by Celya Bowers
“Then I wouldn’t have money for clothes,” she reasoned. “Well, the ones that I like, anyway.”
Madisyn nodded. “I understand.” She really didn’t, but she couldn’t think of anything constructive to say and left it at that. “I like those shoes.”
Keisha smiled and sat beside Madisyn, crossing her slim legs. “I got these at the Galleria last night,” she said proudly. “Cost almost a week’s salary.”
“Is she still talking about those God-awful hooker shoes?” Chayla Hughes asked, sitting on the other side of Madisyn. Chayla was dressed as casually as Madisyn in baggy shorts and loose-fitting blouse. “She called me the second she bought them. She didn’t call you, Maddie, ’cause she knew you were at that charity thing. How did it go?”
“Pretty good. It looks like it’s going to be challenging.”
Keisha joined in the conversation. “Were many football players there?”
Madisyn opened her mouth, but instantly remembered Aidan’s warning. “A few, but the married ones. Sorry, Keisha.”
Keisha shrugged. “I bet that fine Aidan Coles was there.”
Madisyn couldn’t deny that, since it was his pet project. “Yes, but he didn’t stay very long. Probably about thirty or forty-five minutes.” It was just a little lie, she told herself.
Chayla congratulated her. “You’re going to love charity work. It always makes me feel so much better giving something back to the community, unlike Ms. Designer over there.”
“Hey, just because I can buy top of line, don’t hate,” Keisha shot back at Chayla.
Chayla let Keisha’s remark slide off and merely smiled. “Hey, I’m not hatin’ on you. Everybody makes choices.”
Keisha nodded. “Hey, you’re the one who’s been married since you graduated high school.”
Chayla nodded. “We were twenty,” Chayla corrected her. “I don’t regret that choice at all. I’ve been happily married for fifteen years. My husband is my best friend and I have three wonderful children.”
“Oh, Chayla, you’re just a romantic. You and Jared fell in love the minute you guys laid eyes on each other in the fifth grade on the monkey bars,” Keisha grumbled.
Chayla giggled. “Yeah, he’s the only man for me.”
Madisyn sighed. “I’d like that. For some man to sweep me off my feet. Mind you, he’d have to be a big man to pick me up.”
Chayla playfully slapped Madisyn’s hand. “You just stop that, Maddie. You’re just right. Everyone wasn’t made to be skinny. I’m not skinny, never have been. Besides, you want a man that loves you for what’s inside as well as what’s outside.”
“True,” Madisyn said. “You’re right. No more playas, saying and doing all the right things, then making me the fool.”
“That’s my girl.” Chayla rose from her chair, straightening her shorts. “Now let’s go get pampered.”
CHAPTER 3
Saturday afternoon Aidan walked through his home wondering what he’d just gotten himself into. Well, actually he knew what he’d done. For once, he’d followed his instincts and was glad he had. He had been instantly attracted to Madisyn and he’d acted on it.
No more dating the wrong women, women who were just looking for a meal ticket and had a brain the size of a peanut. He wanted a woman who wanted Aidan Coles the man, not the professional football player with the seven-digit income. He wanted a woman he could have a conversation with.
He stood in the center of his newly remodeled oversized kitchen. He’d been serious about the gourmet cooking class when he had the room redesigned with all the newest gadgets, including dual wall ovens, top-of-the-line cooktop range with an indoor grill. His kitchen could rival that of any celebrity chef’s. And at the moment, none of that mattered. He had to get his kitchen ready for cooking lessons, and quickly. He called his sounding board for just about everything in his life.
“Hey, Mom, I got a problem.”
“What else is new?” Anna Coles said in her soft voice. “You’re not trying to cook again, are you? Or does this have to do with a woman?”
“The latter.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I kind of told her I would like to learn to cook gourmet food. She volunteered to teach me.”
“Well, a woman who can cook. I’m impressed. Usually those girls you date have no idea of what to do in a kitchen but press the start button on the microwave.”
He patiently listened to his mother’s usual rant about today’s women. He’d heard this lecture many times in his adult life. He waited for his opening and took it. “Mom, I don’t have any cookware,” he admitted. “What should I do?”
She laughed. “The last time I visited you, we ate all our meals out. I told you to buy some pots and pans then. You’re going to need some quality cookware, utensils, towels, and lots of groceries.”
That meant he had to go shopping in a mall. With people. That was a disaster waiting to happen. “No, Mom. I hate to shop.” He took a deep breath. “I was hoping maybe you could fly down for a couple of days and go shopping for me.”
“I knew there was a real reason for this call,” she said. “What am I supposed to do with your father?”
“He’s not my father,” Aidan said shortly. “He’s the man you left my father for.”
“Don’t start.”
“He’s your second husband. He just adopted us.”
“You don’t know the whole picture and I refuse to wake up those horrible memories today. Whether you realize it or not, Lester saved us. I’ve been married to him for over twenty years and I had hoped one day you’d come to accept him.”
“I do accept him, Mom. He makes you happy and treats you like a queen, but he’s not my father.” Aidan liked his stepfather, but in his little boy heart, he could never take the place of his father. Not now. Not ever.
“One day, you’ll understand.”
Today he didn’t, so Aidan switched topics. “So can you come for a few days?”
“Let me check with Lester and I’ll call you back,” she said. “In the meantime, go on that fancy home computer you own to one of those gourmet web sites and take a look at what you’re going to need.”
“Okay, Mom. I love you.”
“You’d better. Bye, baby.”
Aidan placed the cordless phone on the counter and did just as his mother had suggested. He surfed the Internet to find out where to buy quality pots and pans. Never in a million years would he have imagined there would be so many choices. Seemed every chef and short-order cook with a television show had their own line of cookware. It was a little intimidating. He was going to need a miracle to get his sparsely equipped kitchen ready for his first cooking lesson in a week.
The phone rang an hour after he realized how much trouble he was actually in. He hoped it was his mother and he was right. “Hello.”
“Hey, baby, it’s Mommy.”
“Mom, remember I’m thirty-three and I play professional football. I can’t call you Mommy.”
“One day,” she promised, “you’re going to break out of all these perfect little boxes you’ve placed in your life. Everything has to be so-so with you. Even those little stick figures you date have to look a certain way. You need a woman with substance.”
“I think I’ve found her. She loves sports and not just football.”
“Does this one eat?”
He thought of Madisyn’s hearty appetite. Most women ate very little in his presence, always claiming they weren’t hungry or they had had a large lunch. Not Madisyn. The previous evening, she’d torn into that steak as if it were her last supper. “Oh, yeah. She’s the one that’s going to give me gourmet-cooking lessons. There’s just one thing.”
“What?”
“I don’t know if she thinks of me in those terms. At least not yet.”
His mother laughed. “You mean this woman is not impressed with Aidan Coles, star multimillionaire football player?”
“No, she’s not. In fact, that’s what I
like about her. She’s excited about volunteering with Mature Alliance and that’s what sealed the deal for me. You know how long I’ve been trying to get that started.”
“Yes, I do, and I’m proud that you’ll get to see it happen. Lester just booked my flight. I’ll be in Dallas on Monday afternoon. Don’t bother picking me up. I’ll rent a car and drive to that thing you call a home.”
Aidan snickered. He loved his mother with all his heart, but that woman hated change like you wouldn’t believe. She’d hated every house he’d lived in. She always complained they were too big. “Mom, it only has fourteen rooms,” he patiently explained to his hardheaded mother. “I plan to retire here after this season. I need space for when you and Lester visit.”
“And that’s why you need five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a den, a movie theatre room, an office, a game room, and I won’t even talk about that kitchen.”
“Okay, Mom. You got me. It’s big. But I got a really good deal on it three years ago.”
“What that place needs is lots of babies running through it.”
Aidan rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Here we go. “That’s why I have nieces and nephews.”
“Ha ha. You’re breaking your poor mother’s heart.”
“Is that the grandmother’s violin I hear?”
“I’m not going to dignify that with a reply. You just better be ready to spend some money when I get there.”
He was ready for that. “I’ll need groceries, too.”
“I didn’t just meet you, you know. You never have food! We had to go to the store for water. See you Monday.”
* * *
That evening, Madisyn peered across the table at her date. He was very distinguished with his short salt and pepper hair. He was dressed casually in a short-sleeved polo shirt and slacks. Unfortunately, he was attracting the attention of most of the women in the Olive Garden Italian restaurant. She had to protect her mother’s interest.
“Daddy, what are you doing to all these women?”
Ben O’Riley laughed as he sipped his imported beer from a pilsner. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, baby girl. Next to your mother, I’m sitting with the prettiest woman in the whole state of Texas. Maybe that’s who they’re staring at.” He took another sip. “That was good.”
“How about another one?” Madisyn signaled the waiter for another round of drinks.
“How about you?” Ben looked at his daughter. “You haven’t touched your glass of wine. You’re wasting my retirement money.” Her father had retired five years ago after being a head high school football coach for thirty years.
Madisyn laughed and took a sip. “Okay, I don’t want your part of the teacher’s retirement fund to go to waste.”
He opened his menu, then glanced around the room. His gaze rested on something directly behind Madisyn. “You know, maybe we should go to another place. It’s so smoky in here.”
Something was up. Dallas had recently passed a no-smoking ordinance in all restaurants, causing quite a stir in the community. Smoke was not the reason her father wanted to leave his favorite restaurant. She glanced around the room and saw her father’s sudden need to leave. Darnell. And he had the nerve to be on a date! The slender woman had her back to Madisyn, but Darnell lifted his wine glass to Madisyn in salute, mocking her. “It’s okay, Daddy. I know he’s not good enough to spit on. I’m over him, really. I ended it, remember?”
Her father’s brown eyes searched hers for the truth. “It took you long enough to realize what a waste of space he was. A man should add to your self worth, not take away from it. I can still give him a piece of my mind, if you want.”
“That’s quite all right, Daddy.” The last thing she wanted was to give Darnell any reason to approach her or her father. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. It feels like a burden has been lifted from my shoulders.”
The waiter appeared with the drink order. Madisyn and her father placed their dinner orders and the waiter departed.
Her father stared daggers at Darnell and his date. “I could go to the truck and get my gun.”
“Daddy, no,” Madisyn pleaded. “He’s not worth a bullet and besides, it’s against the law.”
“I didn’t say I’d do it. Bob knows a guy, who knows a guy, and he’s kind of on call for that sort of thing.”
Madisyn shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re even entertaining that idea. Darnell showed up at work a few days ago, with candy and flowers, begging forgiveness. My boss tossed him out.”
“Good for him.”
Madisyn didn’t know how good it was for her new boss to kick her ex-lover out on his butt. Darnell didn’t take humiliation well. There would be payback, she knew. And she would be the one doing the paying.
“Was it that nice Mr. Broadus? I really like him.”
“No, it was my new boss. Josh got a promotion and was replaced by Damon Bridges. You should have seen him, Daddy. I’ve never seen a man react like that, and so quickly. You’d think Darnell was dating one of his daughters or something.”
Her father chuckled, reaching for his beer. “I think it’s the ‘or something.’ ”
Madisyn gasped in disbelief. “Daddy!”
“What? I think you’re beautiful.”
“You have to say that because I’m your spinster daughter,” she joked.
Ben shook his head. “No, I don’t. You’re beautiful. Not every man wants to lie in bed next to a stick.”
“Daddy!”
“Why do you keep saying that?” He took a drink of his beer and set the glass down with a thud. “You’re the spitting image of your mama, pretty eyes and all. So don’t you worry about that piece of trash sitting over there.” He nodded at Darnell. “He didn’t deserve you anyway.”
“Thank you, Daddy. I’m looking for the man who does deserve me.” Madisyn lifted her glass to her lips. “I’m sure he’s out there somewhere.”
“He’s probably in the last place you’ll look.”
* * *
By Monday morning, Madisyn was beginning to think her father didn’t know beans about finding a man. The last place she’d look. What was that about?
Her new boss strolled into the office with his briefcase in his hand an hour early. It was barely eight and this man was already at work. “Good morning, Mr. Bridges.” She pasted a plastic smile on her face.
He nodded as he walked by her desk and entered his office and closed the door, effectively putting up a barrier between them. Madisyn shook off the bad beginning and proceeded with assembling his daily schedule. Thank heavens he had meetings all day. She entered the information into the computer and emailed it to him.
Keisha walked to Madisyn’s desk and sat on the edge of it. “Girl, when does that handsome boss of yours come in?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
Keisha’s perfectly made-up face wrinkled in a sexy pout. “You mean he’s already here? No one in management gets here this early. Is he crazy?”
“Keep your voice down or he’s going to hear you. Josh used to come in early all the time.”
“That’s because Josh was different. He was a dedicated and loyal employee. So many bosses just come in and go through the motions, but Josh was totally into his job.”
“Well, I hope I can live up to Josh’s reputation,” Mr. Bridges said as he walked up to Madisyn’s desk. “Is this your usual position, sitting on Ms. O’Riley’s desk? I’m sure your boss would like to know he or she doesn’t have to watch you every minute, Ms.…?”
“Allen,” Keisha supplied eagerly, mistaking annoyance for attraction.
He shrugged. “Ms. Allen, in this department we do our work, not visit with our friends hoping for some office gossip. So if you could leave Ms. O’Riley to her work, it would be greatly appreciated.” He turned and returned to his office, closing the door again.
Keisha took her admonishing like a good Southern girl. She slid off the desk, straightened her too-short dress and prete
nded to fix her already perfect hair. “Did he say his first name was asshole? See you at lunch. That is, if the master is going to let you off the plantation.” She grimaced and walked down the hall to her department.
Madisyn chuckled to herself. Seldom did anyone get a barb in on Keisha, but Mr. Bridges had done it quite effectively. Her intercom buzzed, signaling an end to her joyful moment. Her boss wanted to see her.
She rose, walked to the door and knocked. After she heard him grumble something that sounded like ‘Come in,’ she entered. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Bridges?”
He motioned for her to take a seat. After she was comfortable, he began. “Ms. O’Riley, I believe your work hours are eight to five. Normally, I don’t arrive at work until nine. In the future, I don’t want a repeat of this morning. If your co-workers can’t respect your work responsibilities then I suggest you change your acquaintances.”
Madisyn tempered her anger until it was a slight simmer. “Yes, Mr. Bridges. It won’t happen again.” She rose and cleared her throat. “Will that be all?” You pompous bastard.
“No, that will not be all,” he said. “Sit down. You make me nervous standing up like that. I have some questions about the email you sent me. Do I really have this many meetings?”
She laughed at his tone of disbelief. “Yes, actually that’s a pretty light schedule. The board of directors’ meeting was cancelled due to two of the members being out on vacation.”
He shook his head. “How did Josh do all this and his job, too?”
Madisyn couldn’t keep the pride out of her voice. “He was one in a million. I’m sure once you get your footing you’ll do just fine.”
He looked at the printout. “I wish I was as sure as you are.” Brown eyes searched Madisyn’s face. “Ms. O’Riley, I’m not the asshole you and your friend think I am. This is a place of business and I’m in a new position. With only a handful of African-Americans in executive management positions, we can’t afford to be caught in a questionable situation. Your friend lounging on your desk like that looks bad for everyone.”
“I appreciate your candor, Mr. Bridges, and as I said before, it will not happen again.”
