Page 6 of Kay
“Lennon, honey?”
Shaking my head, I realized I’d been daydreaming. Heat rushed to my face and I was embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I was lost in thought.”
“That’s okay,” she said, smiling again. “You just looked like you were coming in facing death. Are you okay?”
“I actually came by because I wanted to apologize. I was rude to you last week and I’m sorry. You were just trying to help and I snapped at you.”
Kay sat on her desk and folded her hands in her lap. “Well, thank you for your apology, but it isn’t needed, darlin’. We all have hard days.”
“I did something wrong, something bad and someone was upset with me about it and I took it really hard and then you were just the first person I saw after it happened and I wanted you to stay and watch the movie with me and for some reason that just made me panic because I’m never gonna get it right, but I’m really sorry. That didn’t give me the right to talk to you that way.”
“Oh, honey, those are a lot of feelings. No wonder you were so stressed out,” she said, kneeling in front of me.
“I know, but it wasn’t your fault and I shouldn’t have told you or taken it out on you.”
“I’m glad you told me, you silly goose. Nobody deserves to carry unnecessary weight. Tell me what you did that you think was bad.” She rubbed my knee softly.
“It was bad.”
“I have a feeling it wasn’t. How about you tell me and then I can decide, darlin’.”
“My accountant lost her grandmother and I video chatted her to ask how she was doing,” I explained. Shame climbed its way up my spine like a choking weed.
Kay studied me sharply. “And?”
“And?” I repeated, not understanding.
“And then what happened, honey?”
“Oh. Then she told me we weren’t friends and I shouldn’t have called her.”
“I’m sorry. What?” Kay asked, looking very angry.
“She works for me and I shouldn’t have reached out about something so personal,” I explained, but already feeling better because if Kay didn’t understand that what I had done wasn’t okay, then at least I hadn’t been a complete idiot. Sasha wasn’t a cuddly type of person and I shouldn’t have bothered her. I just admired her. She worked really hard and was a single mom to twin teenagers.
“No, darlin’. Youabsolutelydid the right thing. That was very kind of you and it doesn’t matter if the person you reached out to check on was your accountant, your publicist, or your boss. You were being a good person and it sounds like they are the ones who did something bad. It sounds like maybe they didn’t appreciate you, to be honest.”
Her blunt words made hope bubble like a spring in my gut.
“Really?”
“Darlin’, the world sucks and people can be so mean. The fact you were being so sweet to someone who could have used the encouragement shows that you are not the problem. I’m so sorry that person was unkind to you, but it was most definitely a them problem and not a you problem, sweet girl.”
“It’s really hard,” I admitted, finally working up the courage to look at her. Her beautiful face was distorted due to my unshed tears.
“What’s hard, baby?”
“Feeling like I don’t have a place to belong. I don’t always understand people or social situations and I’m just really lonely.”
Kay reached up and cupped my chin in her hand. “Do you want to know a secret?”
I nodded.
“That’s how the original Daddies Ink came to exist. We all knew each other, were tired of being left out from other social groups, and we kinda just created our own family. It grew so large that we opened the second Daddies Ink in Strickland a few years later. You’re not the only one who feels this way, but you don’t have to feel like this anymore.” She stepped back from me and opened her arms in a wide, welcome gesture.
“Welcome to the family, darlin’.”
Chapter Three
