But none of it mattered. As much as I was starting to like Brandon, I certainly couldn’t be in dangerous situations. He was going to have to figure things out before I was going to spend any more time with him.
“What’s going on? What happened? Are you going to be arrested? Am I going to be arrested?” Robert said as he rushed up to me.
“No, Robert, neither of us is going to be arrested. I can’t really talk about anything more than that.”
“You’d tell me, right? I mean, if they were after me, you wouldn’t keep that to yourself?”
I had to laugh at the paranoia that Robert had and couldn’t help but wonder what sort of trouble he was getting himself into that he actually thought someone was coming after him.
“I’d tell you, Robert. Now I’m going to get back to my desk and my work, if that’s all right with you?”
“Sure, yeah, of course. You do what you need. Let me know if you need any help. I think you’re doing a great job.”
I quickly made my way back toward my desk and grabbed Mattie as I continued walking down the hall. She pulled away from me and we looked at each other with an understanding that there was a lot we had to talk about.
“What was it? What’s happening?” she whispered.
“The guy works for the securities commission and said Brandon is mixed up in some illegal stuff. I didn’t tell you that I got a weird message from Brandon’s online account when I knew he hadn’t sent it. And, when we came back to his house from the theater, it had been broken into. He didn’t let me go inside with him, so I’m not sure what’s going on, but I saw through the window when he opened his safe. Man, I think he’s mixed up in some crazy stuff.”
I took a deep breath as I waited for Mattie to reply. It was all too much for me. Investment fraud, break ins, computer hacking: I felt like I was in the middle of a crime show and not my actual life. All the chaos seemed to come from Brandon, though, and it was looking more and more like I had to step away from whatever it was we had going on.
“First of all, I didn’t hear half of what you just said. You really should breathe more when you talk,” Mattie said. “Second of all, I think you are right and you shouldn’t risk your own wellbeing around someone who has this kind of trouble in their life.”
“Mattie, I really like him, I do; but what else can I do? I mean a dude with a badge just came and interviewed me about a guy I’ve only been on three dates with. I’m not stable enough for this kind of drama.”
“You’re stable enough for anything, don’t fool yourself.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Del, don’t be so dramatic. You’ve answered the necessary questions; now get back to your normal life. It isn’t life-altering if you just take a week or two and don’t date this guy. Either things are going to get worse, or they will clear up and you can make your decision about him then.”
“Yeah, that’s probably true.”
“It is true. Stop worrying about it.”
“I just expect things to turn into some sort of disaster and look what’s happening: it’s a disaster. Why can’t I just have a normal relationship, with a normal guy, that doesn’t end in some big, dramatic way?”
“What fun would that be?”
“I’ve got to have dinner with the ex-in-laws tonight. I had intended to tell them all about Brandon and how the dating was going; now I’m going to have to tell them I got mixed up in some sort of illegal disaster?”
“Don’t tell them anything. Just go enjoy your dinner and wait and see what happens. Del, you really have no idea what’s going on just yet.”
“I know he’s under investigation for illegal trading, right? That’s what the security exchange commission does. So, at the very least, I know that much.”
“Take a couple deep breaths. Everything doesn’t have to be decided right now. How’s your computer issue going? Did you get that all figured out, at least?”
We made our way back to our desks as I took some more deep breaths and tried to refocus myself. I still had a whole day of work ahead of me and the distraction from the morning wasn’t helping at all.
After a lot of hard work and digging, I’d finally figured out how to block whatever or whoever had been getting into our system. It looked like they had gotten in from an internal connection, which was a little concerning, but it didn’t matter any longer; I’d blocked all outside edits to my work. When the time came that someone did need to make changes, they were going to have to go through me anyways, so it was simpler just to put the security measures in place.
“It’s t
aken care of now. We shouldn’t have any more problems.”
“That’s great. You’re so good at fixing those issues.”
“I have to admit, the consultant had a big part in the issues getting fixed. I’m glad Robert hired him – just don’t let Robert know I said that.”