Nathaniel #4
She locked her door and Doc fell in next to her as she walked up the porch. “You coming in too?” I had to ask because he was adamant about not visiting this place when I purchased it. He couldn’t stand the De la Costas for what they did to Sampson and how they’d manipulated him.
“You fixed this place already, right?” Doc was looking around suspiciously at the porch. Almost waiting for the ghost of owners past to jump out and mess with him.
“Yeah, Doc. Had a whole cleansing done on it. Black and Native. All their stuff got moved out into the barn a while ago. Charisma is gonna help catalogue and sell whatever I don’t want.”
Doc nodded his approval and came up the steps. “Then I’ll come in.”
Charisma was now looking between us like I’d purchased the Whaley House and had her work among ghosts. “Did I miss something?”
“I think I told you a thief used to live here. She was a bad person and you don’t want her residual energy lingering around tainting anything.”
“Is she dead?”
“Not yet.” Doc’s words were simple enough but his tone made it obvious he was disappointed that Ana Maria was still breathing air.
“Doc!”
He folded his arms stubbornly, and chiding him was pointless. He was a Black man who survived living in Mississippi when his existence was a lynch-able offense. The tenacity it took for him to survive and in thrive those situations meant my lil verbal reprimand didn’t move him.
“You think that girl ain’t gone make an enemy of somebody in prison? She can’t help that mouth and you know she’s not gonna be somebody’s bitch to keep herself safe. She wants to be the pillow princess not the orgasm provider. She gonna run into the wrong one.”
My shoulders dropped and I couldn’t bring myself to look at Charisma’s face. “Doc, it’s her first day—”
“Ain’t no need to fake the funk with Charisma. This here is a farm. Either at home or here we speak plainly, young lady.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone to change just because they think I have sensitive ears. Trust me, Nate, I’m not going to run and tell HR that someone said something provocative.”
I took my hat off as we stepped inside the twelve foot front doors. “You’d only be talking to yourself because you’re the whole of the company right now.”
I’d muttered the sentiment but the foyer being empty and our proximity to one another meant she heard me clearly.
“Getting in from the ground up. I like it. Show me your place, it looks impressive.”
I liked that she was impressed with my house despite who used to own it.
Ana María and her father had good taste.
This place was built almost fifty years ago so it had great bones.
They’d done some renovating a decade back or so but they hadn’t been able to afford anything major recently.
I was upgrading a lot of the systems in the house and having someone come out and look at the clay tile roof to ensure it didn’t need to be replaced.
A backup generator and solar panels were being installed to ensure that the house never lost power.
I wasn’t one to lose all of my food simply because the shitty power grid in Texas decided it wanted to go out.
The solar panels were being installed in a field that wasn’t being used to ensure it didn’t bother the horses or the riders.
With the way it faced the sun, I shouldn’t have much of a bill.
The parts of the house that ran on natural gas were fed from a tank that was at the back of the garden.
That way, if anything went wrong with it, it wouldn’t blow up the house along with it.
“This place is enormous.” Her voice echoed off the upper balconies and bounced off the groin vault ceilings that had to cost a grip. They complimented the large chandeliers that lined the foyer and despite not having a lot of style, I knew better than to remove this detail from the house.
There wasn’t much need to take her through the house but I couldn’t lie that I wanted to impress her.
“The people who lived here before had a high opinion of themselves.”
Her giggle echoed through the foyer along with our footsteps as we walked through. “You say that like you don’t.”
“You gathered all that how?”
“Just a feeling. The things you want me to catalogue, where are they? I heard you say they’d been moved to a storage barn?”
“Yeah it’s heated and cooled. I can only imagine what the fuck they kept in there but it’s none of my business anymore.
I had this place searched and cleaned from top to bottom.
Ain’t nothing crazy waiting to jump out at us.
” Because with the way Ana María was so cool with trying to traffick Yzzy, I was almost certain there would be bones or bodies or captives to be discovered once this place was sold.
Thankfully, the searches of the property hadn’t revealed anything but that barn still bothered me.
“So the house tour is for…?” Her eyes sparkled in a way that was half teasing half hope. The question lingered briefly and I could tell she was on to what I was doing.
“I need you to be comfortable here. In case I’m gone and you need to check in with the contractor or handle any change orders or construction issues.”
It was a lie that was close enough to the truth for me to remember it later.
Her big, round, browns darted to Doc and she cleared her throat. “I have no idea what you would want in your house.”
“But you know about art, which means you have some idea of design. That means if they’re trying to sub out some real shit with something cheap as hell then you’ll be able to catch it.”
She mulled over my words testing their truthfulness and I waited patiently for her to make her judgment.
“You didn’t strike me as a man who hired people he couldn’t trust implicitly.”
Charisma had a point but she’d also made mine. “Remember that when you start to question why you’re here, okay?”
Her grin matched mine and her head lowered slightly. “I walked right into that one didn’t I?”
“Lil bit. But honestly, what you’ll be doing is a lot of little things that will make this place run smoothly. I’ll attempt to keep you from having to do too much with the construction but I want you to be aware of the timelines and the scope of what’s going on.”
She looked around the foyer again as she bit into her bottom lip nervously. “This sounds like a lot more than answering phones.”
“Somewhat. Do we need to talk about a raise?”
Her laughter bounced off the walls and it was the first time this place felt like it had a soul. “Are we negotiating again?”
I nodded all too happy to give her whatever she was about to ask for; it meant she wasn’t about to drive off and leave. “If that’s what it takes to ensure you’re not quitting on your first day.”
“I’ll give you a thirty-day trial to see just how bad it is. Let’s not do a walkthrough while they’re already working. Instead, you tell me the ideas that you gave them so I know what I’m looking at and looking for in case you’re gone.”
“Smart. She can’t correct what she doesn’t know, Bucky.
” My head snapped up and I’d forgotten Doc’s ass was even here.
He’d obviously been standing to the side listening to every part of our conversation.
The way he was agreeing with Charisma meant he was going to run back and tell my mama to prep for another wedding.
And the fact that I wasn’t stopping him said a lot.
“Bucky?” A raised brow and a smile dancing on her lips as she spoke my name. Damn near savored my name and turned me on like she was telling me she wanted me to taste her.
I cleared my throat trying to get the lustful thoughts from running rampant. “Family nickname.”
She looked me up and down before she nodded her approval. And I, like a fool, had been waiting for it. “I like it. It’s very humanizing.”
Not the response I was expecting. “What does that mean?”
“I mean you’re running around at night like a superhero.
Larger than life.” She glanced around the foyer before returning her attention to me.
“And seeing the size of this place you are clearly successful in your profession so I’m more than sure that you’re a star.
Hearing you being called Bucky calms down some of the fantastical nature that seems to surround you. ”
“Well, damn, little lady, you must be looking for a raise if you’re going to sit here and sing his praises that way.”
She was giggling and I was damn near awestruck. Fuck a Red Bull giving me wings. Charisma was speaking life into me. I felt like I could take on anything with the way she was touting my fantastical nature and shit.
And the lil fairy hadn’t even felt the Black man magic of my dick yet. It’s only up from here.
She tucked her hands into the staid black slacks she was wearing and I wondered if she’d tried to dress down on purpose. I ain’t feel any kinda way about what she wore when I met her but I realized I just told her to show up without any additional information on what she needed to wear.
“Just being honest. That’s a bad thing about me, I normally speak my mind.”
“Doesn’t seem bad at all. And I’m just a man but I appreciate the words. Now, do you want to see where you’ll be working?”
She nodded and that playful grin was back on her face as stared at me.
“Lead the way, boss.”