Looking Real Good

by C. Morgan

  Her efforts might not have been to line her own pockets. I understood she was working to help others but it still made me feel like a chump for believing she might have real feelings for me. Feelings like I had for her.

  “You’re a fool,” I growled at myself as I slammed into first gear, checked my mirrors, and cut off an approaching taxi cab. He laid on his horn behind me and I wove around a couple of cars so I could leave the incessant wail of his horn behind me.

  I made it seven blocks before my car speakers rang through the blue tooth on my phone. Kayla’s name slid across the touchscreen display on the console. I sighed. It wasn’t what I needed right then. What was she calling for? To apologize?

  I considered letting her go to voicemail but decided against it. I was a grown-ass man. I could handle rejection without drawing into my shell.

  I answered the call. “Hey, sorry to run out on you like that.”

  “Lukas,” she said. It almost hurt how she said my name like a fluttering exhale. “I wish you hadn’t run off so quickly. I wanted to introduce you to the man who came up with the school lunch idea in the first place. Rodney is a really nice guy. A little pushy,” she added, “but nice. And Good Fellow’s wouldn’t be where it is today without his support.”

  Just what I wanted to hear, the girl of my dreams singing the praises of another guy who happened to be exactly the kind of person she probably deserved.

  “I’m working a shift with him this evening at the soup kitchen,” she continued. “How would you feel about joining me and seeing what it’s all about? You could meet some great people, like Rodney and the other volunteers and our community of people we help.”

  I made a thoughtful sound in the back of my throat. “I don’t know if tonight is good for me.”

  “Please? I’m telling you, you’ll enjoy it once you get past the ugly aprons and the hairnet.”

  I heard Rodney mutter somewhere close by that the aprons weren’t that ugly. And damn him, he made her laugh. Kayla’s bubbly laughter filled the line and she told him that yes, the aprons were in fact quite ugly, but there was no room in the budget to replace them.

  “Come on, Lukas,” she pleaded. “Just a couple of hours?”

  “Fine.”

  “Really?” she asked excitedly.

  “Really.”

  “Great! I’ll text you the address. Be there at six o’clock, okay? We’ll get you suited up and find a spot for you.”

  “See you there.” I hung up the phone. I didn’t have any interest in serving people their food. I preferred to be the guy who wrote the checks. That was what Kayla and Lisa wanted, wasn’t it? They wanted me to help. Well, logically, the best help was to pour money right into the ground-floor organizations that were making the biggest steps forward. It would certainly be more help than scooping box-mix pasta onto a stranger’s plate.

  However, spending a couple of hours at the soup kitchen would afford me the chance to scope out this Rodney character. Maybe some time with him would help me rule out whether or not he was competition.

  The soup kitchen wasn’t an impressive place at all from the outside. I parked the Lykan down the block and put money in a meter. Now I stood in front of the soup kitchen. To my right was a line up of people waiting to get their dinner. Some talked quietly amongst themselves. Some whispered back and forth conversations with no other participants, only the voices in their heads. Others fidgeted with strands of hair, their hats, or whatever they could lay their hands on.

  Not one of them made eye contact with me.

  Again, I regretted wearing a three-piece suit. I had to stop showing up dressed for my office when I was working with Kayla.

  You could take a page from Rodney’s book and wear khakis and polo shirts, I mused to myself as I stepped through the front doors and into the soup kitchen hall. The thought almost made me laugh. There was no way I’d be caught dead in what Rodney was wearing.

  I saw him before I saw Kayla.

  Rodney stood at the front of the line for food. His hair was matted flat beneath his hairnet and he grinned and shook hands with every person who came up to get their food. It was impossible not to notice the fact that he knew every single one of their names.

  Every. Single. One.

  I gritted my teeth and wished he would make it easier to hate his guts.

  I turned my attention to the people milling around the hall and settling in at the cafeteria-style tables to eat their meals. Dirty faces hovered inches above plates of food and forks shoveled corn and potatoes into open mouths. People didn’t talk while they ate.

  They were starving.

  My gut tightened uncomfortably at the memory of being a hungry child. I knew exactly how it felt to have a belly aching with hunger and a light head from a lack of nutrition. I knew what it was to be tired all the time, to have heavy limbs, and to feel like the world had turned its back on you.

  Because it had.

  Except for the people like Kayla who were in this very room doing what they could to make things better for these folks. There had been people like her in my life when I was young and my mother and I would sometimes have to spend several meals a week in a place like this to keep ourselves from wasting away. My mother had never been too proud to wait in line. She’d kept her chin up and told me there was nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes, you needed help, and if there were people holding out their hands willing to offer that, you smiled, thanked them, and accepted what they offered.

  You did not let yourself falter and grow weaker all for the sake of your ego.

  It had been a hard lesson to learn and accept. As I stood here feeling like an imposter, I wondered if the lesson had truly ever sunk in. Why did I feel so small? Hollow? And hungry for something that wasn’t food?

  “Lukas!”

  I turned at the sound of hurried footsteps. Kayla was there, grinning like she wanted to be in this place as she tucked loose strands of hair under her hairnet.

  When she reached me, she stretched out a hand and smoothed it across the lapel of my jacket. “I think you need to go shopping and buy some mundane clothes for when we’re working together.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “My suits are part of my identity.”

  She laughed and waved the comment off. “Oh please, that would be like saying my hairnet is part of my identity, and that’s just silly.”

  “I think it looks cute.”

  Her cheeks turned a pretty rosy hue and her cheek puckered as she chewed on it. “Thank you.”

  Rodney stepped up behind her and closed a hand on Kayla’s shoulder. He leaned forward and extended the other hand to me to shake. I shook it. His grip was warm and firm enough.

  “Nice to meet you, man,” Rodney said. “I’m Rodney. Kayla has told me lots about you. What you’re doing for the school lunch program?” He shook his head incredulously. “It’s the biggest donation we’ve ever received. I’m very grateful. I know a lot of parents who are going to be relieved when they hear the news.”

  Kayla beamed up at me. For a moment, I thought she looked almost proud.

  “Nice to meet you too,” I said to Rodney. What I really wanted to say was take your damn hand off Kayla’s shoulder. However, I suspected she wouldn’t like that too much.

  “The ripple effect will be huge,” Rodney said, letting his hand fall from Kayla’s shoulder. She looked up and over her shoulder at him as he spoke. “Hungry kids have a harder time in school. They can’t focus without proper nutrition, so their grades slip. This causes tension between teachers and parents and so forth, and the last thing these families need is more strain in their household. Having a full lunch every day will turn things around for a lot of these kids. I hope you realize just how life changing this will be for a lot of people.”

  I wanted Rodney to be an ass so I could justify my distaste for him, but every word out of his mouth was kind and educated.

  Prick.

  He gripped Kayla’s arms from behind and rubbed up and down as if we
were standing in negative degree weather and he was trying to warm her up. The soup kitchen was a comfortable temperature. All this unnecessary touching was, well, just plain unnecessary damn it. “Pretty cool, huh, Kayla? Of course, you were instrumental in making this happen. You guys make a good team.”

  She smiled at me. “I suppose we do.”

  My eyes narrowed at his hands sliding up and down her bare forearms. He stopped, stepped up beside her, and draped an arm around her shoulders. She looked down as he pulled her in close, the way a teenage boy might tug his girlfriend inward. It sent her a little off balance, and to steady herself, Kayla braced a hand on Rodney’s stomach.

  My temples ached and I realized how hard my jaw was clenched.

  Why did she keep this from me? It was obvious from where I was standing that there was something—whatever that something was—between her and Rodney. Otherwise, he’d never be so handsy with her or she’d have told him off. At least I thought she would. And she hadn’t.

  Kayla sensed the storm brewing. Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine. She took a step forward. “Lukas?”

  Rodney’s hand slipped from her shoulders when someone called his name from the swinging kitchen doors.

  I leaned in close to her. “It’s clear from where I’m standing that I’ve been manipulated by a pretty face. Well done, Kayla. You almost had me. But I’m done with this. You hear me? I’m done with it.”

  “Lukas.”

  Her words drowned in the voices of the crowd as I turned and pushed through throngs of people to get the hell out of the soup kitchen and away from Kayla and Rodney.

  How could I have been such a naive fool? How could I have believed this was anything other than her working her ass off to get the money she needed for her cause?

  I gritted my teeth as I broke outside onto the sidewalk.

  The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I thought as the anger brewed deep in my gut.

  Chapter 18

  Kayla

  Rodney stood beside me with his arms hanging slack at his sides as we stared after Lukas, who’d just vanished through the main doors of the soup kitchen.

  “What was that all about?” he asked.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “I have no idea. Hold on. I’d better go talk to him.”

  “Are you sure you want to talk to him by yourself?”

  “He’s angry,” I said with a shake of my head, “not dangerous.”

  Rodney pursed his lips. “I don’t like it. I should go with you. Just in case. You know, to be safe and—”

  “Rodney,” I said, stopping him from following after me with a hand pressed flat to his chest. “I appreciate the thought but it’s misplaced. Lukas is…” I trailed off. What was the word I was looking for? Temperamental? Moody? Complicated? “He’s just got some stuff in his past and it makes it hard for him to trust people. He and I go way back. It would be better if just I go.”

  Rodney looked for a moment like he wasn’t going to oblige, but eventually, his shoulders slumped a little and he nodded. “All right, go. I’ll hold down the fort here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. Go on. We can’t risk losing his donation.”

  The donation hadn’t even occurred to me. All I’d been thinking about was Lukas and what I’d done to make him so upset.

  You need to get your priorities straight, I chastised myself as I hurried around the rows of tables and burst outside onto the sidewalk. It was a crisp cool day and the sun had sunk down behind the high-rise buildings on the other side of the street, casting everything into cold shadow. I wrapped my arms around myself and looked both ways down the street in search of the tall blond-haired billionaire who made me crazy.

  And crazy for him.

  A car engine revved and I spun to a red light at the cross street. I spotted Lukas’ car just as the light turned green. His brake lights winked out as he hit the gas. The tires spun on the asphalt. Somebody nearby swore loudly out their window at him and Lukas peeled away, leaving the smell of burning rubber in his wake.

  Based on the direction he drove off in and the anger I’d seen in his eyes, I figured there was one place Lukas Holt would go right now.

  His office.

  I didn’t realize until I was on the bus that I still had my hairnet and apron on. More than a handful of people shot me amused glances as I turned bright pink and tore the apron and hairnet off. I tucked them both in my bag, which I left on the empty seat beside me. With a tired and worried sigh, I slumped low in the seat and stared out the window as we drove past office towers, retail boutiques, salons, and shoe stores. The area continued to get nicer until I got off at the stop closest to Lukas’ tower.

  I stood on the sidewalk with my head tilted back and gazed up at the massive building.

  This was such a different beast than what I was used to. My stomping grounds were low-income neighborhoods consisting of one-level homes with disheveled front yards, rotting fences, and collapsing front porches. Nothing was shiny and new. Nothing was taken care of how it should be. But this place?

  It was a palace.

  The building, all shiny reflective glass that looked dark and moody in the cloudy evening, shot up into the sky like a spear. The lobby was a massive sprawling thing with a giant crystal chandelier above the front desk and polished gray floors that were so shiny they looked permanently wet. Modern artwork hung on some of the walls, most in shades of gray and navy blue, and sleek furniture offered pockets of seating for employees in the building looking for a peaceful place to sit on their break.

  I knew Lukas only used the top floor for his office. All the other floors? Well, I’d never had it confirmed but I was fairly confident all the businesses in this tower rented their offices from Lukas.

  As I crossed the lobby and made for the elevators, I wondered what sort of staggering monthly income Lukas made from his renters alone. Undoubtedly, it was a great deal more than Good Fellow’s saw in an entire year of annual income.

  The elevator delivered me to the top floor, where I stepped off and set foot on a white marble floor shining under the ceiling lighting above. I strode across the lobby of Lukas’ office to the reception desk, where his receptionist was typing furiously at her keyboard. She glanced up at me, smiled, and asked me to give her just a minute.

  As I waited, I peered around what I could see of the office.

  I’d spent time in this waiting room already when I came for my first meeting with Lukas and Lisa. It was a pleasant space but it didn’t feel all that cozy. I supposed Good Fellow’s was far from cozy, but the haphazard layout, colorful post-it notes all over the place, and the tea-brewing station made it feel a little homier to me. This place felt cold, almost sterile.

  It needs plants, I thought decisively. The green would be a nice pop of color against the white floors and the cool gray walls. Some pots in jewel tones would really add life to the space.

  I gave my head a shake.

  Why was I internally decorating Lukas’ lobby?

  I heard high-heeled footsteps approaching and turned to find Lisa coming around the corner. She had a black leatherbound planner in one hand and she turned to the receptionist and peered at the screen, after which she scribbled something in the planner, tucked it under her arm, and turned to head back down the hall.

  “Lisa?”

  She turned to me, looking like she was all business, but as soon as she laid eyes on me, she smiled. “Kayla, what are you doing here?”

  I met her with a hug and pulled away. “I came to find Lukas. Is he here?”

  My best friend shook her head. “He’s been gone for hours. I thought he came to see you. Did he not drop by Good Fellow’s?”

  “No, he did. It’s just…” I trailed off.

  “Just what?”

  I sighed. “Your brother is a very complicated person to work with, Lisa.”

  At first, she was expressionless. Her facade shattered and Lisa threw her head back and la
ughed. “That’s quite a diplomatic way of saying he’s an ass.”

  The receptionist giggled and hid her mouth behind one hand after shooting an apologetic look at Lisa.

  Lisa nodded down the hall. “Come sit with me in my office. I have time before I have a conference call.”

  “Isn’t it a little late for calls?” I asked as I followed her to her office.

  “When you’re trying to communicate with people in other countries, sometimes you have to be flexible.” Lisa opened the door to her office and let me enter first. She closed the door behind us and walked over to a set of white leather sofas by the windows. She gestured for me to sit. “Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Soda? Vodka? Pick your poison.”

  “No thank you. I don’t think I can stay long.”

  Lisa moved to a cabinet built into the wall behind her desk, where she opened some cupboards and went about pouring herself a rye and ginger. One of the lower cabinets was actually a fridge and freezer, and once she had her ice cubes in the glass and her drink poured, she joined me on the sofas.

  “Your office is beautiful,” I told her.

  She looked around, admiring her workspace. “It’s easy to create a beautiful room when your brother is fronting the design bill.”

  “Sneaky.”

  She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “So tell me what he’s done now.”

  I licked my lips. “He hasn’t really done anything, per se.”

  “Don’t play coy, Kayla. Just spit it out. Did he back out of the donation? Did he cut the funding in half?”

  “What? No, nothing like that. We had a misunderstanding is all—about the lunch program,” I added hastily. The last thing I needed was for Lisa to get suspicious of me and Lukas.

  Lisa rolled her eyes and slumped against the back of the sofa. “My brother has been a tad touchy lately, hasn’t he?”

  I shrugged. How was I supposed to know if he was being more touchy than usual? Up until last week, I hadn’t seen him in years. Now he was all I could think about and all I could see when I closed my eyes.