. It’s wrong. It’s mean. It hurts. So, for that reason, I’m going to beg dad to not hire him, regardless of who he’s related to.”

“Not going to work,” I countered. “He’s the stepbrother to the owner of the company. I doubt Landon will have a choice in the matter.”

“Okay, you’re probably right about that,” Ari conceded. “But, here’s the deal; nobody in this car is going to like him, be polite to him, welcome him to the team, or even talk to him. It’s like a friend code, or something. Pinky swear, guys. I’m not kidding. We are going to smother him with a level of hate that will suffocate him to the point that he runs back to wherever he came from, tail tucked between his legs.”

“I’m in!” Seth answered cheerfully.

While Ari had been preaching his rant, my mind had been working up some basic mathematical calculations. Something wasn’t adding up, and that something was age. Looking back at Ari, I asked, “You met Eli at MIT, right?”

Ari scooted back and buckled his seatbelt again. “I see where you’re going with this and think its best you mind your own business, Baker. You’re starting to step on toes,my toes, and I don’t like it when that happens. Zip it.” For the first time since I’d known him, he looked like the nineteen-year-old he was.

“You said you were seventeen years old when you graduated. That’s underage, Arizona. If there was something between you and Eli, it was illegal, and your father damn well needs to know about it.” Seth’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t give a fuck whose stepbrother he is. That’s against the fucking law. You were a kid, for fuck’s sake!”

“Nothing happened,” Ari muttered. “At least nothing physical.” He huffed around in the back seat a few more seconds before he added, “There’s a good chance I might have lied to Eli about my age. Maybe. Probably.” He crossed his arms over his chest and even though I hadn’t believed it to be possible, his bottom lip pooched out in a big pout.

“Yeah, I lied about my age,” he muttered.

Seth pulled into Ari’s neighborhood and then, seconds later, into his driveway…or the driveway that belonged to his parents. Arizona still lived at home. It would have driven me crazy, but they seemed to make it work.

After putting the car into park, Seth turned to Ari and asked, “You lied about your age? How old did you tell him you were?” Seth snorted. “And how could he have been dumb enough to believe it?”

Ari kicked the back of Seth’s seat with the tip of his foot. “Don’t be an ass, Seth. I’ve told you time and time again that it isn’t an attractive look on you. I told him I was nineteen-years-old. I looked identical to how I look now, my looks haven’t changed hardly at all. Anyway, I was a senior at MIT. It wasn’t even a hard lie to pull off.”

“If he believed you were nineteen, I’m having a difficult time believing the two of you didn’t have sex, Ari.”

“We almost did…but then he heard the truth from one of my teachers. Up-tight bastard ratted me out before I had a chance to lure Eli into my bed. I should have gotten him fired for that,” Ari said thoughtfully and then pulled a notepad out of his backpack. “I’m going to make a note to see if it’s not too late.”

“No, you are not!” I yelled. “You and I both know the teacher did the right thing by you and Eli. Especially Eli. Hell, Ari, he could have gone to jail!”

“I wouldn’t have told! I was in love with him! I knew perfectly well what I wanted!”

I threw up my hands. One couldn’t argue with stupid.

“I might have known you’d side with him,” Ari muttered. “Good thing I got you to pinky swear before I told you the whole story.”

“Get out of the car, dumbass,” Seth said. “You need to tell your father the entire story, Ari. After that, you need to get your mess sorted with Eli. Don’t put your father in a position where he has to choose between his son and the owner’s stepbrother. He’ll end up quitting and we all know how valuable he is to the company’s success and the team’s safety. Come clean with him, Arizona,” Seth ordered. “Now, get out of my fucking car.” He looked at me. “Baker and I have an important discussion of our own that needs to take place.”

Oh, shit.

“Fine. Thanks for the ride. Both of you keep your big mouths shut. I’ll handle this with dad.” He waggled his finger between us. “You all need to worry about your own shit and keep your noses out of mine.”

“You do realize you just rubbed our noses in it, right?” I asked as he got out of the car. He didn’t answer, only flipped me off and started walking toward the front door.

“That’s going to be a problem, I’m afraid,” Seth said as he backed out of the driveway. “Arizona has a brilliant mind, but his emotions are still on the teenage level. Eli Wallace is way too much man for Ari, but it’s clear that Ari still has feelings for him.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. What do you and I need to discuss?” I asked, already terrified this was the break-up discussion. The “it’s me, not you” talk. The “I’ll sleep on the couch until you find a place to stay” dialogue. The….

“We’ll talk about it at home,” Seth answered quietly.

“What if I want to talk about it now?” I prompted…like an idiot.

“Then you’re going to be disappointed,” he answered. Turning to look at me, he added, “You know…like you obviously are with our sex life right now.”

The remainder of the car ride was spent in silence. I had nothing to say, no way to defend myself as Seth’s words pinged around in my head like that tiny ball in a pinball machine. Well, it was more than those words. They were there, slamming into brain matter, but there was also the secretive phone calls, the computer, and the complete withdrawal from the playroom. It didn’t take long before I felt like my head would explode from all the anxieties that had suddenly taken up residence inside of me.

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