Chapter 8
BEAU
My second interview, which was really just a formality, happened the next Monday, two days before Christmas Eve.
I nailed it and the principal offered me the job on the spot.
I knew Jared’s recommendation and the success of my first interview were a big part of it.
What I didn’t know until the second interview finished was that Arik had given me a glowing review too.
We haven’t discussed any of it officially, but not in the same avoiding way as before, just silently agreeing it can wait until after Christmas.
We can’t wait until after New Year’s though, not when I’ll be putting in hours at the school subbing and getting a feel for the place by the second week of January.
It’s Christmas Eve now, and I have so many errands to run, I actually called Bellamy to watch Bastian so I didn’t have to drag the poor baby along.
I told Arik of course. Even though I trust my brother, I wasn’t about to hand Bastian over to someone for an afternoon without permission.
Arik and I are spending Christmas Eve together, but I promised my parents I’d attend our family Christmas the next day. After missing Thanksgiving, it was nonnegotiable, but at least I have something besides my marriage imploding to divert attention to now.
A brand-new job.
I’m not supposed to feel melancholy about it, but I can’t help it. I’m not exactly in the Christmas spirit when I get back to the penthouse.
“Feliz Navidad para ti también,” Bellamy is saying to Gabby as I enter.
Even if my Spanish sucks, I know that means: Merry Christmas to you too.
I’m surprised Gabby is still here. I’m making dinner tonight. Part of my errands was getting some last-minute groceries I didn’t trust to come by delivery, and she was only here to do some light tidying and picking up her holiday bonus.
Arik is very generous with his bonuses. I felt bad accepting mine given I’m not even going to have worked for him for a full three months when I leave.
Upon spotting me, Gabby says something rapid-fire in Spanish that I don’t catch, though I do hear the word hermano and figure it’s praise about Bellamy.
Probably that his Spanish is so much better than mine.
She’s been trying to force-feed me immersion and tends to speak mostly in Spanish while here, hoping I’ll get better.
It’s slow going but I have a few phrases down that I used to always fumble.
“If that was you saying, why yes, I am more handsome than my brother, I agree with you.”
Gabby laughs.
“Ha. Ha,” Bellamy drones.
He does look a lot like me. Or I suppose I look like him, since I’m younger. I’m taller though, which Bellamy hates, but he’s broader and keeps his natural curls a little less unruly than mine.
Gabby is on her way out and wishing her a Merry Christmas is easy enough in Spanish.
“Not bad,” Bellamy greets me with a swift squeeze of my shoulder once Gabby leaves. “Maybe by next year, you can manage some phrases to impress Mom and Dad that aren’t straight out of a guidebook.”
“Ha. Ha,” I drone back—which is about when I realize he doesn’t have Bastian!
“Daddy’s home early,” Bellamy says. He must have read the panic in my eyes. He takes some of the groceries from me and we bring them into the kitchen to start putting them away.
“You stayed? You could have knocked off early.”
“Without saying goodbye?”
“I’m seeing you tomorrow!”
“Sure, sure.” Bellamy chuckles. “But Gabby loves me, and I was enjoying the praise. Plus, that boss of yours? Wow. I’ve never seen myself as being on the queer spectrum, but with that guy, I get it.”
“Bell.” I elbow him.
“Oh please, you admitted you two—”
I elbow him again. “Can you maybe not embarrass me when we’re within eavesdropping distance.” I glance each direction out of the kitchen. I don’t see Arik, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t close.
“Dude, if you didn’t want me to embarrass you, you should not have invited me over.”
That makes me pause halfway through putting away the eggnog. “Why? What did you do?”
“I’m joking!”
I glare at him.
“Okay, I maybe had these booties I knit that I meant to surprise you with, but Arik coaxed them out of me early!”
“Booties? You knit Bastian booties?”
“Well, I knit them for, you know… you.”
I finish putting the eggnog away feeling a little numb. I haven’t thought about her much. Either her. “Oh. That’s sweet! I know you were excited to be an uncle again.”
“Yeah. And I didn’t want the booties going to waste.”
“Wait.” It dawns on me we’d suspected Emily was having a girl before she and I split. “Are they pink?”
“Indeed, they are.” Arik breezes in from the dining room as if he manifested out of the walls. “Which means they’re perfect.”
He is carrying Bastian, who is wearing the booties. They do look perfect, because Arik is wearing a matching pink button-down with his navy-blue suit. He removed his tie and jacket, but I imagine he looked really sharp in the full ensemble.
Bellamy gives me such a shit-eating grin, I’d elbow him again if Arik wasn’t watching.
“Nice shirt,” Arik says to me.
“Thanks!” He hasn’t seen me since I changed into it. It’s the marigold one Skylar got for me. I hate to admit it, but he was right about how good it would look on me, and with a tie he picked out too, since he once threatened to burn my old one when he saw it.
“I’ll get out of your hair,” Bellamy says. “It was great meeting you, Arik. And you, little Bastian. You’re gonna be a heartbreaker someday.”
“It was great meeting you too, Bell,” Arik says, “You’re welcome here any time.”
“You might regret saying that.” I chuckle.
After Bellamy leaves, I finish putting away the last of the groceries. It’s not time to start dinner yet, but it is Christmas Eve. Treats are mandatory.
“You’re done with work for the day?” I ask Arik.
He only went into the office to finish paperwork. He closed the Johnson merger yesterday. When he handed me my bonus check earlier, he said his success was in large part because of me.
Unexpected outside influences had indeed been the source of his roadblocks. Another business was trying to negotiate a merger out from under him, and once he discovered that, he brought it all out into the open and worked out an even bigger merger where all parties won.
“Done and done,” Arik confirms. “Since you’ll be leaving me tomorrow, I might even bring Bastian to my extended family Christmas.”
“That’s great!” It stings a little to hear him say I’ll be leaving him, though I will, and for more than just Christmas Day. I don’t want to talk about it though. Not today. “Hot chocolate then? Or some early eggnog?”
“Nog, please, but only if you’re adding brandy.”
“Of course.”
I make our drinks and we chitchat for a while, planning out the rest of our day, which really will be a wonderful sendoff for me. I’m choosing to simply enjoy it and not think too hard on the days ahead.
It surprises me that Arik hasn’t put Bastian in his bouncer yet but takes the eggnog from me to enjoy a sip before he leaves it on the kitchen island and nods out the direction toward the nursery.
“You didn’t notice when you came in, did you?”
“Notice what?” I glance in that direction too.
“You didn’t look in your room?”
“No…”
“You should. It’s Christmas Eve, which according to de León tradition means you get to open one present early, right?”
Now I’m excited, and I leave my spiked eggnog on the island too and hurry for my room, hearing the less hurried shuffling of Arik and Bastian following me. When I arrive and peer inside, there is a small but elegantly wrapped present on my pillow.
But the rest of my things are gone.
“What—?”
“Open it,” Arik encourages from behind me.
I don’t understand or know quite how to feel, so I do the only thing I can and move toward the bed. Inside the silver and gold-wrapped package is an equally silver and gold picture frame, but while it is beautiful, it’s the photo inside that renews my smile.
I must not have noticed its absence, but this used to be on the fridge door, a photo of me holding Bastian, smiling at the camera, while Arik is looking adoringly at me. How had I never noticed he was looking at me like that?
“I love it,” I say with unbidden moisture filling my eyes. “Thank you, Arik. This is perfect.”
“I’m glad you like it, but there is a catch to you keeping that photo.”
“Catch?”
Arik is slowly, rhythmically rocking Bastian, who looks like he’s ready to fall asleep. “Yep. You can’t take that out of the apartment.”
“What?” I laugh.
“Come on. We’re not done yet.”
Arik leaves, and I am so stunned, so uncertain of where all this is heading, I forget I’m still holding the framed photo.
By the time I catch up to Arik, he’s already placing Bastian in his crib. He turns on the baby monitor and takes the other half to bring with us.
“Where are we—”
“Keep coming,” he answers in a singsong.
Cutting back through the kitchen, Arik reclaims his eggnog, so I do too—while still holding the photograph. He leads me all the way upstairs and toward his master bedroom. When we reach it, my jaw might as well be on the floor for how much it drops.
My missing things are all here.
“Since the photo can’t leave the penthouse,” Arik says, taking it from me and placing it on his—our?—nightstand, “I guess you have to stay too.”
“But I…” I pause a moment to find my tongue. “I have a new job.”
“Yes, so once we start having sex, I really can’t keep paying you. We’ll have to get another nanny to help out when we’re both working, but that is the burden we will have to bear. I expect you to do the screening and hiring as your last acts under my employ.”
“Arik…” I can feel my cheeks flushing and my eyes growing damp. “Are you sure? This is so sudden.” And wait, did he say once we start having sex?