Tackled by Lisa Suzanne
CHAPTER 12
We golfed after lunch, where Jack showed me the right way to hit the ball as he aligned his body with mine as a sweet old lady Jack seemed to know from the pro shop watched JJ. He wore a sky blue polo shirt with really ugly golf pants after I told him I’d pay to see him in plaid pants.
He still made those slightly snug, bright blue ugly pants look hot.
It felt like a date even though it was just an athlete’s way to have a quiet afternoon outdoors. I learned that he used to play with his dad and the golf course was one of the places where they loved to bond.
The whole trip seemed to bring us closer in different ways, but I’m not really here to be close with him. Still, though, I want to be.
JJ slept through the night, and we left early this morning to arrive back in Las Vegas early on a Friday afternoon.
I’m afraid to rock the boat with Calvin after the last warning he issued, but I combed through my contract and nowhere in it does it say I can’t take on another job. Seeing as how I can’t exactly leave Jack’s place, though, Ellie has agreed to have a Zoom chat with me for the part time assistant gig.
I get myself set up in the kitchen since Jack is in his office, and I click on our call. Ellie appears on the screen, and she looks a little frazzled.
“Hey, Kate.” She’s rocking back and forth in her desk chair, and she lifts the baby to show me why. He’s quiet but wide awake. “He cries every time I lay him down.”
“Aww,” I say. “One of the kids I nannied for was like that. He’d cry every time his mama set him down. The web will say separation anxiety doesn’t happen until four months at the very earliest, but Miles was like that from birth.”
“Him too! He’s only ten days old. So what did you do?”
“His mother had to get to work, and that’s why I was there. So even though she had tremendous guilt, she’d hand him over to me. Eventually he’d chill out, but he was definitely a mama’s boy.”
“So’s this one.” She looks down at him with a smile. “Do you mind if he listens in on our chat?”
“Not at all, Ellie, and if it’s easier, we can totally reschedule.”
She shakes her head. “I need help and I need it now.”
“What sort of help are you looking for?” I ask.
“I talked it over with Luke, and we came up with a list of things an assistant would be able to handle from a distance. I wrote it all up...hold on.” She feels around on her desk and I see the aha! moment when she locates the sheet of paper she was looking for.
She holds it up in victory before she starts to read from it, occasionally glancing up at me as she lists different responsibilities to gauge my reaction. “We have things like helping with brainstorming and planning sessions, assisting with events, managing calendars, emails, and media lists, researching, drafting newsletters, editing and proofreading press releases and presentations, and assisting in tracking metrics. Maybe some charity planning but only pending each client’s needs. Among other sort of general administrative duties that I’m sure will come up as we figure it out. And, of course, parenting advice since I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.”
I laugh. “No parent ever does,” I say. “And I certainly don’t have any of those answers since I’m not a parent, but I do have some experience with babies and I’d be happy to help where I can.”
“Does that mean you’ll take the assistant position?” she asks.
“We haven’t even really interviewed,” I point out. “Are you offering it?”
“Yup. We talked at dinner the other night. I saw the way you handle Jack, and that was pretty much all I needed to know. I need help stat, so if you want this position, it’s yours. I’m looking at a max of twenty hours a week and I’ll pay you thirty dollars an hour.”
That seems pretty generous to me, so I skip past negotiations. “Where do I sign?”
“I’ll email over the contract in the next hour,” she says, and Nolan starts getting a little fussier. “It’s got that Docusign thing, so you sign and send it back. I’ll get in touch with our lawyer and figure out how the whole payroll thing works, and then we’ll start when you get back from Denver. Does that work?”
“That sounds perfect,” I say.
Nolan starts crying. “I better go. I’m excited to have you on board.”
“So am I,” I gush, and then she smiles and waves before she ends the call. Somehow I feel like I just got a whole lot more than a new part time job to fill the hours.
I’m doing a little research on public relations companies since I don’t really know anything about them when my phone starts to ring. I smile when I see who’s calling.
“How’s the bride?” I answer.
“Frantic,” Shannon practically yells into the phone. “Everything that can go wrong has!”
“What can I do?” I ask, immediately going into helper mode.
“My dad has some stomach bug, my mom is terrified she’s going to get it, my sister was at a work thing out of town and her flight was delayed so she’s not back yet, and Kevin’s cousin who’s supposed to be doing a reading broke his clavicle and won’t be able to attend. And the worst part? Kevin’s ex-girlfriend called him and told him not to marry me.” She’s wailing by the end of her rant.
“How do you break a clavicle?” I wonder aloud.
“Focus, Kathryn.”
“Okay, well first, fuck the ex. He asked you to marry him, not her. She shouldn’t even be a blip on your radar. The other things are issues you can’t control. Hopefully your dad’s thing is a twenty-four hour bug and he’ll be up and running by morning. Tell your mom to stay far away, and when is your sister supposed to get in?”
“She was supposed to be here an hour ago, but she isn’t going to make the rehearsal now.” Shannon’s crying and hysterical.
“I’ll stand in for her and I’ll tell her what to do. She’s been to weddings before. It’ll be fine.” I keep my tone calm and soothing.
“What about the reading with the cousin?” she asks.
I can think of only one solution that will appease everyone. I haven’t exactly asked him yet, but I volunteer him anyway since Kevin is a huge fan and Shannon fell in love at her bachelorette party. “You think Kev would want a football megastar to do it instead of his cousin?”
“Oh my God, are you serious? He would fucking keel over and just die.”
“In a good way, though, right?”
She laughs, and at least I got the hysterical crying to stop. “In the best way.”
“I will see what I can do. But if he says no, you may be stuck with me reading it.”
“That’s fine. I love you, Kate,” she says, and now she’s crying again. “Thank you for taking care of everything.”
“Anything for my bestie. I’ll see you soon.” I hang up and wander in the direction of Jack’s office. The door is closed, but I can hear his muffled voice through it...and he doesn’t sound happy.
“What a goddamn shit show. Keep me updated.” I hear something slam down, and I have a feeling it’s his fist.
I knock gingerly on the door. This probably isn’t the best time to ask.
“What?” he yells.
I open the door. “Everything okay?”
He shakes his head and I’m pretty sure there’s actual steam coming out of his ears. His face is a little red and I’ve never seen him look so angry. I remember when I first started working with him, I thought this guy never lost his cool...but it appears he has lost it. “No, it’s not. My fucking money is tied up in desert legal battles because one of my employees didn’t do his due diligence and I’m paying the price.” He slams his hand down on his desk. “Fuck!”
“What happened?” I ask.
He turns around and tips a bottle of gin on the credenza behind him over a small glass.
He tips back the glass and downs it all in one gulp. “Nothing,” he mutters.
I sigh in frustration. “You know it’s okay to talk to me, right? I’m not going to run back to Calvin. I’m not going to blab to the press. In case you haven’t realized it yet, I’m on your side, Jack.”
He stares at me for a long beat as if he’s debating the truth behind my words, and then he turns around and pours himself another glass. I bite my tongue even though I really want to remind him we’re heading to my best friend’s rehearsal dinner in a few hours and chugging gin probably isn’t his smartest move.
“Nobody’s ever on my side unless they need something from me,” he finally says thickly, and this definitely isn’t the time to ask him for a favor.
“I’m not like the others,” I say quietly.
He levels his gaze at me. “I made a bad investment. You’d think the son of an investment banker would make smarter business decisions, but I’m less risk-averse than he was.”
My brows knit together in confusion. “I thought your dad coached football.”
“He did. He quit his job in banking to coach.”
“So you took a risk and it didn’t pay off?” I ask.
“I take risks every day, and ninety-nine percent of the time, they pay off. But this damn one percent is the one that really hurts.”
I stare at him as a sense of déjà vu falls over me. It’s like he can read my mind, and that’s really terrifying.
For just a beat I wonder if there’s some bigger reason I’m here. We met months ago. We had a fun night. We ran into each other again at Dunkin’. Now I’m working with him.
And he has the same deep-rooted thoughts I do about taking risks.
We’ve crossed paths too many times for this to just be coincidental, but he’s engaged and I’m...well, I’m me. I’m unlucky in love and not in the market when I have too many other things to focus on.
“What did you mean when you said your money is tied up in desert legal battles?” I ask.
He clears his throat and steeples his fingers in front of his mouth. “This was supposed to be a homerun. I got a great tip on a huge plot of land, and my team planned a luxury resort minutes from the famed Las Vegas Strip. I had my team speed up the process because I didn’t want someone to snatch that land from under me. I bought the land and we tested the shallow soil, and everything came back fine. I knew it was a risk, but historical data told me it would be fine. We started construction, and that’s when we ran into issues.” He shakes his head and presses his lips together as if he’s trying to hold back his emotions.
“What happened?” I murmur.
He sits back in his chair. “The short story is that the top layer of soil is fine, but when they dug down, they found contamination. And now I’m liable for it since my name is on the deed.”
“So what does that mean?”
He leans forward. “It means my fucking money is tied up in desert legal battles. My team decided to sue the dipshits we bought from for negligence. I was in season when it happened, and Colin makes decisions for me when I’m not around. And this is exactly why I don’t give up control. Ever. Because when I do, inevitably someone fucks something up.”
“What would you have done differently?” I ask.
He shakes his head like the answer’s obvious. “I wouldn’t have sued. Maybe they knew, and maybe they didn’t. But it doesn’t matter, and retaliation is fucking dumb. It’s my responsibility now, and I would’ve dealt with the issue and cleaned it up so we could move forward with our project.”
It’s those words that make something in my chest twitch just a little.
He would’ve cleaned it up and moved forward. He wouldn’t have retaliated. Something about the way he handles his business is showing me some insight into who he is as a man.
He’s engaged to a woman he doesn’t seem to even care about because he thinks it’s the right thing to do for his son.
He’s a good man trying to do the right things in the way he knows how...and I’m definitely starting to invest more than just professional feelings into him.
