Chapter Twenty-Eight
Untitled
Kingston
"Are you ready?" Skye gives me the sweetest smile as we stand outside my apartment building. She's wearing a yellow sundress and her hair is hanging down her back in soft curls.
"I didn't realize your hair was curly," I say in surprise.
"Well, it's wavy, but I curled it up this morning." She grins. "You like it?" She spins around, and I nod in appreciation.
"I do." I'm surprised at how happy and light she is this morning, especially considering how the work week went and how early in the day it is. I ask her, "I thought you couldn't do early dates?"
"I can't, normally," she says with a grin. "But I wanted today to be special."
"You ducked out. Weren’t you volunteering?" I ask her.
"No." She shakes her head. "You're coming with me." She grabs my hand and starts pulling me to the right. "If we're not fast, we're going to miss the beginning, and I know Mr. Johnson and Mr. Brown are not going to be happy about that."
"Who are Mr. Johnson and Mr. Brown?"
"They're my favorites." She smiles.
"Wait, so we're going to the literacy organization now?" I look down at my jeans and my blue shirt. "Am I dressed appropriately or—"
"You look fine. You look casual, and you look professional, so I think you're winning."
"Okay, I'm going to take that as a compliment."
"What? Do you want me to say you look devastatingly handsome?"
"I wouldn't frown if you did." She laughs.
"We'll be there for a couple of hours."
"A couple of hours?" I raise an eyebrow. "Do I have time to get a coffee or—"
"We can get something from a cart on the street if you want if you really need the caffeine."
I nod. "I think I'm going to need the caffeine. I didn't have any coffee this morning."
"Oh, how come?" she asks.
"Because I thought we were starting at brunch."
"Oh, I guess that makes sense."
"But it's okay," I say quickly. "I'm glad to go to this volunteering event with you. I mean, I don't really know much about literacy organizations or anything, but…"
"You're just going to read with them, and write, and listen, and provide feedback," she explains. "Trust me when I say it's not that hard."
"Okay, I believe you. I mean, you're so brilliant. You might be the best teacher ever."
"I don't know that I would say that."
I chuckle as we make a right.
"Did you have a good week?" I ask her in an attempt to make small talk. She looks at me with an upturned nose and narrows her eyes.
"Is that a joke, Mr. Chase?"
"I'm guessing that your boss was kind of hard on you this week."
"My boss was a jerk with a capital J, and a capital E, and a capital R, and a capital K," she sings, and I laugh.
"Is this what I'm expected to do once I get to volunteering? Sing my sentences?"
"No, but you can if you want to if you find that works for you."
"We'll see. Seriously though, do you think I'm too hard on you at work or—"
"It's fine," she says. "If you treat me the same way you treat most of your employees.
" She pauses. "Wait. Your assistants don't seem to last very long, so maybe you shouldn't treat me the way you normally treated the others.
" I stare at her for a couple of seconds to see if she's serious, and then she giggles.
"I mean, it's fine. You're not that horrible. At least you're not Remington."
"Oh? What's wrong with Remington?"
"Let's just say he does not seem to respect Juniper. Did you hear he had her order a whole bunch of roses for a whole bunch of different women?"
"Wait, that is not acceptable."
"If you ever did that to me, I would tell you where to stuff those roses.” She sniffs as if she’s smelling something distasteful. I debate sending her roses to see what she’d do with them. I think she’d love them.
"Oh, so are you saying you want me to date several women and send them roses?” I tease her, wanting to see the fire in her eyes.
"All I'm saying is that you're not sending me roses."
"I didn't know we were dating…" I say, and she stops dead in her tracks. Her mouth pulls into a thin line and her eyes look down for a second before she glances back at me with a wide smile that appears to be quite fake.
"True, we're not dating, so I guess I am the only one that's not getting roses."
"No one's getting roses," I say softly. "I'm not dating anyone.
" However, the more time I spend with her outside of the office, the more time I feel like we are actually going on dates and doing ourselves a disservice by calling it something else.
We continue walking in companionable silence for about ten minutes before stopping to grab two coffees and two bagels.
"This is so good," she says as she bites down into the buttery crisp bagel. "I love street food."
"So do I," I say. I take a bite of my bagel and we continue on the way until we stop outside of a small building.
"Come on, let's go in," she says, turning to me. I notice immediately that her shoulders seem to be stronger and she strides with more purpose as she walks inside.
"Hey. Morning, Skye," an older woman with gray hair says.
"Morning, Patricia. How are you today?"
"Great. We were wondering if you were going to show up today."
"Yeah, of course. You know I'm here every Saturday."
"I know, but I did tell you last week that you should take a break. You don't have to come every Saturday."
"I love this," Skye says sincerely. "If I can come, I'll make it." She turns to me. "Hey, Patricia. I want you to meet someone. This is—"
"Oh, is this your boyfriend? He's dishy," Patricia says, grinning as she looks me up and down. "Wow. I've wanted to meet the person who’s made Skye smile recently." I raise a single eyebrow and look at Skye.
"No, Patricia," she says quickly. "This is Kingston Chase. He's my boss at the law firm."
"Oh," Patricia looks confused for a second. "Just your boss?" she says, noticing our close body contact. I watch as Skye blushes but shrugs it off.
"I would say we're a little bit more than boss and employee." I step forward and take Patricia's hand.
"I am delighted to make your acquaintance. I hope you don't mind me crashing today."
"Oh, we're always looking for more volunteers." She grins at me. "We would love to have you come every week if you feel like you have the time and the energy. What is it that you do again? Are you at the restaurant?"
"No, I lost that job," Skye says quickly. "He's an attorney. Remember, I told you I got a job at a law firm as an assistant?"
"Oh, yes." Patricia looks me up and down again. This time, more carefully. "You are the partner at a law firm. "Well, I do have some paperwork I can give you if you're interested in being one of our corporate sponsors. I mean, no pressure or anything."
"Sure. I'll take it," I say.
"Oh, you don't have to do that," Skye says. "I didn't bring you here to get you to donate money. I brought you here for—"
"It's fine." I smile at Skye and then Patricia. "If we can be of any service, I'd love to see how we can help." Patricia grins, grabs some paperwork, and hands it to me.
"We have different levels of sponsorship. Feel free to ask any questions if you have any."
"Will do." I take the paperwork.
"This way," Skye says, looking back at me with a wry smile. "Hey, I'm sorry about that. I totally didn't bring you here because—"
"It's fine," I tell her. "If there's a way that I can financially help this organization, I will."
"No, you don't—"
"If it's important to you and you feel they do good work, I’m happy to." I shrug.
"That's so nice of you," she says softly. "I didn't…"
"What? You didn't expect me to be a nice guy?"
"Well, it's not that. I know you're a nice guy. Sometimes I just…"
"You just what?" I say frowning. "Do you think I'm miserly? Do you think I'm cheap?"
"Not at all. I just…" She shrugs. "I don't know. It's just weird having you here."
"Oh, why is that?"
"This is like my safe space, and, well, you are my boss, and I don't normally mix the two."
"Are you saying that I make your safe space not so safe anymore?"
"No," she says, shaking her head. "I guess what I'm saying is you feel like part of my safe space as well."
"Even though I'm a jackass of a boss."
"Yeah. Weird, right?" We walk into a large room and I see an elderly man walking to us.
"Skye, there you are. Bobby and I were just wondering if you were going to come."
"Oh, Arthur. Of course, I was going to come," she says, rushing over to the elderly man and giving him a big hug. "So good to see you, Arthur, and I brought someone with me."
"Who's this?" Arthur asks, frowning as he looks at me. He's got dark eyes and dark skin, and I can tell he's sizing me up. "Is this your gentleman friend?"
"No, he's my boss."
"Give her a raise," he says immediately, and Skye starts laughing.
"Don't, Arthur."
"What? I'm sure you deserve a raise, and he looks like he can afford it."
I grin.
"Nice to make your acquaintance. My name is Kingston."
"Good to meet you, Kingston. I'm Arthur and that's Bobby." Bobby is an elderly white man who's still seated. There's a chess set in front of him and he's studying it.
He looks up at me with a scowl. "Trying to decide if I should move this knight or not. Morning, Skye."
"Morning, Bobby," she says. "This is—"
"I know who he is. I heard." He looks over at me and grunts, and I'm not sure if that's a sign of approval or disapproval.
"Shall we start with you guys reading books this morning or…?"
"I have a letter that I wanted to write," Arthur says. "To my granddaughter, and I was hoping that we could go through it to make sure that it makes sense." He stares at Skye. "If you don't mind."
"Of course," she says. "I'd love for us to work on that." She looks over at me. “Do you want to sit with Bobby?"
"Sure," I say, walking over to the man who's sitting at the chess set.
"You play chess?" He looks at me.
"I haven't played in a while," I admit. "I have a feeling you'd beat me."
"Huh," he grunts, but there's a smile on his face. "What are we going to do?"
"Well, this is a literacy organization, right?"
"Yes, and your point is?"