Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
K ingston
"Are you ready?" Skye gives me the sweetest smile as we stand outside my apartment building, and I nod slowly. She's wearing a yellow sundress and her hair is hanging down her back in soft curls.
“I love your hair," I say, wanting to touch her silky coils.
"Well, it's wavy, but I curled it up this morning," she grins. "You like it?" She spins around and I nod slowly.
"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 mean, 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 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. 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 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. I mean, 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 lightly. "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." Though, 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.
"Oh my gosh, 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 that'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 quickly. "I didn't bring you here to get you to volunteer money. I brought you here for?—"
"It's fine," I say, grinning at Skye and then Patricia. "If we can be of any service, I'd love to see how we can help." Patricia grins and 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 say as 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 say, staring at 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 jumping up.
"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?"
"Well, shall we read, or write, or..." I lean forward and whisper slightly. "I don't really know how this works. This is my first time."
"I know. I've never seen you here before." He leans back. "You are Skye's boss?"
"That, I am."
"I hope you're treating her well."
"Of course, I?—"
"She's more than just an employee, huh?"
"I don't really know what you mean."
"I see the way you two are looking at each other, way more than a boss-employee relationship. Don't worry. Back in the day, I had a little thing with a secretary myself." He winks at me.
"Oh, your secretary?" I'm surprised. If he had a job where he had a secretary, why is he at a literacy organization?
"I know what you're thinking. What's this schmuck doing here if he was an executive in a Fortune 500 company, right? Well, I wasn't an executive. I was the mailman. And the secretary wasn't mine, but we had a little thing. It was fun." He grins. "Don't ask how I delivered the mail if I didn't really know who I was delivering it to, but I got lucky. I had another female friend that would put stamps on all of the envelopes so I knew if it was going to zone A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, all the way through M. Each office had the letter on it so I knew which one was which." He grins. "Did that job for twenty years."
"Sounds amazing," I say.
"Well, it's not like I don't know to read and write completely. I never graduated high school, and I figured I got some grandkids who are struggling and I want to show them that granddaddy can do it too."
"That sounds great," I say.
"Yeah." He rubs his forehead. "I always used to say, who needs book smarts if you got street smarts? Because I got plenty of street smarts. But these kids these days, they don't got so much street smarts. Some of my grandkids, they ain't got no common sense, so they're going to need some book smarts. You know what I'm saying?"
I nod slowly. "I think so."
"So what, you're an attorney?"
"Yes, sir."
"Huh. You went to law school then, huh?"
"Yes, sir."
Well, you never know. You don't always need to go to law school to be an attorney."
"Most of us go to law school."
"Not that guy in that show." I stare at him for a couple of seconds, puzzled. "You know, Suits, that one with that Harvey Specter guy."
"Oh, I've heard of it. I've never really watched it. Too much time actually studying the law to watch shows about it."
He says, "You want me to read to you or something?"
"Sure, if that's what you normally do."
"Skye had me reading this book by Charles Dickens. You know him? He wrote that all-of-a-twist book and that Christmas book. What's it called again? Hey, Skye," he says loudly.
"Yes?" she says, turning around with a ghost of a smile at the corner of her lips.
"What's that Christmas book by Charles Dickens that you wanted us to read last Christmas?"
" A Christmas Carol ," she says, grinning. "With Ebenezer Scrooge."
"Ah, yeah. That was it. Bah humbug," he says, and Skye giggles.
"You see, you remember that."
"I guess I do. Well, there's another one called A Tale of Two Cities . Skye says it’s good, so I figured maybe I could start with that."
"Sure," I say. "I didn't realize you liked Charles Dickens so much," I say, looking over at Skye.
"I do, but I guess you also have to remember you don't know everything about me."
"I know I don't," I respond. "But maybe I want to."
"Oh, Lord. Are you two flirting right here in front of me? Can I at least read my pages first?" Bobby says and I start laughing.
"Come on. Where's the book?" I lean back and I wait for him to grab the book and start reading. He's not an awful reader at least. There are some words he trips over and I try to be patient as I sound out the words for him and wait for him to repeat them. He reads two pages and then blinks as he looks up at me.
"I'm slow, aren't I? Are you looking at me thinking how does this old man not know how to?—"
"I'm impressed," I say. "Not many people would try to learn to read so late in life."
"Where are you going to say old?" he says, chuckling. "Are you calling me an old man?"
"Not a while, sir. You'll be an old man soon enough, though."
"You got kids?"
"No," I say.
"Well, I'm hoping you're not married, seeing as you and my Skye are doing whatever you're doing." I nod at him for a couple of seconds.
"I'm not married, don't worry."
"Good, good. Are you thinking of getting married?" He lowers his voice then. "Are you in love with Skye?" I stare at him for a couple of seconds and frown slightly. "You don't want to answer the question."
"This is just all very new with Skye and myself," I say quickly. I don't want to tell him that we're in a situationship because I don't even really understand what the situationship is or how it's really going to work out long term, considering that I already want to change the rules of the situationship.
"I know you like her," he says. "You can't deny that. I see the way you smile when she talks. I see the way you look at her." He grins. "That's the way I used to look at my old woman. She's been dead ten years now."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I miss her every day. Can't lie, don't miss the nagging though. Put the toilet seat down, do the dishes every single day, ten times a day. I used to tell her, ’Get off my case, woman.’ She would say, ‘I'd get off your case if you would do it,’ and then we'd bicker back and forth and she'd tell me to sleep on the couch, but I'd always crawl back into the bed and...well, we'd have that makeup sex and it would be all worth it in the end." He grins. "Miss her, I do. Sometimes I think about getting another, but what am I going to do at my age with another woman? I ain't really got much to offer. I mean, I got my kids and my grandkids, but what woman wants to take them on? If I'm being true to myself, I still love my ex-wife. Could I really tell another woman that I loved her? I've only told one woman my entire life I loved her. What about you?"
"What about me what?" I ask him, wondering if I should be getting back to the task of reading or continuing to have this personal conversation.
"How many women have you told you love them?"
"I’ve told my mother that I love her, and she's a woman."
"I would think she's a woman," he says. "She gave birth to you, didn't she?"
"Well, yes. She did."
"How many romantic women have you told that you love them?"
"To be quite honest, I have never told any women that I love them," I say softly, not wanting Skye to hear.
"You've never told a woman you love her?" His eyes are narrowed now. "This, I find hard to believe. How old are you, pushing fifty?" I stare at him and he bursts out laughing. "Just joking. I know you're not fifty. I would not let a fifty-year-old man be with my Skye."
"Okay. Yeah. Well, I'm in my thirties."
"So you like her?" he asks again, and I just stare at him for a couple of seconds. I look over to make sure Skye isn't listening to the conversation and lean forward.
"I do like her. I think she's very special and?—"
"Don't tell me it's complicated," he says. "It's never as complicated as people like to say it is. You either like her or you don't. You either want her in your life or you don't. You either want a commitment with her or you don't. Let me just say this because I can tell that you respect her and you care about her feelings, right?"
"I do." I nod.
"Don't play around with her. If she's not the one for you, if she's not someone you can seriously see making your wife, let her go. She's got a tender heart. She's a good woman and she deserves a good man." I stare at him for a couple of seconds.
"I'm not making her do anything she doesn't want to do."
"You're a good-looking guy. You're her boss. I can see that she likes you," he says. "Women, sometimes they have hope that things are going to change. I'm not saying that she has hope that things are going to change, but you know what I mean." I nod silently. "So think about it. You like her and you stay with her and you try and see if you can make this thing work, or you like her and you let her go and let her find the right man for her. That's the least you can do. I'm saying this because she's like a granddaughter to me. I love her. She's been coming here for years. She dedicates every Saturday, and sometimes during the week when she's not working, to come in and read with us. She's a good one. If I was fifty years younger, I'd give it a shot." He bursts out laughing. "Though, I don't know that my wife would've liked that."
"I don't know that she would've liked that either," I say, laughing, and he nods.
"Back to the book."
"Let's do it," I say, nodding slowly.