5. Happy Face
5
HAPPY FACE
F oster slammed on the brakes four days later.
Good thing he wasn’t going that fast down his driveway or the puppy would have been a pancake.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte yelled as she ran in front of him to retrieve the runaway mutt.
All he noticed was that she was wearing a short pink bathrobe that looked to be silk. It was tied tight, but the wind was lifting it some in the front that she was trying to hold down.
Her hair was wrapped in a towel on her head that was starting to fall to the side and her feet were bare.
“Is he okay?” he asked out of the window.
The dog was shivering in Charlotte’s arms and Foster was terrified that he’d nicked Marco with his tire.
“I think so,” she said. “He’s scared. I don’t think he likes being loose.”
“Why is he then?” he asked.
The towel slipped more off her head, the dog was squirming and the wind picked up to lift the robe some. It was a comical sight that he couldn’t pull his eyes away from.
“It’s not as if I had it planned this way,” she said. “He was sleeping and I took the trash out. I shut the door behind me, but it must not have clicked and he pushed it open.”
“Bring him over here,” he said. “Marco, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Sorry I didn’t introduce him, but you left so fast you would have thought my house was invaded by roaches or something.”
She moved closer to his window after he snorted and he reached his hand out. “Hey, I’m sorry, buddy. You have to watch out for things that are bigger than you though.”
Charlotte let out a soft laugh. “I don’t think he understands what you’re saying, but he’s not shaking as much.”
He gave the dog a few more scratches under the chin. “Sorry about scaring him.”
“It’s my fault,” she said. “On top of never painting before, it’s probably obvious from what I’d said I’ve never owned a house. It’s the first dog I’ve owned. I’m used to city living on top of it. I’m so out of my element.”
“You seem to be holding it together fairly well,” he said.
And there went the towel on his driveway. A nice white one that wouldn’t be that way much longer.
Her long blonde hair came free and it had some nice waves to it. Some of it fell right in front of her face and she tried unsuccessfully to blow it away with a big breath.
“It’s not my morning,” she said. “And you go to work early. It’s not even six thirty.”
“Give me the dog,” he said, reaching through the window. “So you can get your towel.”
Charlotte handed over Marco, who he’d put on his lap and pet while she bent to get her towel and wrap it around her head again, then tightened her bathrobe some more.
She put her hands out for the dog who decided he didn’t want to go back to its owner.
“Great,” she said. “Now my own dog doesn’t want me.”
Foster cracked the barest of grins and shut his SUV off. “I’ll bring him in for you.”
“I feel like you keep saving the day for me,” she said.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever been someone to save anything. He just did his thing and then got out of there.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
And speaking of getting out of there, he had to do that soon with the way his eyes kept landing on her legs.
He wasn’t sure he ever wished for a strong gust of wind in his life and felt like a pervert for thinking that.
“I made cookies yesterday. I was going to give you a plate as a thank you.”
“That’s nice,” he said.
“I burned them though,” she said, scrunching up her nose. “I can bake. I really can. But this oven is temperamental. Now I know to either turn it down or take them out sooner.”
“My mother always said every oven is different and that is why she’d spend so much time watching food cook. I think it was just to get away from the kids.”
As much as his mother busted him about wanting to be alone, she needed some space too.
“Three kids could be a lot,” she said.
“Eight,” he said. “There are eight of us.”
“Wow,” she said. “I don’t blame your mother for wanting to be in the kitchen away from everyone.”
He smirked. “I didn’t hold it against her. Okay, Marco. Time to go back to your mother.”
The pup started to squirm when he handed him off and Charlotte reached out to snag him. If it were a baby, he’d bet there would be wails in the room.
He didn’t remember anyone ever wanting to be with him more than someone else.
Most times they were trying to get away from him and his moodiness.
“Thanks again,” she said. “I’ll get to the cookies today or tomorrow and just leave them in your mailbox. I’m assuming you check it daily?”
“I do,” he said. “When I come home at the end of the day.”
His mailbox was at the top of his driveway.
“Have a good day at work, Foster.”
“You too,” he said, leaving out the back door and climbing in his SUV and pulling away.
He had a ten-minute drive to his office and turned the music up as soon as he cleared his driveway.
He never blared it too much when he was close to the houses, trying to be considerate. He knew it was loud enough to be heard through the windows at times, but it was early and he didn’t want to be the dick that woke people up.
He parked in the Vice President's spot, climbed out and swiped his card for the door to unlock, then put another code in after that. When he got to the door past the main lobby, he had to enter another one. Each level of the building required more access codes to get to floors. Signing into computers much more than that.
West owned or had a lot of shares in companies all over the world.
Data and servers were kept and run here in Merrick.
Staff were assigned to different businesses, but no one but him and two others could access every single server.
Even then, there were things only he had access to. Like information on the server in the corporate offices.
He went to his office and set his laptop down. He didn’t really need to bring it back and forth, as he had enough equipment, but he got used to doing this since it was easier to sign into everything from this machine.
His email box was lit up with unread messages like it always was every morning. Unlike his brothers, he tried not to read email all night long and rather had code to give him an alarm if it was from specific people or had certain keywords in it.
When his phone rang at seven-thirty, he reached over to see it was Laken calling.
“Morning,” he said.
“Don’t you sound chipper,” his sister said. “Normally you answer my calls by saying ‘Yeah’.”
“Not always,” he said.
“That’s true. You must be in the office where you’ve got your happy face on.”
He snorted. He always played nice when he was at work. Or at least tried to.
It was his happy place, but he also knew he’d never do anything to embarrass his brother West who worked his ass off to give the family everything they had now.
Did Foster work his ass off to be where he was? Hell yeah. Just like a lot of his other siblings.
And he didn’t complain about it either, but he felt at times he had more responsibility on his shoulders dealing with everything behind the scenes to get businesses up and running and staying that way.
“What is it I can help you with?” he asked.
“Now you’re just being cute,” Laken said. “Did you take some magic personality pills today? Play with kittens or puppies? Watch some funny baby videos?”
He frowned. Was it Marco that put him in this mood?
Nah. That’s stupid.
“I’m not a total dick,” he said. “Only when I’ve reached my limit. I thought I was good last weekend.”
“You were,” Laken said. “Even Mom said it. She shouldn’t have pushed you to spend more time with everyone. I could see you were all but shaking in the tux to begin with. Then all those people talking to you. You’d think the world was ending.”
He started to laugh. Laken was good at getting them all to laugh.
“It felt like it if I had to go back on Saturday again.”
“I know,” Laken said seriously. “But it was nice to see everyone. We’ll do it again when Braylon gets married. Then me. Phoenix’s girlfriend seems nice too. Maybe we are all starting to hit the part of our lives where we settle down.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Did you have anything work-related? It’s not like you to spend time chatting. Normally you’re the one short on the calls because you are rushing to get from point A to B before you jump on the next plane.”
“Which I’ll be doing soon,” she said. “I’m going to Atlanta to meet with Phoenix on some things. Nelson is going too. Once all the paperwork is finalized, you’re going to need to get everything set up on your end.”
West was investing in their cousin Phoenix’s business in Atlanta. Foster normally didn’t learn about acquisitions until it was close to being finalized. But since this was family, he knew earlier than normal.
“I know how it works,” he said.
“West is going to want you to fly there with us,” Laken said. “We’ll take the jet.”
He grinned. They all knew how much he hated to fly commercial. He normally paid for first class to just get the space. He was a simple man and didn’t spend nearly the money he had in the bank, but some things you couldn’t put a price tag on.
Like his house away from people. Or the boat that he took out to get even further away.
“Just let me know when and I’ll be ready,” he said.
“Maybe in a few weeks,” Laken said.
“You could have sent this all in an email,” he said.
“Maybe I wanted to talk to my brother,” Laken said.
Which wasn’t like her. “What is going on?”
“It was a nice thing you did for Talia on Sunday.”
“I didn’t know I was such a hard person,” he said.
“You’re not, Foster. I know we all give you crap about liking your time alone. Maybe some of us just aren’t used to it like you. I’d go nuts. But Talia told me what you said to her. I think we give her a hard time and everything she decides we think is wrong because it’s not what we’d do.”
“That’s on all of you guys,” he said. “Not me. I think she is spoiled and entitled as much as you and everyone else does. But she’s trying and should be encouraged to continue.”
“Which I did once she told me what you’d said. I talked to West about it too. I think we’ll lighten up on her some.”
Seemed like he’d been doing a lot of good deeds lately without even trying.
“If that is all you’ve got to say, I’m using up my niceness with you. The meter is draining and I’ve got to recharge it before staff come in.”
Laken laughed. “You’ve got a sense of humor too. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
He hung up with his sister and went back to work. Hours later he looked up when there was a knock at his door.
“Hey, Todd. What’s going on?”
“Server room three felt warmer to me for some reason. The thermostat is only a degree higher, but it still feels off. I just wanted your opinion.”
“I’ll come check it out,” he said, getting up from his desk and walking down two flights of stairs to the basement. It was cooler down there to begin with and they kept the temperatures all set to prevent overheating.
The two of them walked around and he found a spot that felt warmer than the rest, put his hand on the metal and knew it was coming from that.
“I should have done that,” Todd said. “I always forget.”
Todd had been with him for a few years and was a good employee, but he often had to be reminded of the simple things. “Check the fan in this and see what might be going on. I’d like to not have to worry about something going down on us and dealing with all those calls.”
Talk about something that would set him off. Maybe playing with the puppy had softened him. He’d have to give it a try again to see if it was Marco or seeing Charlotte.
He went back to his office and got to work when his phone went off with an alert from his security cameras.
He didn’t have any packages coming to his house today, so he pulled it up and saw Charlotte on his front porch leaving a little bag and then running off quickly with Marco.