Page 5 of Mr. On Your Knees
“That’s right, you do,” Lauren replied. “See you at six.”
“I’ll be there.” And she would. Even if going to the Mahogany Lounge, one of Miami’s few Black-owned cigar bars, where she’d first met Jared, was their outing of choice for this Friday night.
Chapter3
The Solution
JARED
He was never late. His work calendar was synchronized across all his devices—phone, tablet, home and work desktops. And since lately his personal life only consisted of routine medical visits and his in-home gaming sessions, there was rarely ever a conflict. When he awakened this morning, he’d known exactly what was on tap for today; a breakfast meeting with his reservations and front desk managers, a mid-morning call with Jason Carrington to go over Jared’s preliminary plans for the Juneteenth celebration and after another abbreviated lunch he would take at his desk while hopping on a zoom call with his fellas, the remaining afternoon hours were blocked off for proposal review.
Nowhere on that schedule was there time to sit and think about Desi. Yet, at every turn that’s exactly where his thoughts had landed.
She was still fine as hell, confident and intelligent. Not that he’d thought any of that would’ve changed in the years since he’d seen her. Of course, she would’ve only gotten better, like a delicious fine wine. He rubbed a hand down the back of his head as he walked briskly toward the elevator that would take him up to his office.
The call with Jason had run a little longer than he’d expected and then he’d had to go down to the lower floor where the catering and event service offices were to fill Mari in on a few changes he wanted to make to the Juneteenth event.
“Call Ms. Kane and schedule a meeting with her tomorrow,” he told Mari after giving her all the details.
He’d hired Mari four years ago and in that time she’d proven without a doubt that organization, planning and execution were in her blood. Whether the bookings were for weddings, family reunions, birthday parties, corporate functions or conferences, Mari and her staff handled them without a glitch. She was a few years older than him, a few inches shorter than his six feet two inches and fine as hell. Slim, but curvy in all the right places, pretty cocoa complexion, shoulder length blonde colored locs and a slick mouth when provoked. Jared was convinced their business relationship worked so well because on a personal level she felt like the sister he’d never had.
“So, wait, you’ve decided to hire her?” Mari asked with a lifted brow. There was no doubt she wanted to ask him more questions about the way he’d seemed off his game the moment Desi had walked into that conference room on Friday, but he didn’t give her a chance. Not today, or Friday when he’d moved through the remaining interviews they had scheduled robotically and then immediately retreated to his office when they were done.
“Yes. Bring her in and handle all the contract stuff before I meet with her. I know I have a meeting with the construction crew about the updates to the east tower in the morning, so let’s say around two. I’ll have Renee make reservations for a late lunch and then I’d like to visit the gallery to look at the portraits you selected.” He hadn’t taken a seat when he’d walked into her office but stood in the doorway because he knew he wouldn’t be staying long. Then, he reached into his pocket for his phone and glanced at his calendar and the time.
“I’ll see what I can do about rearranging my schedule,” Mari said.
“No need,” he told her and then slipped his phone back into his front pant pocket. “It’ll just be me and Ms. Kane at this meeting.”
There had been no mistaking the look of surprise on Mari’s face as her eyes widened and lips parted before closing again as she nodded. “Oookay,” she said exaggerating the word. “I’m assuming you don’t want to elaborate on why you’re making this decision so rapidly when we said we’d meet to make final choices on Wednesday.”
“No, I don’t,” he replied. “You told all the applicants we were finalizing early this week.”
She raised a brow. “And after the interviews you told me we would meet on Wednesday. So, what changed?”
“Nothing.” It was a clipped answer and he wasn’t going to offer more. “Thanks for handling this. I’ve got to get upstairs, I’m already late for another meeting,” he said and then turned to leave.
Mari never said another word which was fine with him. He was sure she was saving her comments for a moment when they had more time to get into how oddly he was acting. He’d have to deal with that when the time came. Right now he had a very tight schedule that had already been altered.
Seven minutes later, he was walking into his office and closing the door behind him. He went straight to his desk and with one hand loosened his tie, while using the other to pull out his chair. When he sat, his fingers immediately went to the keyboard as he opened the Zoom app and proceeded to log in to the call.
Three Wisemen Check-In, that’s what the title of the meeting was and he clicked on it waiting for the two men he’d met at a Mr. Black networking event seven years ago to come into view on the screen.
“What’s going on, my brothers?” he spoke with a grin as he joined the call. “Pardon my lateness, had a few things run over schedule.”
“A few things like those little video games you like to play,” Noah Chambers said with a chuckle.
Noah was the oldest of their crew, at forty-two and never failed to impart his wisdom on Jared and Caspian whenever he deemed it necessary. But mostly he was just a cool dude who’d graduated from Morehouse and lived in Atlanta where he ran G-Sparks Engineering, one of the largest engineering consulting firms in the state.
“Nah, man, can’t you see he’s at work?” Caspian interjected. “His home office doesn’t have that stellar oceanfront view.”
Caspian Yearwood was thirty-one and lived in Charlotte where his company, Yearwood Enterprises, was making a national name for itself while helping companies embrace innovative business solutions.
“True. True,” Noah agreed with a nod. “We’ve got to plan a get together down there one weekend.”
“Just say the word,” Jared replied.
He enjoyed spending time with these guys. Over the years they’d ended up at some of the same rising businessman conferences, as well as the various Mr. Black events they attended. At times it seemed he was closer to them, than he was his blood brothers.
