“Sweetheart, I’ll call you later.” He kisses her on the same cheek that Dan just kissed her on. Why the fuck is everyone kissing her, and why the fuck am I so irritated that it bothers me?
Just Karrie and I are standing in the middle of the room. “You’re the boss’s daughter?” I finally get some words to come out.
“Yes,” she says, turning around to walk away from me, but I grab her arm, and it’s too much. Her tiny arm in my big hand almost feels like it sears me. She looks down at where I’m touching her, her eyes never coming up to meet mine. “I want to get home.” She shrugs my hand off and walks ahead of me. “We can take an Uber back to the hotel and pick up our stuff and then we can get home. Finally.”
I follow her out of the conference room where she goes to the reception desk, grabbing a black matching jacket and her big black purse. “Thanks, Alice.” She smiles and then walks to the elevator, and I have no choice but to follow her. The only thing I can wish for is that I don’t end up fucking this whole thing up.
The minute we leave the conference room I’m already taking my phone out to text Cooper.
We have a problem. My chaperone cannot be served alcohol in a bar. Can we have it changed? To a man? Who is older? With saggy balls?
I press send and then put the phone in my pocket while I follow Karrie all the way outside to a car and ride over to the hotel.
We are both looking out our respective window when her soft voice fills the car. “This wasn’t an ideal situation for me either.”
I turn to her, which is a mistake because I want to yank her over to me and kiss her. I want to make her squirm on my lap, but most of all I want to see what she looks like when she smiles. I don’t have a chance to say anything because we are already back at the hotel where she has already exited the car.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, so I pull it out and see that it’s from my mother.
He’s on the ice with the twins.
I smile while I reply because I know my sisters.
The twins hate skating!!!
I know, but this is a punishment. It seems the bus driver was talking smack about Cooper and him retiring too young.
And? Why are they punished?
They got kicked off the bus indefinitely because they called him a pencil dick moron. Then Zara gave him the finger.
I start laughing out loud when I bump into Karrie again for not looking where I’m going.
“If you’re finished sexting, we can meet outside in ten. I’m already packed.” Her voice comes out curt.
“Jealous that I’m not sexting you?” I ask her and then smile while she glares. “Besides, I wouldn’t sext my mother. Ever.”
“Whatever,” she says, getting out of the elevator. “Ten minutes.” Then she slams the door, making me growl.
An hour later, we’re sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic while we weave our way from mid-town to Brooklyn. We finally make it to the front of the brownstone. All the houses are lined up on the street, all attached. All literally brown. Big bay windows on each side of the door. The only thing telling them apart is the different cast iron railings up to the front doors. Those also are original because no two doors are alike. I follow Karrie up the ten stairs that lead to the big brown doors. Both doors have windows on them so you can see inside. You don’t see much because there’s a white rounded door on the inside with stained windows, not allowing you to see inside the house.
She unlocks the two deadbolts and walks in, throwing her keys on a mirrored table with fresh white roses in the middle. She steps in, turning the brass rounded handles, making us come face to face with a white staircase. The railing is a dark chestnut brown. The flooring is a glossy green almost black marble flooring. All I can see is Zoe and Zara trying to run and then slide with their socks.
“I’ll give you the tour,” Karrie says to me, turning left and entering what she calls the living room.
It looks like it’s been in a magazine ad. I walk into the room, taking in the bay windows. A hidden bench makes it so you can curl up with a book. All white, the room has one color, but the couch is a huge U-shaped deep brown. There are a million throw pillows placed all over, but what gets me is the fireplace right in front of the couch. It’s old school, hand-carved in white marble, the old details from the past all engraved. A huge screen television sits on top of the fireplace. The table in the middle is black with nothing on it but the different remotes.