“I’m proud of you,” my mother said once I’d told her about how things ended with me and Kayla on the Sound last night. “It’s nice to see you finally interested in something other than money and financial stability. Can I give you some advice?”
“Please.” The word sounded weak in my ears.
My mother reached out, took my hand in hers, and looked me in the eyes. “Follow your heart. There will always be more board meetings. More conference calls. More software to build and lines of code to write. But love? Dear boy, the real thing only comes around once, and that’s if you’re lucky. Don’t let it slip through your fingers, David. You’ll regret it one day.”
David.
That was my father’s name.
My heart went cold and hard in my chest. I pulled my hand free and leaned back. “Your advice is as good as ever.”
She smiled and patted my knee. “Who are you kidding? You never listened to my advice a day in your life. That’s why we never worked. You were too stubborn. And I was too—”
“Good for me,” I said. My father had never been good enough for my mother and he knew it. That was why he’d left in the first place, and it was why he never came back.
And it was why I never missed him.
Chapter 16
Kayla
“Can I try one of those?” Lisa leaned forward on her elbows to peer over at my plate.
I nodded and let her skewer one of the curried shrimp on my salad. She took a candied pecan and some greens as well, popped them in her mouth, and chewed gratefully while pressing her thumb and forefinger together in a symbol of perfection.
“Damn, that’s good,” she said, pointing at my plate with her fork. “I’m getting that next time.”
It had better be good. The damn salad was costing me an arm and a leg. Who in their right mind could charge twenty-one dollars for a salad and still have a clear conscience? I wished I’d checked the price before I ordered but I thought I was on the safe side by ordering a bowl of greens and uncooked veggies. Apparently not. I would have to cut back somewhere else this week to make up for it.
“So Lukas told me he had an awesome time out at the farm with you and the kids the other day,” Lisa said. “He wouldn’t shut up about it actually. Kept going on and on about how he needs to get out more and how good it was to be out in nature. Nature?” She scoffed. “Who’d have thought Lukas would ever rekindle his love for the outdoors?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Yeah, true, like Lukas wearing jeans. He wore jeans the other day, Kayla. Who is my brother and what did you do to him on that farm?”
I hoped my red cheeks didn’t betray me as I sipped my water to buy myself time to respond. “I think it was the kids, not me. He bonded with a little girl named Angelica. He was really sweet with her, Lisa. You should have seen it.”
“He told me about her. Said she was the reason he wanted to fund the lunch program. I can’t believe how easy it was to pull off. I thought you’d have to work on him for days to get him to come around. Weeks even. But you did it all in one afternoon. See? I knew you’d have the magic touch.”
Magic touch or magic kiss?
“In case you were wondering, his interview went well with Rebecca Mills yesterday,” Lisa said matter-of-factly. She paused to take a bite of her lettuce wrap and dabbed chili sauce from the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “He was raving about the apple orchard and the educational value the field trip provided for the kids. He name dropped you like six hundred times.”
I blushed. “Oh.”
“That’s a good thing, Kayla. Don’t sweat it. Good Fellow’s is going to get more free publicity from Lukas than you could orchestrate in a year.”
That was one way to look at it.
“Anyway,” Lisa continued, “Rebecca asked him what sort of action came out of the day at the orchard and he told her all about the school lunch program and his plans to fund it with local produce and food from Seattle-based small businesses. I have to ask, was that his idea or yours?”
“That was all Lukas.”
Lisa grinned like a proud mother bear. “That makes me really happy to hear. I can’t thank you enough, Kayla. Seriously. What you’re doing for my brother and his reputation… well, I don’t think I have the right words to express just how much it means to me.”
Guilt rippled through my belly. “I’m the one who should be thanking you and your brother. Because of him, Rodney and I are going to be able to feed thousands of hungry kids. The best part is, I don’t have to worry about finding where to get the money next year. Lukas is in it for the long haul.”
“Maybe my brother isn’t as far gone as I thought,” Lisa said before diving back in for another bite of her lettuce wrap.
I wondered if that was true. I had seen a different side of Lukas this past week. But I’d also seen the disappointed side. Driving away from him at Puget Sound had not been easy.
Did things have to be this way between me and him? Was our only option to resign ourselves to the fact that we could be nothing more than professional colleagues?
Maybe it was time to put some feelers out there and find out.
“Hey, Lisa?”
My friend looked up at me. “What’s up?”
“What would you think
