29. Henri
Chapter 29
Henri
Nothing good ever comes from talking to Kyle. I’ve moved past the beginning stages of second-guessing and into complete, deep, sinking regret over hiring him and fear of firing him.
I can’t even escape him when working from home. His name flashes on my caller ID, and before I even say hello, Kyle’s voice chimes in.
“Hey, Henri.”
“Hey, Kyle, what’s going on?” I answer, trying to keep the panic to a minimum.
Deacon was fine yesterday.
My wolf joins in on the panic I wasn’t doing an awesome job containing. What if he’s not fine today?
“I hate to bother you, but I sent you an email this morning and haven’t heard back. I get it if this is too last minute and you want me to take up some slack somewhere else, but...” He pauses, clearing his throat. The tense silence makes me want to rush him or tell him to spit it out. “With Deacon in... on his way to... Romania? I guess I don’t quite know the flight timelines. But I was thinking this is probably as good a time as any for me to take that vacation.”
“Oh.” I scroll through my inbox. The first email this morning is from Kyle. I look at the time-off calendar. “Wait, Deacon is in Romania?”
“Yeah? Cade told me it was fine. He didn’t need a handler because if Deacon had an issue, it would be Revecca’s problem as part of the royal family.” Kyle pitches that sentence as a question like I’m going to dispute it.
Cade didn’t run it by me. Which means I wasn’t supposed to know? I correct that thought. They didn’t tell me because it’s not my responsibility.
I look over the extra workload, and anything I could give Kyle, he’d mess up. “I’ll go ahead and approve that time off for you. Enjoy your week. I’ll handle anything Deacon related in the event he returns while you’re gone. Be sure to set up your out of office to go to the main inbox.”
“Will do. Thanks, Henri.” Kyle is quick to get off the phone, and I don’t blame him.
Everyone likes some good time off.
I look from my ‘workstation,’ a stack of boxes supporting my laptop, to where I’m curled up on the couch with a water bottle and a mountain of sugary snacks. I should take some time off today to unpack and try to make the place homier.
The cabin Cade provided is quaint, and while starkly furnished, it’s cozy. Even if I wanted to complain about it... I couldn’t. It’s everything you’d want in the cottage-core vibe waiting to be brought to life.
Lonely, my wolf notes.
But we’ve been living out here for a while, and we get companionship with Ms. Gertie every morning at 7:00 a.m. for tea and whatever baked goods she made the previous afternoon. I also do lunch every day with the Aldens. We’re adjusting.
I’m cozied in, ready to get back to work, when a knock comes to my cabin door.
Closing my eyes, I debate ignoring it... but I can’t. It would be rude because we’re wolves, and besides hearing me, smelling me, and probably seeing me through the open blinds... everyone who would look for me knows I’m in my cabin today.
With a sigh, I push the boxes supporting my laptop to the side so I can get up. I leave my phone on the couch and cross the small space to the door. When I open it, Ms. Gertie is on my porch with a little tray in her hand.
She brushes past me, entering my cabin. “Now, I know you’re going to object, but I won’t hear anything of it. I didn’t know your favorite, so I just went with what the good Lord said we were feeling today.”
“What?” I turn and follow, letting the door fall closed behind me.
She sets the tray down on the counter and looks around my place. “Child, we need to move you in. It’s not good to live in so much unkemptness. I’ve got a work order to paint your porch ceiling blue too. Deacon said it doesn’t make a difference, but he’s never seen a bad spirit in my house, so that makes me think maybe it does.”
The words are fired a hundred miles an hour as she digs around in my kitchen drawers and then starts looking at the boxes on the ground around the kitchen.
“Ms. Gertie, what’s going on?” I lean up against the kitchen island, studying her.
“Here we go!” She picks up a crock of utensils I took from Nathan’s and sets them on the counter by the stove.
Then, grabbing a serving spatula, she pulls plates out of the cupboard she’d previously opened and closed and then forks out of the drawer. Ms. Gertie doesn’t answer me but opens the box in the center of the tray.
She carefully lifts a little round cake out of the box. It’s maybe four inches across, and on top is a little H decoration with green flowers.
No. I bite my lips together. Hot tears well in my eyes.
“Deacon said your birthday wasn’t on the pack registry, and he told me it must be an oversight.” Ms. Gertie turns the cake to face me. “But since it was today and rather last minute, we figured maybe you just didn’t want a big fuss about it.”
I swallow. I was the one in charge of putting the staff birthdays on the pack registry, and I purposefully omitted mine.
“Must be somethin’ you don’t like talkin’ about, but there was no way I was going to break my record and not bake everyone a cake for their birthday.” Ms. Gertie pulls the H off the top and quickly cuts into it. “Besides, I made a small one, no pictures, no singing songs. Just cake.”
“Just cake,” I whisper. The first birthday cake I’ve ever had.
Not because I never wanted one or because my parents never thought to get me one, but because I insisted on never having a cake as part of a long-standing history of not making a big deal out of it. But I guess at twenty-four years old, maybe I can start a new tradition.