Chapter 10
“Hello, beautiful.”
Jalen turned from placing the charts, which she had just finished inputting into the computer away, to find Rohan standing at the nurse’s station. She smiled and walked over to the counter that divided them.
“Hey. What are you doing here?”
“Well, you told me you forgot your dinner at home, and I figured you didn’t want vending machine food. So,” he started, holding up a bag. “I brought it to you.”
“You didn’t have to do that. I’m sure you have to be up early tomorrow.”
It was currently Jalen’s turn to work the night shift.
When that happened, she would typically get home at six in the morning, which gave her enough time to prepare her sisters for their day and take them to school.
On the one day that she had class the next morning after working a night shift, she would go to it and then sleep afterward.
Later, she would get up to do homework or pick up her sisters.
“I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to. Besides, my first meeting tomorrow isn’t until ten.”
“It’s almost one in the morning,” Jalen told her, placing her hands on her hips. “You need to get your rest to be productive.”
Rohan chuckled at her. “Don’t lecture your elders.”
She rolled her eyes playfully at him. “Fine. I go on break in about five minutes if you have time to stick around. We can eat together.”
“I always have time for you,” he responded with a wink.
She laughed, shaking her head at his playfulness as he went to one of the many vacant seats in the waiting area.
Five minutes ticked by pretty quickly, and Jalen informed the head nurse on duty that she was going to take her break. She went over to Rohan, and the two of them headed to the cafeteria. While it was closed for purchasing food. Staff members could still use it to eat.
Jalen tapped her badge against the sensor, allowing them access. There were only a few other people inside. They chose a secluded corner so they wouldn’t be disturbed and, in return, wouldn’t disturb the others who were there.
Rohan pulled her seat out for her before sitting beside her, and for the first time, Jalen smelled the aroma coming from the bag.
It was honestly mouthwatering, and she was glad she wouldn’t be having vending machine food.
Granted, she could have left and gotten food, but everything but fast food was closed at this hour, or it was just too far out of the way to go.
“Whatever that is, it smells fantastic,” she told him.
“I’ve been told it tastes even better than it smells.”
Jalen watched as he pulled Tupperware containers from the bag along with some plastic cutlery. She blinked a few times before it dawned on her.
“You cooked all of this?”
“I did,” he replied, arranging the containers on the table.
“You really didn’t have to do that.”
She was touched that he had gone out of his way not only to bring her food so she would have something to eat on her break, but he’d cooked it as well. It was thoughtful, and she couldn’t think of the last time someone outside of her siblings or Maria had done something like that for her.
“Same answer as before, gorgeous.”
When the tops were taken off the container, she saw that he’d made roasted chicken with rice, baby red potatoes, and a green salad.
From her first bite alone, Jalen knew that she definitely wanted him to cook for her again.
She was no slouch in the kitchen, but she often opted for easy meals that would feed the six of them pretty quickly.
Though she tried to cook different meals when she had weekends off, they would often end up getting caught up with something else.
She complimented the meal as they ate, and as if he was reading her mind, Rohan told her he would cook for her any time she wanted him to. She would definitely hold him to that.
When they finished eating, Jalen still had about twenty minutes left of her break.
She decided that she probably should get up and move around.
She always got tired and felt like she needed a nap after eating a heavy meal.
So, she asked him if he wanted to go out to the courtyard and get some fresh air.
They exited the cafeteria and out of the West hospital exit. The night air felt good on her skin in contrast to the almost freezing cafeteria they had just left.
He reached over and grabbed her hand as they walked. It was silent between the two of them.
“So, I’ve decided that I’m going to find playmates for my mother,” Rohan spoke after the silence had stretched on for about five minutes.
Jalen laughed. “Why is that?”
“You remember how I told you she accidentally said yes to going on a date with her neighbor about a week ago.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, instead of telling him the truth, she rescheduled with him. Three times so far for him to get the message. He did not get the message.”
“So, it backfired on her.”
“In the biggest way. He showed up at the office with a picnic basket filled with who knows what. She saw him before he saw her and ran into my office to hide. I then had to hear about how this was ‘getting out of hand and ‘why can’t he just take a hint’ as if she hadn’t been leading him on.
I swear she needs friends. On top of that, she kept questioning why a picnic is what he decided on, and how, ‘women don’t even like picnics. ”
“Hey, I like picnics,” Jalen said as she laughed.
“I’ll have to remember that.”
“I don’t understand why she just didn’t tell him she isn’t interested. I mean, she’s only putting off the inevitable of having to turn him down, which will only make it worse. Not to mention, the two of them are neighbors. She could run into him every day.”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I asked her the same thing, and she said she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“But she’s going too, regardless. It’s better to be honest and upfront about it.”
She felt like a bit of a hypocrite as those words left her mouth because she technically wasn’t being honest with him. While she had told him that she was taking care of five girls, she was sure he was under the assumption that they were her daughters, and she hadn’t corrected him.
Maybe a part of her had wanted to see if he would still be interested in her if he thought she was twenty-four with five kids. It had normally been the deal-breaker for anyone else she had tried to date, the few times she attempted to do so.
However, she knew she needed to tell him.
Jalen didn’t see him getting mad that she hadn’t exactly told him the truth or corrected his train of thought, but she could see it taking away some of the trust they were building.
She was going to tell him soon. She just wanted to make sure that their relationship was going somewhere.
“Right,” Rohan responded, bringing their hands up to kiss the back of hers.
They returned to the entrance they used, and Jalen turned to look at him, thanking him for the food once again. Rohan leaned down and placed a soft peck on her lips before telling her to let him know when she made it home safely from her shift.
She could feel him watching her, making sure she got back inside safely. She got on the elevator and rode it back up to her floor with a few minutes of her break left to spare.
????????????
Rohan was bored. His ten o’clock had shown up late and completely wasted his time. The young man had come in and wanted a marketing campaign created for a product that he had yet to develop. Which typically wasn’t a big deal.
When that happened, the person would at least have the blueprints, and had chosen the company they wanted to make the prototype if they weren’t making it themselves. Things along those lines. This young man had none of that. He simply had an idea, but no plan to execute it and make it come to life.
Rohan had tried to let him down gently. To explain that it was a good thing that he had something he wanted to create, but that he first needed to work on a plan of action to make it a reality, and then get back to them, and they would help him market it to his general audience.
That had only gotten him a confused look and a question of, “Wasn’t that what they were for?
” which he then had to explain the difference between marketing and a production team.
However, from the little, and it was really minuscule, amount of information he got from him, he figured it may be something interesting to throw his brother’s way.
Cayman Industries was always looking for something new and innovative, or even a fresh spin on an old idea. He didn’t know if it would bear fruit for the young man, but who was he to stand in the way of what could be potential when he had a resource that might work out for him?
Now, he sat in his office with nothing to do. His meeting, even though it had started late, had not lasted long at all. Therefore, he had been able to get some work done on a project he and his team would complete and present to the client at the beginning of next week.
He thought for a moment about texting Jalen, but he knew she was more than likely sleeping.
She had called him as he’d requested when she got off, so he knew she had made it home safe.
They had spoken for a bit while she made breakfast for her girls before they got off the phone, so she could wake them up.
It was almost one-thirty. Rohan decided he would ease his boredom with lunch. Food was usually the remedy for everything.
Leaving his office, he headed to his mother’s to see if she wanted to go to lunch with him.
He tried the knob but found it locked. He knew she didn’t have any appointments right now, because they shared their calendars.
For a minute, he thought that she might have already gone to lunch, but she usually let him know when she was leaving the office in case he needed to take care of something for her while she was out.
He knocked on the door, waited a few seconds, and thought he heard a noise coming from behind it, but he couldn’t be sure. He knocked again.
“Mom, if you’re in there, open the door.”
There were a few seconds that ticked by before he got an answer. “Are you alone?”
He furrowed his brow. “Yes, I’m alone.”
She opened the door, and Rohan was yanked into the office quickly. If he were honest with himself, his mother had always been one to do strange things, so he wasn’t surprised by whatever was going on. That didn’t, however, change the fact that it was indeed strange as hell.
“Mom, what are you doing?”
“I never thought having two men chase after me would be this tiring.”
“Two men?”
“Yes, two. Howard is still popping up, waiting for a definitive time for the date I keep putting off every day, and Devon has come inquiring about being made a partner again.”
“That was fast. He normally waits more than a couple of months.”
“He’s apparently impatient.”
“As far as Howard goes, you need to tell that man you aren’t interested in going out with him.”
His mother sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I know, but he’s such a nice guy, I don’t want to see that disappointed look on his face when I tell him.”
“Then go. What is one date going to hurt? Besides, he may realize that you’ve got a few screws loose on this date and decide you aren’t worth the trouble,” he finished jokingly.
“Shut it, little boy.”
Rohan held his hands up in surrender as he chuckled. He knew his mother’s hesitation with outright turning Howard down was coming from a place of having a good heart and a place of fear.
The last man that she had turned down hadn’t understood how to take no for an answer and had even shown up at his house, after following his mother and assuming it was hers. He’d been bold enough to confront her in the yard and grab hold of her arm.
Rohan had taught him that putting his hands on his mother was the last thing he should have ever wanted to do.
After he’d gotten his ass whooped, his mother had placed a restraining order on him.
That had been over two years ago, but it was the last time his mother had entertained any conversation about dating.
He also knew that his mother was genuinely a kind soul and didn’t want to hurt the man’s feelings. Though that often caused her to put herself in situations where there was more stress on her. He didn’t like that for her either.
“Well, I was going to see if you wanted to go to lunch, but since you’re hiding out, I suppose I can go pick up something and bring it back here.”
“Thank you. I’m fine with whatever you get.”
He nodded, slipping back out of the door, and he headed towards the elevator. He passed Devon on the way, who asked him if he knew where his mother was, to which he’d simply shaken his head no. He had no intention of having any part in her drama.