“You made some good points, okay? I never said your list was stupid. I never made fun of you for it, either, like you seem to think. So yes, you did motivate me to think about a similar list for myself.”
I got chills. Once again, he was proving that the more sensitive man I’d originally imagined him to be when I’d found the blue note was in there somewhere.
“Wow. That’s so amazing.”
Reed rolled his eyes at my enthusiasm. “The concept of a bucket list is not that amazing.”
“What I mean is . . . I didn’t even think you liked me. Meanwhile . . . I inspired you? That’s so cool.”
He got up out of his seat suddenly, walking to the other side of the room. “Let’s not get carried away.” It looked like he was pretending to sift through files just to avoid this conversation.
“So, I noticed that you only jotted down a few things. Will you tell me why you chose them? Climb a Mountain makes total sense to me. I mean, I would imagine that’s simply exhilarating. But the men’s-choir thing . . . do you sing?”
He let out a deep breath, then turned to me. “I’m not going to get out of this question, am I?”
“Not a chance.”
Reed returned to his seat at the desk and downed the rest of his coffee. “Yes, Charlotte. I sing. Or rather, I sang . . . when I was younger. But my teenage ego stepped in, and I abandoned the hobby. I’d prefer not to get into it in great detail, except to say that the image on this little mug here pretty much sums it up . . . scarily so. If you ever want to hear about my singing, Iris will be happy to tell you all about it. She has quite a few cassette tapes of it as well that she’s been known to threaten me with.”
“Really? I’m definitely going to ask her about it.”
“Great.”
“You know . . .” I smiled. “A bucket list is useless if you don’t actually attempt to take action. Let me help you arrange one or two of these things.”
“I’m all set.”
“Everyone needs motivation. I can help you follow through. We can sort of be like bucket buddies . . . or in my case, fuck-it buddies.”
That sort of sounded bad—like “fuck buddies.” Sweat started to permeate my forehead.
“Why would you even want to bother, Charlotte? What’s the catch here?”
“There is none. Well, I suppose the catch is, you have to help keep me on track with my own goals. We can be each other’s cheer captains.”
He bent his head back in laughter. “Okay, let’s calm down a bit.”
“Will you at least consider letting me help you? I mean, you employ me. Why not take advantage of me?”
His voice lowered, causing my skin to prickle. “You want me to take advantage of you?”
Iris walked in at that inopportune moment.
She clasped her hands together and smiled gleefully. “Ohhh . . . glad to see you two are finally getting along.”
Clearing my throat, I said, “Hello, Iris.”
She addressed Reed. “I just heard about this car accident out in the Hamptons. You never told me about it. What happened, exactly?”
“Charlotte tried to save a squirrel and set off a chain-reaction crash.”
“Well, that was very noble of you, Charlotte.”
“What can I say? Someone needs to look out for them. The squirrels love me for it.” I shrugged, then moved on to a more pressing topic. “Iris, is it true that Reed used to sing?”
My question seemed to surprise her. “Why yes, it is, but I can’t believe he admitted that to you. Reed’s pretty secretive about it.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “He had the most beautiful voice, a perfect tenor. I would have funded any musical education he wanted. Such a shame that he didn’t continue.”
Reed was quick to change the subject. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Grandmother?”
“Actually, I was hoping to catch Charlotte before she left for the day. I’ve decided to move the annual company summer party to the house in Bedford, so I’ll need her help making some of the arrangements.”
Even though she lived in Manhattan, Iris kept a family home in the suburbs. It was where the Eastwoods and Locklears had large family gatherings, and where they celebrated the holidays. Reed’s parents also lived there part of the year when they weren’t traveling the world. Apparently Mr. and Mrs. Eastwood had decided to retire early down in Florida and enjoy their lives a bit, whereas Iris was too much of a workhorse to ever pass off her responsibilities at the company to someone else.
“I thought we were renting a venue in the city for that this year,” Reed said.
“I decided against it. The Bedford estate worked really well the past couple of years. We’ll need to rent some large white tents and work on moving the caterer. Jared will also be in town that weekend, so it’s perfect timing.”