Chapter 17 Derek
DEREK
Darcy is looking at me like I’m the answer to all her prayers and it takes all of my self-control to keep from sweeping her into my arms.
She wants acceptance, that’s all.
“Life doesn’t always go the way you planned,” I say, tearing my eyes from hers.
“Your wife,” she says softly.
I nod. In spite of the feelings for Darcy that I can’t seem to restrain, I still feel the same deep sense of loss for Addie I always do whenever I remember that I won’t see her again on this earth. I guess I always will.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
She means it.
But she also understands what it is to miss someone so viscerally.
I remember about six months after she started working with me, when I found her sobbing in the supply closet one afternoon.
I asked what was wrong and she said she missed her family and my own heart ached.
She probably thought I’d fire her for disappearing like that, but instead we never talked about it again.
I’m sure now that she was thinking of Mandy and the babies. She helped to raise them and now she hardly sees them.
And that’s my fault. I ask too much of her. Just because the business is my whole life isn’t an excuse to think it should be that way for everyone. And honestly, after this time with my family I’m starting to realize that it shouldn’t even be that way for me.
I vow to do better in the future. I’ll make sure she has plenty of opportunities to see the people she loves.
“No one plans to lose someone important,” she says softly, bringing me back to the moment.
“No, but my plans went off the rails even before that,” I say. “I was a teacher before I got into the video game industry. Did you know that?”
“It’s on the website,” she says with a smile. “I couldn’t really picture it before, but after seeing you and J.B. making those ornaments, I get it now.”
“I loved teaching,” he tells me. “The kids kept me on my toes, and I got to do what I loved all day.”
“Science?” she guesses.
“Physics,” I tell her, nodding. “I had my whole future planned out, a simple life with Addie and Judi-Bloom.”
“But you created Hearts & Circles,” she says.
“I didn’t set out to make it for profit,” I tell her.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“You know my daughter better than most people,” I say, looking away because what I’m about to say feels like it could be a betrayal. “You know she has some sensory issues.”
“Sure,” Darcy says, like it’s no big deal. “I think it’s great that she uses her headphones when she needs a little space.”
“When she was little she used to get really anxious when we had to go places like the waiting room at the pediatrician’s office,” I tell her.
“Or the checkout line at the grocery store. I had a little programming experience, so I made an app to give her something fun to do on my phone so she could stay calm.”
“Hearts & Circles was made just for J.B.?” she asks me, her eyes wide.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I never thought anything would come of it. One or two people saw her playing and wanted to play too. So I put it up for download and it kind of took on a life of its own.”
I wonder if this will make her respect me less. She probably thought I was a brilliant business magnate and a tech genius, like the magazines love to call me.
Really I was just a heartbroken dad, trying to make the world feel a little more bearable for my daughter.
“I can see how. I used to love it,” she says softly, her eyes on the wood stove and the dancing flames behind the glass.
“When I was up all night with the twins sometimes one of them would fall asleep on my chest. Hearts & Circles was one of the only things I could do without waking them. Making the patterns was really soothing when I was tired or worried.”
“Wow,” I say, trying to imagine a twenty-one-year-old version of Darcy, holding a baby in the middle of the night with my silly game giving her comfort.
“It’s part of the reason I wanted to work for you,” she says with a shy smile.
“Do you still play?” I can’t help asking.
“Once in a while,” she says, not meeting my eyes. “I’m not up all night with babies anymore.”
“People used to say they were addicted,” I muse. “That they could still see the shapes when they closed their eyes. But I think we all naturally move on from little games like that. These days we have to keep adding features all the time just to keep users engaged.”
She frowns and clearly has something to say about that.
“What?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says with a self-deprecating smile. “I have no real insights.”
“You’re a player,” I tell her. “You have the most important insights.”
“I think the added features are hurting the game,” she tells me quietly.
“That’s a common complaint,” I agree. “But we do have to monetize it somehow. And some of the features are designed to get people even more hooked.”
She nods, but she doesn’t look convinced.
Honestly, the last round of updates raised our earnings, but didn’t get us many new players. Maybe she’s on to something.
“Talk to me,” I tell her. “What’s it like as a player?”
“I can only speak for myself,” she says carefully. “But what drew me to Hearts & Circles was the sense of peace it gave me. I felt like I was in a cozy little bubble.”
I nod. That’s a common theme.
“But now,” she goes on. “I’ll be in the middle of a pattern and an offer pops up to get me to buy something.”
“Those are discount codes you’re unlocking,” I tell her, frowning. “You earned them.”
“It doesn’t feel like an accomplishment,” she says, shrugging. “It feels like the world elbowing into my little peaceful place.”
“So I guess you don’t like the social component then?” I ask her.
We recently added a feature allowing the app to scan your contacts and put you in touch with people you know that also play. The guys in PR said users would love it.
“I hate it,” Darcy says, clearly emboldened. “Now my friends have to know when I’m playing? And I’m getting notifications from the app a hundred times a day telling me I have to keep up my streak or compete with my friends.”
“Ah,” I say.
“All of that is the opposite of why I loved the game so much,” she tells me. “Hearts & Circles used to be such a cozy little escape. I miss that feeling.”
We both sit with that thought.
“But I also know it has to make a profit,” she says after a moment, shrugging. “Nothing in life is free.”
“The best things in life are free,” I say, automatically quoting my grandfather.
“I can’t believe I’m hearing Derek Lockwood say that,” she laughs.
I should be offended, but she’s only teasing me.
“I know. I seem like I love the suits and the cars and the rock and roll lifestyle,” I tell her. “But I’m honestly happier here, just like this.”
“I’m happy here too,” she says softly.
I know she’s telling the truth. Her beautiful brown eyes are too expressive to hide it. And I never would have guessed before we got here, but Darcy really seems like she was meant for wood fires and town festivals, and for making my daughter laugh and my grandfather feel important.
She seems like she was meant for all of us.
She’s meant for me.
I let the container of ornaments fall from my hands. Shining plastic balls clatter to the floor, reflecting the light in a thousand directions as I drop to my knees at her feet and take her face in my hands.
I’ve wanted to kiss Darcy Keller a thousand times.
I think of all the early mornings when she drags herself in after a late night at the office for an international call.
She’ll have faint circles under her eyes, but she’ll also have a pair of coffees for us, and about a hundred ideas on how to find the time to do every single thing that came up in that call bursting from her lips.
I think of the lunch meetings she gets me out of the moment the guest starts asking for favors.
She’ll pop her head in the door like she has a sixth sense and tell me I’ve got a very important call that turns out to be someone asking who has our contract for copier servicing.
And when I ask her why she put an early stop to my meeting she’ll just shrug, but her eyes will be dancing and only I know why.
I think of last year’s office holiday party, when one of the new interns, a young man with wide shoulders and a smug smile, asked her to dance.
When Darcy said sure, I wanted to punch him in the face, and when he let his hands wander and she pulled away from him and marched off to the ladies’ room, I wanted to follow her in there, then press her up against the mirror and kiss her into oblivion.
What makes tonight any different?
But I can’t even answer that question for myself because I’m too busy leaning in to feed on her beautiful mouth.
Her eyes are hazy as she waits, her pink lips slightly parted. I loved the way she kept her eyes open until the last second when I kissed her at the lodge. I’ve been telling myself it was because, like me, she wanted to be sure it was real.
She lets out the tiniest sigh as she closes them now, and my lips are a millimeter from hers when the phone rings.
No…
But the spell is broken. Her eyes fly open and she pulls back slightly, which is enough to have me dropping my hands from her face and going into a full retreat.
“S-sorry,” she murmurs, grabbing her phone from the table and sliding her thumb across the screen to pick up. “J.B.?”
I straighten and pace over to the tree, trying to distract myself with the bright lights and the pretty balls.
“The movie’s over,” Darcy says. “They want to know whether to start another one.”
All I want is to tell J.B. to start another movie, so I can try to land her the stepmother she thinks she’s getting. But then I think of the look of horror on Darcy’s face when the phone rang and I have my doubts.
She’s attracted to me, that much is clear. But maybe she doesn’t want to be. Maybe all the things I’ve been telling myself about us are just wishful thinking.
At the end of the day, she’s my employee and I’m being a pretty bad boss, trying to kiss her without finding out how she feels first.
I shake my head and she turns away from me.
“We were just getting ready to come pick you up,” she tells J.B. cheerfully. “So don’t start another one. We’ll see you in a few minutes.”
There’s a pause.
“Yes, of course we had fun,” Darcy says. There’s a note of worry in her voice, like she’s afraid J.B. doesn’t believe her. “I always have fun when I’m with your dad.”
“Tell her we have a surprise for her,” I say.
“We have a surprise for you,” Darcy says, turning back to me with a grateful smile. “Yes, yes. We’ll see you in a few minutes.”
She ends the call and I want to tell her I’m sorry and that I care about her, and that I won’t overstep my bounds again.
But she’s on her hands and knees picking up ornaments before I can say a word.
“We have to finish this tree,” she says excitedly. “Come on, let’s get everything on there but the angel.”
“Not the angel?” I ask as I watch her placing balls expertly on the tree like somehow she’s secretly been an interior designer all these years.
“J.B. will want to put the angel on top,” she says, turning to me like I’m from Mars.
“Right,” I say. “Yes, you’re right.”
And then there’s nothing to do but help her, and hope that it’s a good thing that I didn’t kiss her.