First: Purchased: Negotiation

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Sylviane patted Leander’s shoulder and smiled brightly at him.  He hoped he didn’t look as nervous as she was acting like he did.  “We’re going. I’m driving, if that’s fine with you.”

Leander felt as if his head was full in a way it hadn’t been – possibly ever.  He had taken notes in the seminar because Sylviane was – and because she’d given him a notebook and a pen and it seemed to be what you were supposed to do – but most of his notes had been looking at her notes and writing down something similar.

He had, he realized, no idea how to handle this whole school thing – and this had just been a seminar.

He’d listened to the woman at the front of the room talk – it was a discussion on how data could be used or abused in manners to make your business better for you, to make it better for your customers, or possibly both – and had written down a bunch of questions as he got confused, but when the time came for questions, he’d left that to people who were supposed to be here.

(Sylviane had, in three cases, written down an answer to his questions right under them, so he was glad he hadn’t asked any of them out loud). Continue reading →

First: Purchased: Negotiation

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Sylviane patted Leander’s shoulder and smiled brightly at him.  He hoped he didn’t look as nervous as she was acting like he did.  “We’re going. I’m driving, if that’s fine with you.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.  I’m gonna need practice to be back into driving again – I mean.”  He blinked and shut up, staring at her, waiting for the anger. 

She snaked an arm around his waist and hip-bumped him.  “Hey. I asked if you minded. If it was fine with you.”

“I -”  He looked down at her.  “Yeah. Yes, you did, ma’am.” Continue reading →

First: Purchased: Negotiation

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“It’s gonna be a blast.  Right.”  Leander snorted. “All right.”  Leander looked at himself in a mirror.  “I don’t look stupid.”

“You look – may I?”

He was not going to get used to the way she asked permission before touching him, but he nodded.  She ran her hands over his face, over his shoulders, looked at him again. “There. You look like a college kid.  Kinda nervous, new school, meeting your girlfriend’s friends, that’s fine. Try not to punch too many of them, okay?”

“I’m only gonna punch someone if you ask me to, if they grab me some way I don’t like, or if they’re gonna hurt you.”  He grimaced. It came out sounding half street thug and half military. “Damnit, I can look like a college kid all I want -“

“Doesn’t matter.”  She patted his shoulder. “Works, actually. So. You went straight into the military, can’t tell people what you were doing, classified, you’d have to kill them.  I have a guess that there’s more truth in that than you’ll want me to know, so that works out pretty well. Less lies to keep straight.”

There was the big, giant lie of being her boyfriend still to contend with, but – well, they were going to have one of those lies no matter what.  He was pretty sure her friends wouldn’t be all that cool with “my dad bought him to protect me.”

“Okay.  Military.”  He rolled his shoulders.  “This is nuts.” Continue reading →