Today. Tomorrow. Always (Free Falling, #3.5)(3)

Anthony was asleep in his mother’s arms, looking more and more like her as the days passed. He definitely had my eyes and a combination of Sam’s hair texture and mine, but there was so much of her in him. Watching them, I instantly thought of what a lucky guy I was. Money, cars, things… none of that could make or break me. As long as I had my family, I had it all. When it all began, she was just a girl I had to have, and I was a kid whose every thought seemed to lead to her.

Even now, years later, that hadn’t changed.

On cue, without realizing I was watching, Sam’s hand went to her necklace. Her fingers caressed the ring she kept there, a silver band with the inscription “Today. Tomorrow. Always.” I remembered the day I’d given it to her as her nineteenth birthday gift, although it was meant to be much more than that. It symbolized an implied promise that what we had, our bond, our love, was timeless.

It was hard to remember what life had been like without her, who I’d been without her. Even the dark years when she was absent seemed like I’d dreamt them. Of course I hadn’t forgotten the emptiness, the sting of losing her, but those wounds had long since healed.

Out of the blue, Terrell laughed loudly and I glanced over at him, putting my thoughts on hold. “What’d I miss?”

He continued to smile as he stared at the water rippling across the pool. “I was just thinking about that time you rode with me to take Maisha down south to visit her aunt. You remember that?”

There was no way I could forget—the worst heatwave I’d ever experienced in my life, food poisoning, and a blown engine in the middle of nowhere. “Yeah… I remember,” I said, shaking my head as all the details came back.

“Man… good times.”

I turned to look at him, expecting to see some sign that he’d been joking, but there was none. “Good times? I can recall at least five instances that I honestly thought I was gonna die that week.”

Terrell waved me off. “Quit exaggerating. It wasn’t that bad.”

Actually, the longer I sat there thinking about it, the worse it got.

The call had come in from Terrell late one night, sometime during the summer between our junior and senior year of college. He’d asked me to tag along to help him drive. The plan was for one to drive while the other slept, which worked out in the beginning—before the food poisoning hit. One ill-advised visit to a diner off the highway made it impossible for us not to stop every ten minutes. Every bump in the road, every curve, had us all in agony. In hindsight, we should’ve taken that as a sign and turned back.

“Okay, I need some of whatever you’ve been drinking or smoking, because that experience was terrible from every angle,” I said with a laugh, trying to think of even one positive thing that came of it.

“You don’t remember that hole-in-the-wall bar we found on the way back?” His eyes got big. “Best wings I ever had in my life. No lie.”

I shook my head, laughing. “Good wings didn’t make up for six straight days of misery, though. I’m sorry.”

“What about when Maisha fell off the bed in that motel room?” He howled, this time loud enough that I was sure he disturbed the neighbors. The sound of it was so obnoxious that it was impossible not to laugh with him, though.

Even Maisha’s fall had been due to yet another negative aspect of that… ‘adventure’; she’d discovered a roach crawling on the headboard and fell trying to get away from it. Funny? Absolutely. But it was like I said, all signs pointed toward that trip sucking.

“She tore her head up on the wall,” he added. “Remember?” Next he imitated the thud it made.

“You’re crazy,” I said, shaking my head at him when he doubled over in his seat. “What even made you think about that?” I asked.

When he calmed down a bit, he answered. “We passed by a nasty-looking motel on the way up here and Maisha mentioned it. In fact, every nasty-looking motel makes her think about it.”

That was a memory I could do without, and I imagined she could do without it, too. Terrell was the only one who’d found a bright side. That was kind of his way, though—his outlook on life.

“Anyway, how’s work been?” he asked, jumping subjects.

I yawned before answering. “Better. With the new guy I hired, I’ve got a whole lot less on my plate. All the travel was starting to get to me. Now I’m able to divide that part up with him, so I’m enjoying the job again.”

“You’re talking about the guy you stole from that other company, right?”

I laughed. “I didn’t steal him; I made him an attractive offer and he took it. That’s business.”

While I downplayed the scenario, there was a bit of truth to what Terrell had accused me of. Kai, my newest hire, was highly sought after by a number of other organizations who realized the same thing I did; in his previous position, he was underutilized and undervalued. Soon after meeting him, following the lead of an associate, I knew he’d be a perfect fit. There were just two small problems: several other execs had their sights set on him, too; and the second issue was that Kai wasn’t looking to make a career change at the time. He had so many untapped assets, though, so I didn’t take no for an answer. He was professional, had a firm grasp of the construction business at the executive level, and he was multilingual… and all he’d been tasked with in his previous position was to manage a moderately sized team of business analysts. That was it.