Page 10 of Maid for My Billionaire Boss
“No, she doesn’t work weekends.” Tonya’s face was still a shade of red when she looked back at me again, and wearily offered, “I can send one of mine along. I’ll throw a belt in with it, and you can at least try it.”
“Sure,” I quickly agreed, knowing the clock was ticking.
“Great.” She glanced back at Trey briefly, before walking toward the door, adding, “I’ll run home now.”
I reluctantly turned to Trey to confirm, “So you do need us to stay to help you tonight?”
His head tilted like he was having the largest headache of his life. With his eyes locked on Tonya while she walked out the door, he commented, “If you think you can handle it.”
“We’ll be fine.” I turned my head to Josiah, feeling mom guilt wash over me. “Right? You’re used to boring old-people parties from your dad?”
“I’ll be fine.” His words gravitated down into a mutter at the end. When his eyes hit mine, I predicted the negotiation he was going to throw my way. “As long as we can still order Jerry’s?”
I winked at him, feeling grateful he was so easy to please. “Deal.”
Trey fixed his eyes back on me. “Thank you. I know it’s last-minute, but I appreciate it.” Then he tucked his hands in his pockets and headed upstairs.
“Well, I guess that’s my cue to go get my hair done,” Mrs. Michael announced. “You kids have fun tonight and I’ll see you in the morning.” Relief washed over me, knowing she wasn’t planning to attend tonight’s party. Even though I had grown oddly fond of her because she made things entertaining, I knew the evening would go much smoother without her, so I smiled and waved goodbye.
Six
Trey
MeetingJosiahwaslikehaving a weird out-of-body flashback to my childhood. I shuddered, remembering how my mom had cleaned houses too to make ends meet the first year after my dad had died. I distinctly remembered sitting at her boss’s table, waiting for her to get off work on so many nights. That kid—wearinga pretty sweetStar WarsT-shirt—looked like he could have been me.I pushed the memory away and headed upstairs. It wasn’t at all what I needed to be thinking about right now. But everything else that had happened today wasn’t much better. I hated everything about today.
I hated Tonya leaving to go to California.
I hated my mom being weird toward Tonya.
I hated that I had to have this stupid meeting tonight.
But most of all, I hated that I had to have this meeting without my business partner, who helped me start this company. Because I knew if he’d been here . . . it wouldn’t be failing.
Damion had been the smooth talker, the extrovert who had helped me get my first date with Tonya when we were only fifteen. Without me knowing it, he’d called her pretending to be me. This was before cell phones and caller ID—the good old days when we could do the coolest pranks with a phone when we were bored. He knew I liked her and talked to her for days, prepping her full of all my less-annoying qualities until finally asking her out to the Snowball Dance for me, which was where we did the switcharoo and I showed up.
That wasn’t the end of his victories. He talked a cop out of giving me a speeding ticket when I was sixteen. I still didn’t know how he managed that one because I was going ninety and I rightfully should have had my hearing adjusted for that recklessness. However, his most amazing achievement was convincing my mom to agree to send me to coding camp when I was in middle school. It sounded like a normal thing, but she had to use her last four hundred dollars to afford it. Lucky for us both, that one paid off. I wasn’t good with people, but I could lose myself in code for days, feeling like that was exactly how my brain was wired to be.
We started a company together. Well, I did all the work, and once a year Damion would fly out and do my schmoozing. If there is one thing I understood about business, it was that every business needed a smooth talker. Since Damion wasn’t here anymore, I was floundering, wishing he’d at least left me some footnotes. I flashed my eyes heavenward and whispered, “You’d better help me, man.”
Checking my watch, I noted that I didn’t have much time, but thanks to Atalie the house didn’t smell ancient anymore, so I did what I always did when I needed to clear my head and headed to the attic.
My place of solace and meditation.
My place of reflection and healing.
My place of escapism and remembrance that gave me strength to face my future.
I always had to give the little door more than a gentle nudge to get it to open, and once it became unstuck, the hinges would wail in welcome. I should do some maintenance on them so they’d be quieter, and it was silly, but I had an attachment to the sound because they had always done that, even since before my dad passed.
My dad had been a ship captain.
One of the best ship captains—or at least he was in my eyes.
He was always gone for weeks and sometimes months, and I’d await his return anxiously. He’d usually get back late after I’d gone to bed, but like a signal from a secret club, I heard that creak while I lay in bed, and my heart would swell because it meant my dad was trekking up to the attic.
The sound meant he washome.
In his life, this had been my dad’s den—a man cave. No staff was allowed in there, and even my mom stayed away. Only I was allowed inside. I’d climb on his knee, and he always had a story for me from his most recent adventures. He’d empty his pockets and drop several shiny foreign coins onto the rustic surface of the wood table.
