28. Sienna
28
SIENNA
F or a moment, Ryker’s kiss makes me forget all about the very real problem of us all being homeless soon.
At least until his lips pull back and start to speak. “It’ll be fine,” he says like someone who never had a problem that couldn’t be solved with enough money. “I’ll have my guys contact you and they will give you free legal counsel. We’ll figure this out. I will not allow my best employee…” Ryker stops for a second to think. “I will not allow my favorite employee to be without a roof over her perfect little head.”
Guy’s drawn out ‘Ohhh’ is interrupted by Robyn’s ‘Gluteus maximus osculator’.
“That’s Latin for butt kisser,” she explains. “Are we still on for tonight though?”
Ryker laughs as he slips into his jacket. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” One last wink in my direction and he is gone.
I look at Robyn questioningly. What could she be doing with My Mr. Grayson?
“Knitwits meeting today. We’re making more beanies for the kindergarten across the street,” Paige explains before I can ask.
“You two will be making beanies,” Robyn interjects. “I’ll be busy making cocktails and asking intruding questions.”
“Oh, okay, that’s great,” I say and step out of my apartment to grab the ball of paper I threw out earlier. “But what do we do now? Says here we have two weeks. That must be a mistake, right? Aren’t there laws that give us more time?”
“Not if the building is unsafe to reside in,” Earnest says and pulls a folder from behind his back.
“Did you hide that in your pants?” Guy asks, trying to figure out where it came from.
“Yes, almost forgot about it with all the moaning and howling.”
Guy nods understandingly.
“No one was howling, okay?” I say and reach for the folder. The Harmony Inc. logo is printed on the first page.
“I was hoping this wouldn’t happen,” Earnest explains matter of fact. “I kept on digging after that rapscallion made his affair public, worried we might need something even more condemning than just another affair to save Robyn. And then I found this.”
I sift through the folder in my hands which contains internal documents about Harmony’s numerous retirement homes, lists of inhabitants, financial statements including revenue and expenses, and even internal communiques about which branch they are planning on closing next.
“None of it is technically illegal, but what I gather from these documents is that this is their M.O.,” Earnest continues. “They try to get rid of their longtime residents first because many of them still have leases that don’t expire, which means they are more expensive to buy out of their contracts. Then they threaten eviction for everyone else to get rid of as many people as possible, which then makes it easier, or at least cheaper, to pay off the ones that stay. All the while, they run down the buildings. That way people are more incentivized to take a little pay-off and move somewhere else. Of course, with how the housing market is right now, that pay-off doesn’t go very far, but for many people, fighting a legal battle against a company like that is not an option anyway. Once they get rid of all the residents, they sell to the highest bidder who then gentrifies the neighborhood, builds a shopping mall, office buildings, casinos, whathaveyou. A similar facility sold two years ago for tens of millions of dollars.”
“But our building isn’t even unsafe,” Guy scratches his temple. “We do all the upkeep ourselves. I had my cousin renew the electrical panels for the east wing just last fall. And if it was unsafe, shouldn’t we have to move, as in, immediately?”
“That’s what’s curious about this. Usually they don’t threaten eviction until all the old contracts are gone either. I assume they must have a buyer lined up already, or Dicky is strapped for cash, and they are therefore accelerating their plan. I talked to Paul, and he didn’t know anything about an inspection that could have resulted in an official evaluation like the one in the folder. So I’m thinking they use some of their profits to bribe their way into false evaluations and evictions and, along with it, more profits.”
“Alright,” Robyn says with confidence, slaps the table, and I already don’t like where this is going. “It’s obvious what we need to do, no?”
Guy nods enthusiastically, Paige adjusts her glasses, releases a little sigh and nods as well, Earnest looks at me and nods once with conviction, which is probably supposed to overrule my oncoming objection.
“I will do it alone,” I say. “You guys can’t get involved.”
“We are already involved, Sienna,” Robyn counters, and picks up a bottle of gin from my tiny shelf.
“He might expect us to spy on him,” I interject. “We already did this once. We don’t have the element of surprise on our side this time. It might be dangerous.”
Robyn shakes her head. “Who is talking about spying on him? We obviously need to kidnap him and scare him into not going through with his plan.”
“Robyn!” I try to shut her down but look at three bobbing heads who already seem way too on board with that ludicrous idea. “We can’t kidnap a real-life human being! We haven’t even talked with Ryker’s lawyers yet. I’m sure there are other options that we can explore.”
“It’ll be fine,” Guy tries to convince me. “We just need to follow rule #3. Do not get caught.”
“No, no, no, no, no, no…”
The four bobbleheads keep bobbing.
“Sienna, you know this is the only way.”
I try to think this scenario through and then to find the right words. They seem so adamant that I am worried they will go ahead with this poorly thought-out plan either way. What is it with seniors losing all common sense at some point?
“It might be the fastest, and certainly the most reckless way, but it is not the only one.” I try to give them a valid alternative. “How about this: first we talk to the lawyers. If that doesn’t help, we try to find more dirt on him we can use for blackmail.”
The bobbleheads slowly shake from side to side.
“I am not done yet. I know it didn’t work the last time, which is why we also convince that potential buyer not to buy the property.”
The bobbleheads are still not convinced.
“And if all that fails, we can kidnap the son of a bitch.”
Hesitantly, the heads start bobbing again.
“But until then, none of you do anything.” I get up and gather my clothes. “You have to promise.”
“Couldn’t if we wanted to,” Earnest says and swipes over his phone. “He’s out of town for the next ten days.”
Thank god, I think. “Okay, until then I will keep going to work so we have money to pay our lawyers, who will totally take care of this issue! So no one will have to go to jail! Because that’s where kidnappers go. Especially kidnappers of freaking billionaires.”
It’s like there comes a time in a person’s life where the self-preservation instinct just goes out the window entirely.
At work, I don’t run into Ryker who is out, taking care of whatever he needs to take care of, but I do share the exceedingly empty office on the third floor with Barbara, who has taken a seat at Ryker’s desk. I tell her about what’s going on at Haven, without going into too much detail, and it seems like she is more and more warming up to me. She tells me about her dogs; I tell her about the Chairman. She tells me about her non-existent family; I tell her about my late grandma. She tells me about how much she enjoys working here; I remember that I actually also have some work to do.
Ryker might have hired me for a different reason, but now more than ever, I am determined to do a good job. After all, if I might have been wrong about him, everyone else might have been wrong as well. He isn’t the person that constantly gets portrayed in the news and on social media, and I want people to see that. So after Barb is already gone, I stay late and keep working on a strategy to improve his image. It includes numerous campaigns through different channels that all aim to do one thing: show the real Ryker Grayson. Because the real Ryker Grayson is kind, thoughtful, empathetic, he cares about the people around him, and also he is fantastic in bed, though that probably doesn’t have to be part of any campaign.
I finish up around 9 PM and, on my way home, try to call Ryker, who doesn’t pick up. After I make it home, and settle onto my couch with the Chairman in my lap, there’s a knock on my door. With my cat in hand, I open up.
It’s Ryker who is leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed behind his back, his cheeks bright red, his eyes closed and his lips already pursed, waiting for a kiss. Naturally, I lift the Chairman and boop their faces together.
“You’re an even better kisser than I remember, Sienna de la Vega,” Ryker says with a cheeky smile on his face. He tousles the Chairman’s fur who snuggles against his hand in response. “Here, I brought you flowers. Well, a flower.” Ryker reveals his other hand.
In it is the cutest flower I’ve ever seen. It’s a pot with eyes and a smile, and out of it grows a single rose. Except that it’s not really growing because it’s not real. It’s made of yarn.
“You knitted me a rose?”
“Your dead cactus made me sad, so, yes, but that’s not all.” Ryker hiccups. “I also wrote you a poem to go with the flower. You wanna hear?”
I let my cat glide to the floor and jump into My Mr. Grayson’s arms. He is sloshed and I am thoroughly entertained. Ryker carries me inside as the door flies shut behind us.
“Let’s hear it then,” I say just before his lips meet my forehead.
“Roses are red,” he places a kiss on my neck, “violets are blue,” another on my collarbone, “I couldn’t care less about stupid flowers,” and one on my lips that takes my breath away, “all I want is you.”
And that’s what he gets. Me. All of me. The more time I spend with him, the more I realize how wrong I have been. How he’s not at all what I expected, what I thought he was. I judged him by a single thing he did, or rather I thought he had done, when there is so, so much more to him. So many things that make my heart melt over and over again.
We spend the next three hours intertwined. Him on top of me, me on top of him, him inside me, me pulling him close. I try to absorb every little molecule of Ryker Really Great At Fucking Grayson.
The night is kind of a blur, but I am pretty sure even sleep can’t keep our bodies apart from each other. When I wake up, Ryker is wrapped around me like a spider monkey who is afraid of heights. I try to slip out, so I can go to the bathroom, but it’s of no use. When his grip won’t let up, I whisper a quiet ‘babe’ which only intensifies his hold around me.
“You know, I never liked that word,” Ryker eventually grumbles behind me. “But it’s my favorite sound when it comes from your lips.”
I smile and nibble on his biceps. “And I love saying it, babe. But, unless you’re into watersports, you really need to let me go to the bathroom right now.”
The next morning, we get ready for work together and Ryker tells me about his evening with the Knitwits. I also notice that the bottle of gin is missing from my bar, as are a few other things, such as a photograph, a painting, and some scrunchies. I wonder what Robyn would need those things for. Once ready, we head to the office.
The next couple of days transpire in similar ways. We work during the day. I am in close contact with his lawyers, and if we’re not busy with work, we spend every second glued to each other. We go to his house where we do a lot of things that I am not sure his grandparents would entirely approve of, I show him how to score donuts for free shortly before closing, and he takes me to places where a glass of water costs more than my food budget for the month.
We don’t flaunt our… whatever this thing between us is, but we don’t hide it either. Once at a restaurant, I think I recognize some employees from the office and instinctually push Ryker away so people won’t know that we’re together. It’s not that I’d care if people knew, it’s more that I worry about the possible repercussions for his image. That evening, it takes quite a few ‘babes’ to get him to forgive me.
On Saturday night, he invites me to a date that, as he puts it, ‘I might hate’ .