by Lia Lee
April dragged her chair over to his side of the desk. It was pleasant, almost fun, going over what was and wasn’t possible. He even asked her questions about other projects that were going on at the firm, bringing up other designs for her consultation. Before she knew it, half an hour had passed, and Garcia was texting for her whereabouts.
“Oh, damn. Um, I need to get back.”
“Tell Garcia that the bossman is boring you with details and you’ll be back when you’re free.”
“I’m typing that exactly.”
“Tell me. Now that your team is missing a leader, who do you think should take over? Someone in the team? Should I bring in another person from management?”
April though about that, though she kept staring at her phone to avoid meeting his eye. The idea of another Hutchinson, who looked down on them all and hadn’t updated their understanding of architecture since the 70s, was abhorrent.
“I don’t know that we need a leader, but if we have to have someone, it should be Garcia.”
“Really?” Samson moved closer to her and watched her closely. “Not yourself?”
“What?” April let out a sputter of a laugh. “I don’t have nearly enough experience to head up a project like this. I’ve observed, in my internship, but you need a lot more than that to make this a success.”
“That’s too bad. I liked seeing confidence on you.”
“There’s confidence, and then there’s arrogance. Ask me again when we’ve completed few projects, and I’ll take on the whole world for you. I need to know how it works first.”
Samson smiled slowly. “You’re really quite pragmatic, aren’t you? Well, I suppose you’re right. I’ll tell Garcia later today. I’ll also tell him to let me know if you need any other members once you get going. So far, the three of you seem to be handling the work well enough.”
“We were splitting it between ourselves anyway. And to be fair, Garcia is the one who pushed me to take over the drafting.”
“He knows how to use his assets.”
“If you call me an asset one more time, I may start hearing the word incorrectly.”
“Oh yeah? I wonder what you might mistake that word for?” Samson turned back to his computer. “I’m going to take you on a trip with me.”
April twisted her fingers nervously. “A trip?”
“You have a good eye, and I need someone with a keen sense of composition and design. I’ll make sure we schedule it so you aren’t too missed by your team. We can get them to the point where they don’t need their lead designer every moment.”
April scrambled for something to say, but she could only feel herself burning again, like she might torch the chair around her. For most of her life, she had sought this very kind of attention. She wanted someone who valued her, looked at her as worthwhile and competent, and maybe even special. How strange that it would come now, from a man like this, who she had all but swatted away from her.
“I would like that a lot. I moved around a lot as a kid, but I can’t say that I’ve been anywhere special,” April admitted. “Even if it is just for business, it would be different.”
“You moved around, where? Was your family in the military?”
“No.” April felt her stomach churning as the topic of her background came up again. The scent of ginger seemed oppressive as she considered how to word this. He’d been pressing for more details about her life ever since her interview. It was surprising that he hadn’t just had someone get him a file full of information on her.
“I grew up in foster care. I don’t really have a family.”
Samson’s eyes softened. “Really.”
“I was dropped off at a hospital. Probably my family didn’t want me, or couldn’t afford me, or whatever. Babies that young usually get adopted, but the doctors found a heart defect and had to give me surgery. It’s a pretty minor thing to me now—the scar is barely visible—but then it basically meant I stayed in the hospital longer, and people don’t want to adopt defective babies.” April shrugged. “Or maybe they do, but they didn’t want me. So I ended up in the system and stayed there until I went to college.”
“I see. That must have been very difficult for you.”
April covered her lips, but a giggle escaped.
“Did I say something funny?”
“No, it’s just… It’s odd to see you fumble for words. I feel like that’s usually how everyone else acts around you, right?
“I just wasn’t expecting that kind of story from you. Kids in the foster system, they generally tend to be...”
“...Losers? Damaged? I had the damage down before I even entered the system.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“You just can’t create any kind of stability when you don’t have a foundation. So we have to make our own, or we flounder. People need a foundation. They need something to come back to, something that’s constant, that’s always there. You know that they’ve done stress studies that suggest moving has as much stress as losing a loved one? I don’t know if that’s exactly true, but I’d believe it.” April sighed heavily. “Limbo isn’t an easy place for a person to exist.”
“You don’t think there are any decent foster parents out there?”
“Probably. I never met one, but I’ve also never met Steven Hawking, and presumably he’s out there, too.”
Samson quietly put his hand on her should, very gently. Then, after a few minutes, he said, “It is very difficult to exist in limbo.”
April gazed up at him questioningly, but he said nothing more as he rubbed her back just a bit.
When the door cracked open, Samson moved his hand back to his lap. Babette peeked in, scowling deeply. “Sir, your 2pm is here. You weren’t answering your phone.”
Samson reached into his pocket and looked at the phone. “Ah. Turned it on silent for the meeting this morning. Give me ten and then send him in.”
April rose. “I’ll get back to the team now.”
“You do that. Get them to work. I want to show you what it’s like to really travel.”
***
After getting a drink with Jessie after work, April found herself back at her apartment, staring at her closet full of clothes with a needy pug trying to climb on top of her.
“Go away, Damien.”
In reply, he just yipped and butted his head into her left breast.
“Ow! Stop. I love you, too.” April grabbed him, held him to her side, and ruffled his black fur. “I’m going on a trip. And official business trip. What do you think about that?”
Damien, unsurprisingly, had nothing to say, aside from a questioning, “Borf?” when she stopped petting him for a moment.
“I do like him. I want to go. He’s just so… Well, you know I’ve never been with anyone, and it’s more than a little nerve-wracking to spend time with him every day. Is this what it’s like when you really…?”
April sat up abruptly as she heard the floorboards creak. “Lana?”
“Yes!” There was a pause, and then, “Do you want pizza? I’m ordering from Pink’s!”
April scratched Damien’s back to quell his protests. “Sure!”
Lana swung her head into the room. “Yay! Oh, how was the meeting today?”
“Good. Your brother liked my designs. And he fired our supervisor.”
“Ha! Of course he did.” Lana sat on April’s bed and held her hand out for Damien to sniff. He hopped into her lap. “He has to make the over-the-top gestures. Announcing his big plans in the middle of family dinner, firing someone not before or after the big meeting, but during. He’s so dramatic.”
“He planned to fire the guy afterward, but Hutchinson was late and acting like a jerk.”
“Well then, drama justified, but I don’t withdraw my previous accusation.” Lana smiled slowly and started pulling back her long hair. “How’s it been with him? Are you getting along any better?”
“I think we are. The talk we had after the meeting was real
ly good.” April shrugged. “When I’m around him, I just, I don’t know. I feel like I’m about to jump out of my skin. Like he should be able to see my heart about to fly out of my chest, it’s beating so hard.”
Lana’s brows rose slowly. “Wait. Do you like him?”
“What are we, teenagers?”
“Oh, pardon me. I forgot we were adults. Do you want bang him?”
“He’s my boss, Lana!”
“That’s really not what I asked.” Lana swiveled around and lay on her stomach, resting her chin in her hand. “Tell me. You must. You owe me for years of telling you all the details about my relationships.”
“I never asked. And there’s nothing to tell. He flirts, I told him to stop, he’s more professional now, and we… talked. That’s all.” April paused and twisted her fingers. “Also, he wants me to come on a business trip with him.”
“Ohhhh!”
“No! No ‘ohhhh!’ It’s for business. He needs my eye on the designs—”
“And your thigh on his lap, and your ass in the air…”
“Cut it out! God, you two are exactly alike. Do you think I want to lose my virginity to my best friend?”
Lana rolled over onto her back dramatically. “Take me!”
April grabbed her pillow and smacked Lana in the face.
“Ow! That’s not sexy!” Lana complained.
“Neither is stupidity. I’m not going to go turn into the office slut.”
“What a nice sentiment that is,” Lana drawled. She snatched the pillow from April. “You’re allowed to look. I never understood why you’re such a monk.”
“Monks choose celibacy. Some, on the other hand, have celibacy thrust upon us.”
“That’s just silly. You’re cute. I’d date you if you weren’t my best friend.” Lana got up. “I’m going to order the pizza. You want mushrooms and black olives?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Then we can hang out with my Netflix.” Lana smirked as she left the room. “And we don’t have to talk about my brother anymore, but know that you could—”
“Lana,” April warned.
“If you needed to talk, you could talk. Not that you need to. But if you did.”
“I’m going to start throwing shoes.”
Lana breezed out of the room and April heaved a sigh. She really wanted to go on this trip. It wasn’t just travel anymore, either. She found that it was getting easier to spend time with Samson. She both wanted to be around him and avoided him. Possibly because his proximity sometimes made it harder to breathe.
Deny as she might, April knew what that meant. It wasn’t something she’d ever felt before. Not like this, not so intensely. It was hard not to be consumed by his presence, and even harder not to want to be consumed.
Chapter Six
“It’s ugly,” Samson said with disappointment.
“It isn’t!” April protested.
“I’m not sure how anyone could find something so lumpy and pointless attractive. Aside from being very big, which I’m sure is satisfying in its own way, I’m not sure what the point is.”
“You really don’t know anything about what’s satisfying, then.”
Samson looked up at the skyscraper once more. So far his trip with April was going well, if not wonderfully. It had been a kick to watch her see Chicago for the first time from high above. When they landed, he took her out to a nice restaurant, which she had enjoyed but not gushed over. She was nervous again, for some reason. He couldn’t figure out why she would stiffen up just as she seemed to get comfortable with him.
On their second day, he took her out for a tour of the city’s architecture, and she temporarily forgot her nerves. Samson bought coffees and pastries and took her on a walking breakfast through Millennium Park, watching her face light up at the curving metal beams above the pavilion and the “Cloud Gate.” Samson said looked like a giant silver jellybean. April laughed and told him that people did call it “The Bean” and that while it was beautiful, it just showed how important it was to think about how the public would perceive your work.
Now, as Samson perceived what he imagined might be the stupidest-looking building in Chicago, April looked up at the Aqua Tower with a bit of reverence. There was something about creative types like her, even pragmatic ones. They had something inside them that was ineffable, and it seemed to be moved whenever they interacted with other ineffables.
Samson rolled his eyes and waited. Their meetings wouldn’t officially begin until tomorrow, so the day was hers. Primarily so that she could see some of the architecture of the city first hand, but also because her story about her parents had impressed upon him how far someone could push themselves, even without the kind of basic support one ought to be able to count on.
“Okay,” April said patiently, “look how the plates curve there, and go flat there? And they circle the entire building?”
“It still doesn’t look like water to me.”
“It isn’t supposed to. It mimics the view of a rock formation.” Her hand moved back and forth, as her fingers traced the wave pattern of the tower. “See the outcroppings, then the shallows? And on the parts that stick out, residents have balconies. Plus, the design takes advantage of natural shading. They would never have built the balconies all around because people don’t have them next to every room anyway, but this way, the architects could merge an unusual aesthetic with functional design.”
Samson narrowed his eyes and then nodded his head slightly. “I suppose I see your point.”
“All right, we can go.”
“We don’t have to.”
“I can tell when someone is bored.” April patted his shoulder. “I promise that our designs will be both functional and pretty. Although I like this one, too.”
“You are merciful.”
Oddly, for all of his experience and time with women, he’d never simply spent the day with one. Not out of bed. Not without the agenda to get there. He took women to dinner, did some showing off, but Samson knew that April wouldn’t be very impressed by that kind of thing. He felt that he’d gotten to know her better during the weeks since Hutchinson got himself fired, and he truly came to enjoy the time they spent together—even just working in comfortable silence. April appreciated beautiful things, but eschewed waste. It was what made her a perfect designer.
They spent the afternoon looking at the major architectural hotspots: They rode up to the Skydeck of the Sears Tower, took in the folded glass front of the Spertus Institute, the “corncob” apartments of the Marina Towers. Normally, an architecture tour would not have been on Samson’s agenda for any city. He wouldn’t be there just to zip up and down tall buildings and stare at design choices that had been made decades ago. Taking the tour with April, though, made it entertaining. Not just because she enjoyed it, of course, but because he got to watch her get so excited; listen to her babble about the history of the city and the designers themselves.
“We can check out a few lesser-known spots sometime later in the week,” Samson suggested as they returned to the hotel.
“Oh, we don’t have to do that. I know that this is a business trip, and you need to focus.” April took a moment to look up at the structure of the Waldorf Astoria again. Samson could read little flickers of disappointment and appreciation as she deconstructed each piece carefully.
“I think I’ll do what I please with my down time.”
“I didn’t mean—” April frowned at him and raised a hand as though to swat him. “I know that. I just didn’t want to presume.”
“I’ll only offer what I can give you, April.” Samson stepped up to the door and held it for her before the doorman could grab it. “We will be in meetings for the most part. But don’t underestimate the social aspect of business. I’ll be meeting a few people for drinks later tonight. You’re welcome to join us for that, if you like.”
“I’m here to observe and um, consult, so whatever you need.” April walked into the lobby and her eyes we
nt wide. She tilted her head back to look up at the vaulted ceilings and around at the marble sculptures. “But I can’t join in.”
“What do you mean? You’ll come, but you won’t talk?”
“I can’t drink.”
Samson approached the concierge’s desk. “Why not? AA?”
“Underage. I’m twenty.”
Samson stared at her for a moment. He had known that from her resume, but he hadn’t really thought about what that meant. April was a year younger than his baby sister. But Lana had been taking a glass of wine at special occasions since she’d turned sixteen.
“I can order for you,” Samson said finally. “It won’t be a problem.”
April chewed on her lower lip and waited behind him. Did this make her feel insecure, being on such an important business trip so young? Samson smiled at the concierge and picked up their keycards and then turned back to her.
“Remember that I have you here because I need your expertise. Don’t let anyone make you feel as though you don’t belong. Including me.”
April’s lips parted, and she nodded quietly. “I’m the best at that, actually. Making me feel like I don’t belong.”
“Old habits die hard.” Samson touched her shoulder lightly and guided her to the elevator. “To be honest, I used to have that habit as well. You learn to assess your own value and have confidence in it. You know already what you’re good at and what you need to learn, and that’s a good start. When I was your age…”
Samson raked his hand back through his hair and thought back on what he’d been like fresh out of college. “Well, I’ll just say, at twenty, I was not as capable of telling stubborn old men that they were wrong.”
“It bodes well for me that you consider my flaring temper a positive trait.” April looked up at him as the elevator doors closed.
“Just aim your flares away from me, if you please. I’m still smarting from the last one.”
With a stab of pleasure, he watched her giggle.
***
Samson took dinner and coffee in his suite while reviewing some paperwork. He hadn’t seen Ethan Crumb and Johnny Jones for a few years, and if he were honest, it had been too long. Since he began leveraging his real estate holdings into a larger conglomerate, Samson hadn’t had the time to lounge around on holiday with them. Now they owned their own little series of shops in several major metropolitan areas in the UK that were in severe need of a branding upgrade.
