The Cowboy and the Hacker (Farthingdale Valley #5)

1. Cal

Chapter 1

Cal

C al could never be sure whether or not he got himself arrested on purpose. Or that when he was encouraged to start hacking at Preston’s insistence, he not only realized the risks involved but also that he might have seen it as a ticket out of a relationship that was slowly, bit by bit, killing him.

It was hard to figure out how he finally realized it. How he had been able to see his way past Preston’s charms, his encouragement, his generosity, all the way down to his snake oil salesman soul.

Cal had been in a relationship with Preston for around four years. In that time, Preston had taken over, controlling Cal’s every move, almost his every emotion. Preston lashed out when things didn’t go his way or when he might sense that Cal was even on the verge of objecting. Or leaving.

Cal had tried to leave once. Had packed his rolling suitcase that Preston had bought for him and had started a conversation about them taking a break and that Cal was going to a hotel. That he needed a few days by himself and could Preston just?—

That conversation ended badly and Cal still wasn’t sure that his head banging into the bedroom wall hadn’t resulted in a skull fracture. Well, the headaches had gone away eventually, and leaving had never been something Cal attempted again.

Until the hacking idea.

Cal had graduated college with a degree in programming, and quickly found work as a Tier One IT tech. Each day, he took calls from all the Aunt Ednas west of the Mississippi who’d managed to click on the wrong link in an email they’d received from a nice man in Nigeria who needed help. Or the French professor who had millions they wanted to send to them.

It didn’t matter what, when, where, or who. Cal was there to rescue them all. He felt good about the work. It gave him purpose.

He worked mostly alone in a remote office, which he shared with three or four other techs, who came and went on an unpredictable, rotating basis.

Preston would come by the office, even though he wasn’t supposed to. He would look over Cal’s shoulder at the screen. At the codes Cal would enter to reset Aunt Edna’s internet security app. At how Cal actually had remote access to dozens of home computers every day using RemoteMeIn, his tech company’s preferred remote access software.

“These idiots have banking information on their desktops,” Preston observed one time. “Passwords and stuff.”

He’d been standing behind Cal in the darkened office. Cal had just been about to reach for the bag of Bugles and the half-drunk quart of Coke on the desk beside him when Preston put both hands on Cal’s shoulders.

The warm massage quickly turned into a painful squeeze. Which meant that Preston wanted Cal to pay attention to him and that right quick.

Cal froze. Winced, and tried to hide it.

But Preston saw, cuffed him hard across the head, and said, “You’re so sensitive!” Then he added, “You could take some of that information and go into their accounts. Skim just a little bit. The rich ones would never know.” With a dirty laugh, he said, “All those old people and their millions? They’d deserve it. You’d be like Robin Hood.”

After that, Preston was a bit too interested in Cal’s work, and had a bit too much to say about how Cal could get rich, so rich, so easily, if he’d just bend the rules a bit and give Preston his RemoteMeIn credentials. Cal said no.

Then had come the conversation about Cal’s tuition debt. A debt which Preston had promised to pay when he’d invited Cal to come live with him after college. If Cal would just take some money from rich folks who would never miss it, that debt would be paid off. Again, Cal said no, but Preston wouldn’t let it go.

The two of them had met in college, in a dull class about web development, something Cal already knew but which was required.

Preston had been on the verge of graduating at the end of the semester and maybe something about Cal had attracted him, because after that, they were inseparable. Preston had his own apartment, a job as a web designer lined up, and said that Cal should come live with him while he finished his last four semesters.

Preston would pay for everything! Preston would help him with his student loans! Preston was in love with him!

All of this had been very hard to resist because while Cal loved Coke and Bugles and Pop Tarts, he had a hankering for hot meals that he wasn’t getting in the student cafeteria because the food there sucked. He’d been young enough, and all alone. His family, down to his last sibling, had disowned him because he was gay. He craved friends but didn’t know how to make them.

Preston was a good cook, an amazing one, really, and his encouragement to Cal was a constant source of what had felt like love and acceptance.

Cal had been young, and it had taken him a while to figure out the truth of it. That Preston didn’t love Cal as much as Preston loved Preston. That Preston’s needs came first. That the headache Cal had from getting his head bashed into a wall was nothing to be worried about.

What do you need a ride to Urgent Care for? Don’t I give you enough attention? Take some Tylenol. Jeeze .

After another of these types of encounters, he’d been lying in bed in a darkened room with a bag of frozen peas on his head, melting pea juice sliding coyly down his forearm. He’d been waiting for Preston to come home to cook dinner when he realized he might be like that frog in a pot of water who didn’t know it was slowly being heated up all around him.

He didn’t even like frogs, but there in the darkness, beneath the low throb of headache as he squinted his eyes against the slice of light coming through the mostly closed blinds, came the realization that if he didn’t get out soon, he would never get out.

He wasn’t stupid. But he had been oblivious, and it was as his headaches began to lessen that he began to pay attention. Starting with how Preston cooked what Preston wanted to eat, and to hell with Cal’s requests for steak and eggs. Screw that , Preston would say. Anyone can make that .

And how when Preston wanted to have sex, they would have sex. And that it was to Preston’s taste. Rough and fast, with not enough lube, leaving Cal aching and sore, searching for cream to put up his ass so it would just stop hurting. Searching for the arnica cream for the bruises on his neck and hips, and just how many tubes had he gone through in the last year?

He really didn’t hang out or talk to or do anything with anyone other than Preston. Any attempts to go to a coffee shop or bar to meet with some of the guys from work—who seemed to mostly make those invitations out of sheer boredom and loneliness but hey, a beer was a beer—were met with scathing remarks from Preston about how those guys weren’t his friends and how they probably would want Cal to pay for said drinks.

Preston seemed to have very convincing arguments against any outing that did not involve him—that Cal should just stay in the apartment and wait for Preston to come home. Then they could open a bottle of wine together!

It had taken him until the concussion to realize that while Preston paid for everything, did the cooking, paid for a weekly cleaning lady, and gladly ordered Cal whatever he wanted from Amazon, the actual price for all of this had been taken out of Cal’s skin and sinew. Maybe even his soul.

Preston had never actually made any payments toward Cal’s student loan. That was fine because it turned out that Cal’s job paid enough to make those payments, and he didn’t have far to go.

The clatter at the door made Cal’s whole body freeze, his shields going up as Preston sang out in his best Leave it to Beaver Dad voice, “Honey, I’m home!”

Nobody should live like this. He shouldn’t have to live like this.

He sat up, terrified that Preston would find him in bed, and see the melted pea juice staining the pillowcase, and freak out. The pillowcase was valuable and had rights, more rights than Cal.

Cal had been an idiot, blinded by Preston’s generosity and the chance to live the high life a little, not counting the cost for the next party sized bag of potato chips. Or worrying about the holes in his shoes or where the rent money was going to come from.

There was no one to talk to about it, but he knew he didn’t really need to. He knew he had to leave. The only question was how. These things must be done delicately, said a voice in his head, sounding rather a lot like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz .

When Preston once again encouraged Cal to hack into people’s home computers— Just a dozen or so —and get their bank information and skim off the top, Cal had said, Sure, let me do some research first . Which he had. He’d researched how to do it. How to get away with it. Anything for Preston, right?

Preston would never doubt that Cal was doing it for Preston, because Cal never said no to Preston. By the time Preston figured out the truth of it, it would be too late.

On the periphery of his research, he’d looked up the likely sentences for the various levels of hacking crimes.

But he hadn’t paid attention to that, no he had not. Because he wasn’t going to get himself arrested on purpose. That would be as stupid as staying with Preston, and he wasn’t stupid.

So he told Preston he was going to hack into Mr. Simms’ computer the next time he called IT for help. He’d start with one hack before trying out more, and then the money would roll in.

Why they needed money when Cal was almost done paying off his student loans and Preston had plenty of money from his web designer job—a lot of money, really—he did not know. But daring to ask the question would get him another concussion or at the very least a green-stick fracture—though he might have already gotten one of those the year before when they’d been playing Star Trek Monopoly and Cal had just been reaching for the playing piece in the shape of the captain’s chair.

Preston, who’d been reaching for the communicator piece, as he usually did, had suddenly grabbed Cal by the forearm and squeezed. Squeezed hard . And said, That’s mine .

Cal’s arm had ached for days until finally he’d gone into the student clinic. He’d paid in cash so Preston wouldn’t know. The nurse, ignoring the bruises on Cal’s neck, had told him that these things happen and that he’d be better in a few weeks. She showed him how to wrap his forearm, and Cal had worn long-sleeved t-shirts to hide the wrapping.

Preston either hadn’t noticed the wrapping or had noticed and didn’t care. Either was possible. Sometimes Cal’s forearm ached these days. Mostly it didn’t.

But that was then, and this was now.