by C. Morgan
“Children shouldn’t have to suffer because their parents have no money,” he said firmly. “Little girls like Angelica shouldn’t go hungry when there are people with the means to feed them.”
I wanted to crawl across the table, take his face in my hands, and kiss him.
Instead, I reached over and took his hand in mine. Surely, he’d been thinking about our childhoods. I knew he’d been sent off to school countless times with no food for lunch. I also knew he’d given some of his food away to Lisa on the days where she showed up to school with nothing but a piece of bread and butter. That was who Lukas was back then. He’d always looked out for his little sister and taken the brunt of any suffering in her place.
I saw that boy in him now.
“There’s more,” Lukas said, giving my hand a squeeze.
“More?”
“I want to use the farm we visited today and others like it to supply the program at cost. I think it’s important, especially if we’re going to do this under the Good Fellow’s umbrella that all the profits stay within the community. We’ll support local businesses and get all our supplies and products locally. It might cost a little bit more but I’m willing to absorb that in order to do this thing the right way. No ordering from out of state or country. We build our foundation here.”
“That sounds incredible,” I said. “I’m so glad you’ve found a way you want to get involved in giving back. I expected you to enjoy yourself today but I didn’t quite anticipate this much of an impact. Thank you, Lukas. Seriously. You have no idea how many lives your involvement is going to change for the better.”
Lukas ran his thumb over my knuckles and smiled. “And I’m glad my sister is a stubborn woman and forced me to follow through and reconnect with you.”
I laughed. “She is stubborn. I’ll give her that. I think it’s in your blood.”
“Perhaps.”
My hand still rested in his. His thumb stilled upon my knuckles and I gently pulled back, drawing my hand back into my lap. Closeness like that was something we would have to be careful of, especially if we were going to work together going forward. We couldn’t risk another moment like the one in my office. It was unprofessional and bound to invite complications into our project. I, for one, could not afford complications. My hands were already full with all of the responsibilities on my shoulders and it seemed safe to assume that Lukas had his own problems to worry about.
Our waitress arrived to take our orders. Lukas ordered several dishes with names I would never even try to pronounce, and I ordered a cheeseburger and more water.
After the waitress left with the menus, I bit my bottom lip and looked at Lukas. “I’m not one for fancy restaurants.” I let the unspoken words hang between us. I hope you’re not embarrassed by me and my lack of class.
“Sometimes, the occasion calls for a burger.” He leaned forward with a glint in his dark blue eyes. “Do you remember that diner on the corner? Beside Lisa’s building? What was that place called?”
“Lenny’s Diner.”
“Lenny’s Diner,” he said, sitting back in his chair. He chuckled softly and ran his thumb along the edge of the table. He looked thoughtful as memories resurfaced in both our minds at the mention of Lenny’s name. “Is it still there?”
I shook my head. “No, he sold it about four years ago. It’s a coffee shop now.”
“A coffee shop? Doesn’t Seattle have enough of those?”
I giggled. “More than a city needs. That’s for sure. I’ve heard they have decent enough coffee, though. And pastries.”
Lukas nodded absently. He looked incredibly handsome in the dim, moody lighting of the restaurant. Half of his face was cast into shadow and so was his throat. His jawline looked sharper than ever and his dark blond hair almost looked brown. I could see the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow forming.
He rubbed his jaw. “Those pies you had delivered this afternoon reminded me of the ones your mother used to bring back from her bakery. They were good but not quite as good as the ones her bakery had. Perhaps that’s just the nostalgia talking.”
“No, you’re right. The pies she brought back were especially good. They had more cinnamon in them than the ones today.”
“Cinnamon, huh?” Lukas chuckled. “Well, it was the best thing we used to eat back in those days.”
I grinned. He wasn’t wrong about that. On the days that were worse than others, our food options were pretty grim. “You don’t miss the fried baloney or ketchup sandwiches?”
Lukas paled. “Don’t remind me of such things before our meals arrive.”
“Oh, come on. They weren’t that bad. Every now and then, I still get a craving for the former.”
“For fried baloney?” he asked incredulously.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Everything. Everything is wrong with that.”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you said it. Nostalgia tastes good.”
He shook his head. “It does not apply to everything. Did you know I don’t like potatoes because we used to eat so much of them? Three meals a day, day after day after day, of damn potatoes and wax beans. No, I can’t do it.”
It was my turn to smirk. “Peasant food is no longer good enough for you, Mr. Important?”
“Hey, it’s not like that and you know it.”
“I think maybe you’re a little spoiled now.”
He studied me before his impassive expression softened into a smile. “Maybe I am.”
“Maybe?” I laughed.
“No need to rub it in.”
I continued poking fun at him and enjoyed how he didn’t prickle or get gruff with me like he had when we first started discussing how we might work together. He was no longer the tough and standoffish businessman. Tonight, he was showing me the colors of his youth. He laughed easily, teased me back, and brought up pieces of our childhood I thought he might have forgotten.
For the first time, I felt close to him again.
There was a brief moment in time when I was quite young that things had felt just like this between us. Gender and attraction and chemistry hadn’t come into the mix yet because we were both too young to feel or understand such things, so we were just friends. We got along well, played together, joked together, and all around enjoyed each other’s company. But as time went on, things changed. He was a few years older than me, so looking back, it made sense that he tired of the same old routine with a girl the same age as his little sister. Where he wanted to buckle down and start making money, I still wanted to play and explore. I found the friendship I wanted and needed with Lisa, and Lukas found it with his computer.
The arrival of our food reminded me of how different my life and Lukas’ were. The waitress set down a large tray that nearly took up the entire surface of the table. It was overflowing with dishes of seafood, pasta, hors d’oeuvres, and other things I couldn’t visibly distinguish. Lukas began taking a little bit of everything and putting it on a small plate while I dipped a French fry in ketchup and popped it in my mouth.
He looked pointedly at my plate. “How are your potatoes?”
“Just call them fries like a normal person.”
“I can’t. Potatoes are potatoes to me.”
“Don’t ruin a good thing for me, okay? French fries are one of my favorite foods.”
“You need to get out more, Kayla.”
I threw a fry across the table at him. It hit him right in the chest and fell into his lap.
Lukas gave me a devilish smile. “Careful. This is an expensive suit.”
“There’s no way you’re going to wear that thing again. You trashed it at the farm.”
“Nothing a good dry clean can’t fix.”
Who was he bullshitting? I leaned forward, rested my forearms on the table, and arched an eyebrow. “So you’re telling me that you’d pay to get this dry cleaned, and then you would wear it to the office for work? Or to a function?”
He shifted in his seat. �
�Yes, why not?”
“All right, I believe you. Wear it for your next interview with Rebecca Mills.”
“I—” Lukas paused and looked away.
“You what?” I liked being the one doing the interrogating now. The tables had turned and I was in the driver’s seat and it was giving me a rush. Sure, I knew I was being a little childish. What was more, I knew this was a bad strategy to play into when he and I were supposed to be keeping things professional. All this teasing and flirting had the air between us snapping and popping with chemistry. Wishfully, I told myself I was the only one feeling it.
Realistically?
I knew that wasn’t the case based solely on the way he was looking at me. He looked at me like he was slowly unraveling my soul one strand of tangled Christmas lights at a time. And he was enjoying it.
Lukas sighed. “I think a wise man knows when to admit defeat. You’re right. I doubt I’ll ever wear the suit again.”
“You should donate it.”
He laughed. “I should’ve known you’d say that.”
“Get used to it, champ.”
His grin broadened. “It’s been a hell of a long time since someone called me champ.”
Over the rest of dinner, we teased each other about our childhood nicknames and all the silly things we did over the years. Lukas had been called champ by Lenny, the owner of the diner in Lisa’s apartment building. The first time I’d ever heard him referred to by that name, I’d adopted it and started calling him it, too. Lukas never seemed to mind. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it. The nickname was used with affection and warmth and I was using it the same way now.
Lukas resigned himself to the fact that he couldn’t fit another bite of food in his belly long after I’d already finished eating.
“Do you want to get out of here and go for a walk down by the Sound?” he asked. “It’s just a ten-minute drive from here.”
Every cell of logic in my body screamed at me to tell him no. Walking along the Sound at night was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
But the logical cells were soon overrun by the impulsive ones that screamed yes.
“That sounds nice,” I said.
He fished his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call my driver.”
Chapter 15
Lukas
Art pulled over amidst the evergreen trees of Discovery Park. On our left was the dark expanse of the Puget Sound. The moon overhead, nearly full, glowed on the surface of the water like a giant white orb. Stars glistened overhead and upon the dark mirrored water, winking as if greeting Kayla and me as we got out of the back seat of the Rover.
Kayla breathed in the crisp fall air and wrapped her arms around herself. She hadn’t brought a jacket, merely a thin knit cardigan, so I shrugged out of mine and draped it over her shoulders.
She thanked me with a smile and I noticed that the stars twinkled in her eyes, too.
Art told us he would wait for us there. He had a book with him on the passenger seat he was eager to read and I told him we’d only be forty-five minutes or so. We left him behind and found our way to the footpath along the Sound. About ten feet below, the water lapped at the edge of the rock wall upon which we walked. Had it been daytime, it would have been difficult to hear each other over the shrieking seagulls and ocean traffic sounds, but at night, it was pleasantly quiet. A hush fell over the Sound at this time as the city began tucking itself away to sleep.
Kayla hid a yawn behind one hand and gazed out at the water. Across the Sound, the lights of Bainbridge Island competed for attention with the starry night sky.
“I had a nice time tonight,” she said as she tucked her hands in the pockets of my suit jacket. “Thank you for dinner.”
“I’m glad you joined me. Eating dinner alone is never as enjoyable as sharing it with someone.”
“Do you eat alone often?”
“I do,” I admitted. “One of the demands of the job. But I enjoy my own company.”
“You always have.”
That was true. As a kid, I’d spend hours upon hours locked up in my room, working away on my computer. My mother never understood it. For a while there, I think it might have even scared her. She was always knocking on my door with a glass of lemonade, asking if I was going to go out and play with my friends that day. I’d remind her that I was thirteen and I didn’t need to go outside and play anymore. My imagination was being put to proper use with the computer.
Over the years, I became more of a recluse, and she became more concerned. Now as a grown man looking back, I could see why some of my behaviors were red flags to her. She worried that I was giving up the tail end of my childhood—which I had—in favor of something indulgent and antisocial. She never could have known then that those tireless hours in my room as a teenager would be what led me to this future.
Hell, she didn’t know now. Her dementia had stolen those truths from her years ago.
“What are you thinking about?” Kayla asked, bumping me gently with her hip.
“The past. I think I’ve thought about who I used to be more in the week since I reconnected with you than I have in years. A decade even.”
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Is that a good thing?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
A cloud passed in front of the sky and the Sound grew slightly darker. Kayla’s eyes still caught the starlight as she gazed up at me. “I think if we’d had more as children, we never would have ended up where we are now. I think maybe this is how things were supposed to be so that we could make means of our own to help others.”
I liked the way she looked at things. I’d never considered myself an optimist but that was certainly what Kayla was. She saw the good in people and things before she ever saw the bad. Whereas I proactively looked for the bad.
However, I never liked to think that things were how they were supposed to be. I didn’t believe in that. Things were the way they were. There was no because, no explanation, no logical or explainable reason for it. There couldn’t be. How could I find a reason that would appease my fury about my mother’s dementia?
I couldn’t because one such reason did not exist.
“What do you think?” Kayla asked. She stopped walking and turned to me. The moon peeked back out from behind the wisp of a cloud and she cocked her head to the side. “Do you think we would have turned out the same if we’d lived different childhoods? Grew up in nice houses on nice streets?”
I peered down the Sound. Up ahead, probably six or so miles, was my house.
“I don’t know,” I conceded. “Probably not. I doubt I’d have worked as hard if I came from something instead of nothing.”
Kayla reached out and took my hand. Her fingers were tiny in mine and cold. “You didn’t come from nothing, Lukas.”
Her breath vaporized in the air and she smiled at me. Really smiled at me.
Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled her in close. Kayla let out a startled little gasp, but I silenced it with a kiss. She trembled in my arms until I cupped the back of her neck and the small of her back and held her like she was mine.
After that, she let out a breathless sigh and draped her arms behind my neck.
The kiss deepened and a cool breeze blew off the water. Neither of us felt it, even though it blew her hair around our cheeks. She clung to me fiercely, and for a moment, I thought things might get a little out of control.
But she broke the kiss.
“Lukas,” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“We… we shouldn’t do this. I’ve missed you. I didn’t realize just how much I’ve missed you until today. But I can’t let that affect so much between us. We’ve been friends for so long, but after seeing each other again, it’s brought up some unexpected…”
Feelings? Urges? Desires?
“Chemistry,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “We’re both mature adults and we know this is inappropriate. Our jobs come first. And as a non-profit director, I have to be
unimpeachable.”
I swallowed the rush of need that had nearly consumed me moments before. “I understand.”
She bit her bottom lip and looked down at her feet. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re the one making the smart choices here.” I paused and raked my fingers through my hair. I didn’t know what I was doing. Why did I keep kissing this girl? Why did I keep trying to take something she couldn’t give me? “I’ll call Art and have him come pick you up and take you home. It’s late.”
“How are you going to get home?”
“I’ll walk to my office tower. It’s not too far from here.”
“That’s almost half an hour away. The clouds are coming in. It’s probably going to rain.”
“I like the rain,” I said as I lifted my phone to my ear. Art answered the call and I told him which cross streets in the park to meet us at. I hung up and forced myself to smile at Kayla. “Come on. I’ll walk you to him.”
Neither of us said a word for the rest of the walk. My mind raced with self-loathing thoughts. I never should have let my heart get ahead of my brain. Kayla had rejected me once before. Why had it seemed like a good idea to try to kiss her again?
The connection between us was something I could not ignore. I’d never felt this way about a woman before. It wasn’t like I hadn’t dated since my company went public, but those dates hadn’t felt like real dates at all. They’d been more like expedited hookups to fulfill my natural urges. If I was honest with myself, I knew I’d never had an interest in taking things any further with a woman because I figured all they wanted from me was my money.
But Kayla wasn’t like that, which only made me want her more.
She was the kindest person I knew. She would never use someone for their money, even though she of all people was in a position to use said money for good. She knew right from wrong and she would never cross that line.
Hence why she stopped the kiss when she did.
