My father’s mother’s face went pale. She knew exactly what Mom was talking about even if none of the rest of us did.
“Furthermore, Walter had an idea that you might attempt to stand in the way of his ex-wife and son getting the money he left for them as well as the life insurance. He left me a note to read if that was the case.”
He reached into the file and brought out a piece of paper.
“Mom, leave it. I missed my son’s whole life because of you. I regret every day leaving him behind.”
“Walter,” Mom whispered, the note in her voice something I hadn’t heard since I was a little boy and things were still good.
“He worked extremely hard to build his company in the last couple of years and to invest well. He was very successful and wanted the family he felt he lost to be the beneficiaries of that. There are some items he left to you and to your daughters, but there is a clause in the will that states if you attempt to contest the will in any way, you are no longer eligible to receive anything,” the lawyer said.
I didn’t cry, but I was closer than I had been in a long time. There was still so much I didn’t know about my father, but for the first time ever, I felt like I might get the answers I needed. The lawyer read my father’s will, and as my grandmother and aunts stormed out of the office in a huff, my mother and I filled out the paperwork to start the process of receiving what he had left for us.
When we walked out of the office, I was a millionaire. Pending bank transfer, of course. Even just the thought of it was mind-blowing. We got back to the apartment, and Mom stepped into my room.
“I hope you don’t take this wrong,” she said, “because I appreciate you having me here very much. But I think I need some time to myself. I’m going to go get a hotel room for a few days before heading back home. My boss gave me bereavement leave so I have a little bit longer to process everything.”
“I completely understand,” I said, gathering her in a hug. “You know I’m here if you need me. Both of us are.”
“I do,” she said. “Thank you.”
“And we’ll get together for lunch before you go so we can talk about all this,” I said.
She agreed and went to the bedroom to pack up. Maya and I said goodbye to her, and when the door closed, I held her close. It felt good to be home, and to be alone with her.
25
Maya
“How does Thai food sound?” Greg asked, coming into the room with a handful of takeout menus. “Or we could do Indian again. That was really good.”
“I’m up for anything,” I said. “Thai sounds really good, though. Some peanut noodles would be amazing. And some of those spring rolls. Oh, and you know that stuff that is the broccoli and it has that brown sauce on it, and they serve it with rice? I want some of that, too.”
Greg laughed as he sat down on the couch next to me and opened the menu. “I guess you don’t need to see the menu, huh?”
“Well, I might,” I said. “I haven’t had it memorized or anything. Maybe there’s something else on there that I want to try.”
I scooted even closer to him and looked over his shoulder at the menu. It was one of those rare nights when I didn’t feel like cooking. But Greg never complained about that. On some of those nights, he would jump in and cook dinner for us. And on others, both of us decided to be lazy and indulge ourselves with some takeout. That was one of those nights.
It was Thursday, so I had the night off. That meant I wanted to just lounge around the house with him and enjoy some time together. It’d been two weeks since we sat in the lawyer’s office and the huge shock of finding out about his father’s legacy being left to him.
In those two weeks, something had shifted. It wasn’t a massive change, and it definitely wasn’t negative. A lot of people who discovered they were suddenly wealthy would have changed completely. But not Greg. There wasn’t even the slightest hint of being a rich, snobby ass. He was still going to work every day and putting every bit of himself into his career.
He had another race and pushed just as much as he always did. It was like the money hadn’t even registered to him yet.
Or it had and he was determined to not let it change him.
I loved that about him. When I found out just how much money he was inheriting from his father, I worried he might let it get to him. After so many years of having almost nothing, it would make sense that he would get wrapped up in it. It would have been a completely normal response for him to get a big head and want to just start splashing money around because it was suddenly there. He might have even started acting like a jerk and looking down on people.
But I should have known Greg better than that. He didn’t let any of it affect him that way. He just wasn’t that type of person. Instead, the shift was between us. And it couldn’t have been better.
All of a sudden, we were completely domesticated. We never said anything about it or had any big talk about it. It just was the way it was. We had already been sharing a bed before his mother came to town and stayed at the apartment for those few days, but it never went back. His room became our room.
And it wasn’t just our sleeping arrangements that showed we were very much settled into our new relationship status. All of our free time was spent together. Anytime we needed to do anything like go grocery shopping or running errands for the apartment, we were there together.
The fact that we never talked about it only made it feel more real. Like we didn’t need to clarify anything because it was so obvious both of us already knew and were blissfully happy with it. There was nothing strange about it, nothing we had to get used to. This felt like the way everything always should have been between us.
When I pointed out a couple more things on the menu, Greg looked at me and laughed.
“Have you forgotten to eat over the last couple of days or something?” he asked.
“You know I haven’t. Considering you make me lunch, you know I have at least one meal a day. Everything just looks delicious. I thought we could share a lot of these,” I said.
He shrugged. “They do sound good.”
It took a while after Greg called the restaurant for our food to be delivered, and by the time it got there, I was famished. I cleared off the coffee table and spread all of the takeout containers in front of us. Handing Greg chopsticks, I dug in.
We stayed up eating and cuddling on the couch, watching all the episodes of TV shows we saved throughout the week so we could watch them together. As it got later, Greg got tired and had to go to bed so he could get up for work in the morning. I stayed up a little bit longer, which was usual for me. I didn’t want to throw off my schedule too much and be exhausted at work.
It seemed I stayed up a little too late that night, because the next morning I was exhausted and could barely open my eyes when Greg woke me up to kiss me goodbye. I immediately fell back to sleep, but that didn’t last long. Less than an hour later, a sudden wave of nausea hit me and woke me out of a deep sleep.
I scrambled out of bed and rushed into the bathroom, just making it in time before I threw up. I stayed there on the bathroom floor for several minutes until the sickness calmed down enough for me to brush my teeth and splash cold water on my face. Seconds later, another wave hit me, and I was back on the floor.
It was another half an hour before I managed to crawl back into bed and grab my phone. I sent Greg a text warning him that I was sick, and it probably came from the takeout the night before. Since we had eaten many of the same things, I wanted to give him a heads-up before it hit him. I didn’t want to have to call out of work, so I set my alarm and closed my eyes for just a little while longer.
When I woke up, my stomach was still feeling uneasy, but I didn’t get sick again. I went into the bathroom and took a big dose of Pepto to try to ward off any more incidents. Just to be safe, I called the Thai restaurant and let them know I had gotten sick after eating their food.
They apologized profusely, but I reassured them I would be
just fine. I just wanted to let them know in case they heard from anybody else. When I got off the phone, I took another quick dose of Pepto and got dressed for work.
As soon as I got to the bar, I walked right up to Lindsey and asked her for a ginger ale.
She looked at me strangely as she poured it. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I told her. “Greg and I just had a major Thai food extravaganza last night, and I don’t think it’s sitting with me right. I got some indigestion last night and ended up staying up pretty late so that I could sit up, but it just really hit me this morning. I’m feeling much better than I did, though.”
“So, you’re not sick?” she asked.
I laughed. “No. I’m not going to infect any of your customers.”
I took a long sip of the ginger ale and let out a sigh. It was so delicious and immediately helped to make me feel better.
“How’s everything else?” she asked. “How’s Greg dealing with everything?”
“Pretty well. I mean, there’re obviously still moments when it hits him, and he goes through a lot of emotions. I think he’s still trying to figure out exactly how he feels about everything. He and his mom went to lunch and talked through things. He learned a lot about his dad and his family. I think it helped him kind of process a lot of things that went on when he was younger,” I said.
“That’s good,” she said. “It’s just so crazy he was here in Charlotte this entire time and nobody knew. Do you think it’s possible he knew Greg was in town?”
“I think he probably did,” I said. “A man who felt bad enough to leave that much money to his son and leave a note like that for his mother wouldn’t just have that spontaneously come up in his life. He thought about Greg for a long time. He would have tried to find him. I wouldn’t even be surprised to find out he knew Greg was racing and came to see some of the races.”
“I hope he did,” Lindsey said. “I know he did a lot of really horrible things, but at the same time, it’s obvious he loved him. It would be nice to know he could see that his son grew up to be a good man. And in a way would actually be getting back at him, too. He would be able to see that Greg succeeded even without him being there. That he didn’t destroy him.”
It wasn’t a plan I had thought all the way through, but suddenly I knew this was the right moment. The moment I had been waiting for it since the first night I started working for her. I gathered up all my courage, took another sip of ginger ale, and looked her right in the eyes.
“Speaking of success,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you about my job.”
She looked briefly concerned. “You’re not going to tell me that now that Greg has money, you’re going to quit and just go be a pampered kept woman, are you?”
I had to laugh at that. It was just so detailed and specific.
“Yes,” I said sarcastically. “Just like you. No, that’s not what I’m doing. What I wanted to talk to you about is moving up from my scrub spot. You mentioned I would be able to climb up through the ranks, and I think that I’ve proven myself. But, if I haven’t, I’d like to talk to you about what milestones I would need to hit in order for you to think I would be ready to move up.”
She grinned. “I don’t think anybody has ever spoken that professionally in this bar ever in its existence. But, yes, of course you’ve proven yourself. You are extremely valuable here, and I had already started thinking about progressing you up a bit.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. Now, I told you I’m thinking about expanding and opening a restaurant.”
“Yes,” I said. “You were thinking about taking over the building next door.”
“Exactly. But before we are going to be able to do that, I wanted to test out some of the ideas. I would really like to restyle the menu here at the bar and try to find items to be the first ones on the restaurant when we open. I would really like good, fresh food. Not as much fried stuff. We already have the best burgers in town, but I want more. So, I wanted to see if you would like to be involved in something like that,” she said.
“How?” I asked, getting excited but not wanting to build myself up too much.
“I’ve tried your cooking. You’re really fantastic. And I’ve heard that your baking skills are getting better all the time. So, I’d like you to have a hand in building the menu. Be sort of a sous chef. I’d still need your help with other elements of running the kitchen. You would probably still act as a barback and support the servers until everything gets up and running. But I want you helping out on the line more and bringing some of your recipes to the menu.”
I wished that it was a moment when I could be sophisticated and eloquent. I should have come up with something meaningful to say, something that would reassure her I was a good choice and wouldn’t let her down. Instead, I broke into tears.
Lindsey laughed and came around the bar to hug me.
26
Greg
The race that weekend was at a track a couple of hours away, so we were leaving just after lunch on Saturday. It was a night race, so we wouldn’t be finishing up until late, and then we were going to get hotel rooms to stay the night rather than trying to get home. It meant I had to go an entire night without Maya, and I really didn’t like that idea.
I had gotten very accustomed to her being in my space. And that was something I had never said about a woman before. And if somebody else said something like that, I probably would have thought it was a bad thing. It sounded boring, like she was just kind of there and I was used to it.
In all honesty, this was far from the reality. Being accustomed to Maya being a part of every aspect of my life was better than anything I ever could have imagined. It wasn’t that I was just used to her. It was that I had fully knitted her into my daily existence and didn’t like having to be without her. I wasn’t looking forward to not spending Saturday night curled up around her, so I wanted to have as much time with her as I could before I left.
Before I went to work on Friday, I left her the usual lunch and the sticky note attached to it which told her to wake me up when she got in. I could easily sleep on the way to the race. Recently Quentin had invested in a team bus to use when we had races not at our local track.
Rather than using the smaller equipment trucks and traveling separately, we had workers from the complex bring the equipment in larger trailers and the team all traveled together in the bus. It wasn’t just more comfortable. It was also a chance to talk and strategize.
But it also meant I got to steal some extra time with Maya when she came home from work. Even if I was tired, I looked forward to those late-night interludes.
She ended up getting home earlier than I anticipated that Saturday morning. Usually Friday nights were so busy it was almost four by the time she dragged herself into the bedroom and collapsed in the sheets beside me. But that night, it was only around 2:00 a.m. when she made it back.
She slipped into bed beside me and wrapped her arms around my waist. Her cold hands pressed to my chest, breaking through any lingering sleep that might have been there. I turned over my shoulder and kissed her.
“How was your night at work?” I asked. “You’re home early. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s great,” she said. “It just wasn’t that busy of a night. We were able to get through all the closing things faster than we usually do. Guess what?”
“What?” I asked, rolling onto my back so I could wrap my arm around her.
She pulled up to rest on my chest and look down into my face.
“Lindsey is giving me a promotion.”
“A promotion?” I asked. “What kind of promotion?”
“Well, now she wants me to help out the cooks more. She’s planning on expanding out and opening a restaurant sometime soon. And she wants to rework the menu at the bar and find out the kinds of food people would want to order before she does it. So, she wants me to help the cooks, and may even want to use some of my recipes,” Maya said.<
br />
“That’s amazing,” I said, rising up to kiss her. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m really excited. She even mentioned my baking, which might mean I’ll get to make some desserts if I can really get my scales down.”
“I will happily try anything you have to offer.”
“Oh, really?” she asked.
Her head dipped down and caught my lips in another kiss. I held her close, slipping my tongue into her mouth. The talk started to turn to a celebration, and I was just about to roll her onto her back when Maya suddenly pulled back from the kiss. She paused, then pushed my chest to move away from me. Her eyes widened, and she jumped out of bed.
Scurrying to the bathroom, she pushed the door closed, but it didn’t latch. I heard her getting sick, and I cringed. I had hoped she would be better by now. I had never gotten sick even after she warned me that she thought it was the Thai food that got to her.
Worried, I got out of bed and followed her into the bathroom. She was kneeling on the floor, her arms crossed on the toilet seat and her forehead rested against it. I sat down on the edge of the tub, and she looked up at me, then groaned.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” she said. “I don’t want you seeing me like this.”
“I’ve seen you like this before,” I said. A lot of times.
“Yeah, but that was different. That was before we were… like we are now.”
I laughed and shook my head at her. “That doesn’t change anything. You’re still my best friend. I didn’t suddenly stop being willing to take care of you when I manned up and realized my feelings for you. If anything, I want to take care of you even more now.”
She gave a faint smile and looked like she was going to say something, but another wave of sickness hit her, and her head dropped down into the toilet. I reached over and gathered her hair to hold it back for her. I used the other hand to gently rub her back until she was done.
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