Page 5 of What You Own
HECALLEDeveryone “hoss” for a while, until he didn’t. Then it was only my nickname, and I liked it. I liked him. And then I might have loved him.
And then it was over.
A door somewhere above me slammed, and I jerked to my feet. My father might be one of the bosses, but I was still an intern, and I treated that seriously.
Don’t let him suspect. Don’t let this interfere with your plan.
I began the slow ascent to the fifth floor and Joe’s office. He should be out of his meeting by now and able to hear the proposal from the center.
He did hear it, a few minutes later, sitting comfortably behind his mahogany desk, smiling the entire time I spoke. Joe was about fifty pounds overweight, with hair I hadn’t noticed was more gray than brown until this summer. He was soft where my father was hard, in both personality and physique. He studied the information packet Ellie gave me.
“This could be a good press opportunity for us,” Joe said. “People like stories about disadvantaged kids who get ahead, you know?”
“They do,” I said.
“Who’d you say brought this to you?”
I hesitated, unsure if Joe would recognize the names. In the end, I couldn’t lie to him. “Ellie Wright and Ryan Sanders. They’re both volunteers at the center.”
Joe’s bushy eyebrows furrowed, then shot up. “Sanders. He’s that kid from high school?”
Acid churned in my stomach. “Yes, he is. We used to be friends.” We were so much more, but I couldn’t tell Joe that. “The center seems important to them both.”
“And that matters to you?”
I didn’t want it to matter. Ryan had come back into my life too damned soon, sooner than I was ready for, but I couldn’t turn my back on him. I’d already done that once. And the center was a genuinely good cause. “I didn’t keep in touch with anyone from high school, but I knew Ellie and Ryan. Ellie seems extremely enthusiastic about this fundraiser.”
Joe’s mouth twisted into a grin. “Trying to impress the lady? Was she a looker?”
A looker? Did people still ask that? “Yes, she’s pretty. And if I can work with them on this, it will not only look good for LQF, but I may be able to use the project as part of my graduation requirements.”
“Tell you what, then, son. You pull a presentation together for me and your father.” He ignored both his computer and his iPad, and he grabbed a leather day planner—old school to the bone. “We have time tomorrow—”
“Today.” I didn’t make a habit of interrupting Joe. “All I need is ten minutes. That way I can give Ellie an answer as soon as possible.”
Joe raised his eyebrows again, then ran a finger down today’s block. Even from a distance of five feet, I saw lines of meetings and names. “We have a brief meeting at four thirty and nothing immediately after. Be ready for us to squeeze you in.”
“I’ll be ready. Thank you so much.”
“I like the idea. It’s your father who will take convincing.”
Truer words were never spoken.
FOURTHIRTYcame quickly and too soon. I wrote and rewrote my presentation all afternoon in my head because Joe kept me busy with other menial office tasks. Mostly filing and filling in for his assistant, Lacey, on her umpteen trips to the bathroom. Lacey was six months pregnant and already incredibly big, considering her small frame. I’d never met her boyfriend, but she was careful to tell everyone they were very excited about the baby.
Sometimes I didn’t believe her.
At 4:40, Lacey’s phone buzzed. A moment later, she signaled me from the other side of the front office, where I was sorting charity files from ten years ago. Some of it was going into boxes and down into basement storage, and I’d taken the chance to review other charitable events the company had sponsored. Many of them I’d forgotten, or Father simply hadn’t talked about. He spoke to me about work less and less after Mom died.
I took a deep, bracing breath, steeled my spine, and took the informational packet across the hall to Father’s office. His assistant, Jesse, nodded at the open office door. Jesse was a temp, but good people, even if Father gave him a hard time. Father had a strange idea that “secretaries” needed to be women, but he couldn’t seem to keep a female assistant longer than a few months.
Father’s office was as ostentatious as Joe’s was plain. A cherrywood desk and matching bookcases, Persian rug, crystal lamps—everything straight out of Restoration Hardware. Our house was the same, catalogue perfect and lacking warmth.
He sat stiffly behind his desk, expression carefully neutral as it usually was in my presence. Our relationship was one of disappointment and coexistence, and I couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled at me. Joe, on the other hand, sat casually in one of the leather chairs opposite Father’s desk, and he invited me to sit in the other.
“We only have a few minutes,” Father said. “Let’s not waste them.”
Nerves rippled through my abdomen. I slid the packet across the desk to him, pleased my fingers didn’t shake. “The Emmett Paige Community Center has been part of our city for the last thirty-four years, and it’s currently run by the founder’s son, Lou Paige,” I said. “They have three full-time employees, as well as a volunteer staff of twenty to thirty, depending on the time of year. An average of three hundred kids make use of the facilities in any given quarter, more in the winter months. They provide free before and after school activities, in order to keep kids off the street and in a safe environment.”
