Chapter 5
Ramsey~
“I ’m not going to be able to attend the fundraiser this weekend.”
I looked to my right as Deke joined me in waiting for the elevator, like me, obviously coming back from lunch. “As long as one of us shows his face, it’ll be fine,” I replied easily, though any fundraiser really just needed our checkbooks to show up.
“Well, I think that Liam is also going to cancel on you,” he went on. “Roselyn’s not feeling well, and even though it’s only Wednesday, you know how he gets whenever she’s not feeling her best.”
I slid him a look as the elevator doors slid open. “Because you don’t turn into a raving lunatic whenever Delaney is sick?”
Walking into the elevator, he had the nerve to lie to my face as if I hadn’t known him my entire life. “I’m not as bad as he is.”
“You’re going to get struck by lightning for telling lies like that,” I retorted.
“Don’t forget, he didn’t fuck up as badly as we did,” he reminded me with a smirk.
“True,” I agreed. “However, he’s been in love with his wife longer than we’ve been in love with ours, so he’s got seniority on acting unhinged.”
Deke chuckled as the elevator doors finally slid closed. “You have a point.”
“So, why are you cancelling?” I asked, not that it really mattered. If he simply didn’t want to go, that’d be enough for me.
“Dash still thinks that there’s a chance that Eden’s going to make off in the middle of the night with the kids, so Delaney and I are going to babysit this weekend,” he explained. “He’s got something romantic planned for her, and so if it’s a choice between going to a fundraiser or watching my eldest son lose his mind, I’d rather skip the fundraiser.”
I shook my head, a small smile playing on my lips. “Other than Crew, who would have thought that our sons would have turned out to be just as stupid as we’d been?”
“I blame it on God,” he replied evenly. “He’d known that creating woman would turn us into unstable fucks, yet he did it anyway.”
“You’re not wrong,” I chuckled.
When the elevator doors finally slid opened on our floor, Deke walked out first, me right on his heels. As soon as our feet were planted on the plush carpet, Deke greeted his secretary as I greeted mine, asking both of them about any unexpected emergencies during lunch, then we made our way to our respective offices. However, walking into my office, I should have paid more attention to Mariah’s extra bright smile when she’d greeted me.
“And how may I help you this afternoon?” I asked as I made my way over to my desk to set my briefcase down.
“I made a meeting,” Aaron announced.
I nodded at him, his little hands holding a crayon and notepad. “For right now?”
Bright green eyes blinked up at me as little feet dangled from one of the chairs positioned in front of my desk. “Yes.”
“And what is this meeting about?” I asked as I took a seat in my chair.
Before he could answer me, Deke and Liam were making their way into my office, and Liam had a huge smile on his face, already knowing about this little impromptu meeting. However, instead of giving us a heads-up, he’d chosen to let us get blindsided.
“Okay, now we can start,” Aaron announced as he scribbled something on his notepad.
“Aaron, where’s your dad?” Deke asked him.
“Working,” Aaron answered, his little brows furrowed. “That’s why we come here, Grandpa. We come here to work.”
Deke dropped onto his haunches, so that he was at eye-level with his grandson. “But you know that you’re not supposed to be in our offices if we’re not here. So, what were you doing in Papa Ramsey’s office?”
“I needed my new crayons from my desk,” he answered like it should be obvious.
Not carrying about convention, like our children of nepotism flooded the floors of RMM, so did our grandchildren, though Dash’s kids were the only ones old enough to actually get into any mischief. We also each had playpens and miniature desks in our offices for when the babies came to work with one of the kids. It was unprofessional and hectic as hell, but we didn’t care.
After all, nothing was more important than family.
“Then you wait until Papa Ramsey is back before you come in here to get them,” Deke instructed, and I knew that he was already going to speak to Mariah about letting Aaron in here, though it was probably Liam that had let him in my office.
Aaron scowled, and it was crazy how much he looked exactly like Deke. “You said that I had to always be prepared for a meeting. How can I be prepared if I don’t have my new crayons?”
Liam let out a laugh, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Aaron, why don’t you just tell us what this meeting is about,” I said, watching Deke just shake his head.
“Snacks,” he announced.
“Well, since I have a one o’clock meeting that I have to get to, can you tell us quickly what’s wrong with the snacks, bud?” Liam chimed in.
“Lake needs better snacks,” he said, scribbling on his notepad again.
“Lake needs better snacks?” Deke echoed as he stood up to look down at his grandson.
Aaron nodded. “She’s not eating the goldfish anymore. So, she needs better snacks.”
Dash and Eden had given Deke and Delaney two grandchildren almost back-to-back with Aaron the oldest, and little Lake Jr. right behind him. So, since they’d been born one right after the other, they were very close, and Aaron was very protective of his little sister.
“Do you know what kind of snacks she’d rather have?” Liam asked.
“Yes,” he answered confidently. “I wrote them all down.”
With that, he ripped off the top page of his notepad, then handed it to Liam. After looking it over, Liam handed it over to me, and the sheet was nothing but colorful scribbles, telling us absolutely nothing, though he did spell his and Lake’s names correctly.
Handing the paper to Deke, I said, “I think we’ll let you handle these particular employee demands.”
Letting out another sigh, Deke took the paper, then reached down to scoop Aaron up in his arms, though the kid was definitely too big to be carrying these days. “Let’s go find Lake to discuss these new snacks that you’re demanding,” he said before looking back at me and adding, “Since Liam already has a one o’clock, I’ll need you to take my conference call with Jack Simmons at one.”
Now, while most people would call Deke insane for cancelling a call with a global energy company to discuss snack negotiations with his grandchildren, Deke would do anything to keep Delaney happy, in turn, keeping the little ones happy.
“Got it,” I assured him as he carried Aaron out of my office.
As soon as the door shut behind them, I turned to Liam. “Did you let him in my office?”
“Of course,” he answered without shame. “He needed his new crayons for his meeting with us.”
I shook my head, not really blaming him. “Deke said that Roselyn’s not feeling well.”
Liam immediately sobered up. “Yeah, I think she’s coming down with the flu, though she’s trying to lie and say that she isn’t. She’s been preparing for a big presentation on Monday.”
“Well, the fundraiser only needs one of us there with the checkbook,” I remarked.
“Yeah, but we all know how important children’s charities are to Emerson,” he replied regretfully.
“Yeah, but Emerson only cares that enough is raised to help the cause,” I reminded him. “She’s not going to hold it against you. Plus, she probably already knows that Roselyn’s sick.”
“She does,” he confirmed. “Roselyn called Em this morning.”
“Well, again, don’t feel bad,” I told him. “Deke is bowing out, too.”
This time, Liam grinned. “Yeah, I guess Dash is having issues again.”
“How do you know?”
“When Eden stopped by earlier to drop off the kids, she passed me in the hallway, telling me that my nephew was off his entitled rocker, and that we really should do something about that,” he chuckled.
I eyed him. “There are eleven of them, not counting Posie. How in the hell did we go wrong with all of them?”
“I say we blame Ava,” he replied easily, and that just made me laugh.
“I’m good with that.”
“Okay, I gotta go,” he said. “I really do have a one o’clock scheduled.”
“Well, apparently, so do I now,” I snorted.
Two hours later, I was heading to a preliminary budget meeting, and Deke was passing me in the hallway with two bags of new snacks, and he flipped me off before I could say anything.