Chapter 4
4
KOLBI
“ M r. Vesey,” my secretary’s voice pulled me from my thoughts as she spoke through the intercom. “The Sinclairs are requesting you for a personal meeting.”
“Please put them through, Kendall,” I pushed the button and spoke back. When I looked at the clock I realized I’d missed lunch entirely. It was just after one in the afternoon and I had spent the majority of my lunch hour replaying the encounter I’d had on Saturday morning when I almost ran over the girl with raven black hair. For some reason, the interaction wouldn’t escape me even though it happened nearly four days ago.
I’d gotten up and thrown on some jeans and a shirt to head out for an early morning ride. Growing up, I could always be found at the skatepark on the weekends and after school. As an adult, I could only get on my board once or twice a week. Nothing beats waking up early on a Saturday morning and hopping on my board before the city wakes up and the tourists come out. It had become my time to shut my brain off from a busy week in the office and just be with my thoughts. During the week, I was buttoned up and professional; I needed to be so I could gain the trust of the important people of Charleston. Showing up to a consult in baggy jeans and a ratty T-shirt wasn’t how I had built my business to what it is today. Even when I wasn’t at work, I tried to always look put together in case I ran into clients around the city.
Saturday morning though?
That was my time to let loose and just be me.
I had been on my board for about an hour when I was heading down Church Street towards the water. The sidewalks were empty due to how early it still was, when out of nowhere a girl stepped out into the street in front of me. She had been looking down at her phone when she went to cross the street and even shouting at her hadn’t been enough to avoid a collision. I offered to take her somewhere when I saw she was hurt, but she refused. ‘I don’t need someone like you pretending they can help someone like me,’ she’d scoffed. While she didn’t come right out and say it, I knew what she meant.
That a Black man like me, dressed in ratty jeans and a spray painted shirt, couldn’t possibly be able to help a white woman like her.
This wasn’t the first time my resources and capabilities were questioned because of how I looked. Growing up in Charleston was hard because of my family roots and the way people saw me. There were many times when I was the first to be blamed when something went missing or a fight broke out at school. Luckily, whenever this happened, my three best friends were there to stick up for me. Whenever someone called me a name or made fun of where I lived, my friends had my back. There were more than a few occasions where Hank, Conrad, and I were pulling Malcolm off of some idiot who had called me a slur.
Even now, something about the girl’s words felt off to me—like she hadn’t truly meant them. I found it odd that she apologized for getting in the way, just to snap at me in the next breath. I tried to push the interaction out of my mind as I picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hello, yes, Mr. Vesey?” the voice on the other end asked.
“This is him.”
“Mr. Vesey, the Sinclairs are requesting a formal meeting at their home tomorrow morning with you. Mr. Sinclair is working to schedule some of his early campaign rallies and would like to go over security with you. We will see you at 10:00 a.m. sharp. Have a good day now.” The voice on the other line spoke feverishly and hung up before I could even respond.
“Sure, let me drop all my prior commitments for you. It’s no problem, checking to see if I’m even available at that time isn’t necessary at all,” I spoke into the receiver that was now just a dial tone. These people. I blew out a long breath and hung up the phone.
I spent the rest of the afternoon rescheduling my Thursday because the drive out to the Sinclair plantation was at least half an hour. With morning traffic in and out of the city, it was a solid hour on a good day. When the clock on the wall chimed at five o’clock, I pushed back in my chair and rubbed my eyes. The last two hours of my day had been spent leaning on my elbows with my face close to my computer, trying to check in with the various teams we had in place around the city. A knock came from my door as I was collecting my things and slipping on my suit jacket.
“You comin’ boss?” Hank asked from the doorway. He and I always walked out together before he jumped on his bike to head home just north of the city.
“Yeah, brother, I’m coming.” I went to meet my friend in the doorway and locked the glass doors of my office behind me.
“Busy day? You didn’t come out for lunch like you normally do,” he questioned as we walked down the long marble hallway toward the elevator together. I hadn’t told him about Saturday’s incident yet.
“I had to reschedule some things tomorrow which took up a lot of my time.” It was only half a lie, I had spent the last half of my day reworking my schedule. But that wasn’t why I missed lunch.
“Why did you have to reschedule your day? You have your schedule set for like, the next six months,” my friend half chuckled. He wasn’t wrong. My schedule was locked in for months at a time because of how busy business was.
“The Sinclairs called a meeting with me tomorrow at ten,” I explained as we exited the building. We had taken the elevator down from the top floor and had just stepped out onto the sidewalk. The cool, November air blew through the city off the shoreline, signaling that winter was coming.
“You couldn’t tell them they needed to pick a different time? Less than twenty-four hours notice is kind of a hard ask, especially for someone like you.” He gave me a contemptuous look as we moved towards our vehicles.
“Like I said, they called a meeting with me, they didn’t ask. The person on the phone told me they expected me at ten tomorrow morning then hung up. I didn’t get a chance to offer another time.” My friend blew out a breath through pursed lips as I explained it to him.
“Imagine being so entitled and self-centered that you just expect people to drop everything they’re doing to serve you.” He shook his head and swung a leg over his bike, chuckling in disbelief.
“It’s not a life I know,” I laughed, slapping him on the shoulder. “See you in a few hours?”
“It is Wednesday.” He gave me a knowing look. “I’m heading towards Bailey’s now to pick her up and then we’re going to grab some food and head over.” He bumped my fist with his before slipping on his riding jacket. When I hired my friend to work for me earlier this summer, he used his sign-on bonus to buy himself a tricked-out motorcycle fully custom-made. While the thing was beautiful, I had hoped he would have used the money to get an apartment in a nicer part of town.
“How is Bailey? Now that the trial is over, I mean.” After he came home from serving our country for nearly half his life, Hank fell in love with a woman who is perfectly his match. Bailey, or ‘blondie’ as my friend likes to call her, had been raped two years ago and because of my connections with the city, I helped him find out who had attacked her. We all supported her and Hank through the court proceedings and only just a few weeks ago got the good news that the monster who harmed her was found guilty. The relief we felt when we heard the verdict ring out in the courtroom is something I’ll never forget.
“She’s great, man. I thought she was fiery before, but now? It’s like someone tossed lighter fluid on a spark and it’s completely untamed.” He rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. “The cloud has lifted from her and I can see it. Thank you again for every?—”
“You don’t need to thank me. I like Bailey and I see how good she is for you. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.” We shook hands and he slid his helmet on. “I’ll see you in a few hours for campaign night. Don’t be late or Conrad will threaten to cut your dick off.”
“Oh, please, he would have to get through Bailey to be able to do that and we all know he’s a little afraid of her.” Hank laughed under his helmet and waved as he pulled away.
After slipping off my jacket and draping it over the back of the front seat, I climbed into my G-Wagon and pulled out of the parking lot of my office. As I drove towards home, my mind drifted to the girl I almost ran over on Saturday for what felt like the hundredth time that day.
“Where the hell is Malcolm?” Conrad barked from the table, laying the die in the center of the board as I grabbed a beer from the fridge.
“Relax, Tolith, it’s not even seven thirty yet,” Hank sighed from his chair, calling Conrad by his character name. My friends and I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons, or in our vernacular, ‘D and D,’ for years now. We had a running campaign all throughout high school but had to stop playing when Hank left for bootcamp. Little did we know he’d be gone for so long and we wouldn’t be able to play again. As soon as he landed back in the Lowcountry, we picked back up on the weekly tradition. Getting together to play was our way to connect, hang out, and shoot the shit.
We would all sit around my dining room each Wednesday and drink beers while we played. As the Dungeon Master, I would spin the story and my friends would play in character. Malcolm played as Denis De Brey, a smooth-talking bard who would use his silver tongue to talk him and the other guys out of whatever mess they had walked into. Conrad, known as Tolith in the game, was an intelligent artificer, or creator, and would craft the tools and weapons they would need to escape a prison cell or fight off an ogre. Then there was Hank, our resident cleric known as Auffroy who carried the group and kept everyone safe. It was never lost on me how much my friend’s characters accurately represented their real-life personalities.
“I just don’t understand why people can’t show up on time. We meet at the same time each week,” Conrad mumbled from his chair.
“Conrad, you really need to learn how to breathe, it’s not good for your skin to be so stressed out all the time. Want me to give you a shoulder massage? I can see the tension you’re holding in them from here,” Bailey, Hank’s girlfriend, offered as she walked into the dining room from the kitchen with a glass of water. She’s been coming to our weekly campaign nights with Hank for months now, generally spending the evening in the other room reading a book. I thought she was funny and knew how crazy my friend was for her so it didn’t bother me having her around.
“No.” Conrad sat up straight and stiff in his chair, his face pinching up into an uncomfortable expression as she walked to stand behind him. “That is completely unnecessary. I’m fine.” He kept his eyes fixed on the center of the table and I barked out a laugh at how uncomfortable he looked. It took Conrad a long time to warm up to Bailey and be okay with her coming each week. That’s just how Conrad is though—he prefers a routine and doesn’t like when anyone or anything throws it off. Their relationship was hilarious to witness as it had developed into a sort of brother/sister thing. Bailey would say something to make him squirm and he would do a less-than-stellar job trying to cover up his discomfort. Hank, Malcolm, and I just let it happen because we found it funny as hell.
“I’d take a massage from you,” Malcolm’s smooth voice came from the hallway. He walked towards where we were sitting at the table with a slick grin as he ran his fingers through his dark hair. Malcolm was a lady’s man through and through and wasn’t afraid to make it known. For years my friends and I watched him love a woman for a weekend just to cut her loose by Monday. It wasn’t his best character trait but we still loved him for everything else he was. Smart, funny, and loyal to all of us. His style definitely wasn’t my style, but that’s okay.
“Malcolm, don’t be an ass.” Bailey rolled her eyes before walking to stand behind Hank, draping an arm around his shoulder and planting a kiss on the side of his cheek.
“What? You offered Conrad a massage, so why not me?” His voice was all tease, but we all rolled our eyes at him anyway.
“You’re late. Sit down and stop flirting with my girlfriend you asshat,” Hank snapped from his seat. “Way to put him in his place, hermosa? * ,” he hummed into her ear.
“It’s not even seven thirty,” Malcolm exclaimed, looking at the watch he was wearing.
“Just sit down before Conrad has a coronary about not starting on time and Hank takes a baseball bat to your knees for hitting on his girl,” I demand, trying to get the night started. Malcolm sat down with a huff and looked at me like a dejected five year old.
“You still love me, right Kolb?” He gave me an animated look of sadness, doing what he did best, which was being overly dramatic when we were ganging up on him.
“Yes, brother, I do.” I slapped a hand down hard onto his shoulder. “Even when you’re being an annoying asshole.” Everyone around the table laughed and Bailey gave Hank another kiss before leaving the table to go and read.
Over the next few hours, I spun a story for my friends to play. I loved getting to be the Dungeon Master because it allowed me to tap into my family heritage. As a proud Gullah Geechee man, storytelling is part of who I am. My grandparents may have told different kinds of stories than the ones I tell now, but the art of storytelling was ingrained in me. And to me, there was nothing better than having to spin a story for other people to have to adapt to as you told it. Within D and D, it was a back-and-forth between the player and Dungeon Master. They had to adapt to my story just as much as I had to adapt to how they responded. My friends and I communicated best through this game and always lost track of time once we got into it.
“Good shit!” Malcolm exclaimed when Conrad rolled enough to free him from the prison cell I had trapped him in.
“With that roll,” I started, “you freed your company companion and escaped into the woods unharmed.”
“Hey, guys,” Hank started. I looked at him to find him craning his neck, looking towards the room where Bailey was. “I don’t mean to be a buzz kill, but can we wrap it up soon? Looks like my girl is done for the night.”
The three of us stood from the table to look in on her and sure enough, she was curled up on the couch fast asleep. When she shared her story with us earlier this fall, we all felt this need to protect her as if she were ours, even Conrad, though he would never admit to that. She brought our friend more joy and contentment than I’d ever seen in him and I’d known the guy since we were in third grade.
“Holy shit, it’s after midnight already,” Conrad exclaimed, looking at his phone. Hank stood from the table and I watched him as he moved towards his girl, leaned down next to her, and brushed the hair out of her face. She stirred and gave him a tired smile before he kissed her gently on the forehead. My heart squeezed watching their interaction and for the first time, I realized how much I wanted the same thing for myself. Work had kept me busy the last five years and I never had more than a casual hookup here and there. Watching one of my closest friends have the kind of relationship I’d been lacking made me recognize how much I wanted it for myself.
“Let’s pack it in, boys,” I commented, standing from the table and collecting the empty glasses to take to the kitchen. Malcolm and Conrad cleaned up the board and game pieces as Hank and Bailey came back into the dining room. We made plans to meet up this weekend at the bar Malcolm worked at and agreed to harass him while he worked. After he flipped us off, he and the others left and my house was empty once more.
And for the first time in years, I noticed just how much the emptiness bothered me.
* ? beautiful