chapter 2

It had been a full week and another meeting with the execs was called and on that morning at precisely 9:33am a call came into Horatio's private number. For a full 45 minutes Horatio listened in on the voiceless call and when it ended with the all too common "wrong number" Horatio didn't call Ray at all. He barely remembered having the call.

He went to his meeting in a still drunken state from the call and listened to his managers and responded where necessary but he wasn't as coherent as he should have been. He just sat with his steak slowly disappearing from his plate when the meeting finally ended and he headed back to his office. Horatio discovered quickly that these meetings weren't as productive as he had expected. It was just a way to have the company pay for their lunch and several of them took full advantage of the free meal.

Weeks passed and meetings continued but Horatio would every Monday morning at precisely 9:33am receive a call that grew longer and longer eventually cutting into his meeting time when Ray knocked at the door initiating that all too common "wrong number".

Woken up from his reverie he quickly pushed out of his office and headed over to the club to meet with the execs. Questioning his tardiness he sloughed it off as a business call and they were happy.

On Friday Horatio had decided that they had worked hard all week and decided that it was going to be casual Friday. Calling Ray into his office he told him to go out and get some donuts from any local bakery and explained to him that Friday would now be casual and he should stop off and get some donuts before he came in using the company's petty cash fund.

Now Ray wasn't the biggest fan of donuts or sweets for that matter but he had a good working relationship with his new boss and did as he was instructed. And Friday's became an added day to the weekend. Horatio and Ray often went out after work for a beer or two.

Neither Ray nor Horatio were looking for a relationship but they had grown close as the months wore on and they developed a working relationship.

It wasn't until Horatio split his pants sitting at his desk that Ray became a bit more intimately involved in Horatio's life than he had ever planned on.