Leo's Chance(42)

He sighs, looking pained. He’s silent for several minutes, and I can practically see his wheels turning, but with what, I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. I’m not going to change my mind.

He stands up and puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes gently before turning and walking toward the door.

"No parting words of wisdom, Confucius?" I joke.

He turns around, smiling, but still looking distracted. "Yeah, you’re doing good, kid."

He walks through the door and I yell after him, "That’s it? That’s like a fortune cookie outtake."

But I don’t hear him laugh as he moves away from my door, down the hall.





CHAPTER 20


The next couple of days drag by for me, despite the fact that I’m slammed at work. I call Evie every chance I get between meetings and her two jobs. I hate that she’s still bussing it around town but when I offer her my company driver, she declines. I’d like to insist, and I think if I pushed it enough, she’d relent, but I know that independence is important to her and I don’t want to take away from who she is just so I get my way. Not on this point. This is not the hill I’m willing to die on. So my girl is riding public transportation around town. Not happy. But resigned. For now.

Monday is a crazy day, as I get ready for my trip to the San Diego office to meet with investors and to attend a dinner benefit that the company is sponsoring.

Evie’s name comes up on my phone in the middle of a meeting and I excuse myself to take her call in the hallway.

"Hey, baby."

"Hi." I can hear the smile in her voice. "What are you up to?"

"In a meeting..." Preston sticks his head out and gestures to a schematic in his hand. He gives a thumbs up sign and mouths "Okay?" I nod back, knowing he’s asking if it’s okay to share it with the group. "Sorry, Evie, I can only talk for a minute. I miss you. You good?"

"Yeah, I’m good. I miss you too."

"My bed has been cold... and there’s nothing good to sniff on."

She laughs. "Maybe you should bring a warm batch of cookies to bed with you."

"Mmmm... kinky. We’ll have to try that."

She laughs again. "Okay, Jake, I know you have to get back to work. I’ll call you on Tuesday when I get home, okay?"

"I’ll be waiting. Bye, baby."

"Bye."

I walk back into my meeting smiling and wondering how I lived without her all those years. How did I do it? Then I realize, I wasn’t living. I was existing. I was putting one foot in front of the other and simply getting by. On my best days, numb and on my worst days, miserable.

**********

I fly to the San Diego office on Tuesday. Flying in over the water always reminds me of Evie and that very first plane ride to California. I'd been holding back a lump in my throat that kept threatening during the entire five hour journey. I missed her so desperately already. But I was also filled with a hope I'd never had before – a hope that I finally had a family, people who would help me and Evie start our life together when the time came. It would be so much easier now. I squash those memories. The darkness that hovers on the edge of those recollections is not somewhere I want to go right now.

I spend the day meeting with investors at an off-site conference room in a hotel on the bay. The view is breathtaking, not a cloud in the sky, the water sparkling, and sailboats dotting the horizon. But this is not home. Home is where she is and I can’t wait to get back to my cold, gray-skied – when I flew out – Midwestern city. I smile to myself. Home. All along I thought home was a location, and it turns out home is a person. Home is Evie.

I’d like to fly back tonight but I have a benefit dinner that the company is sponsoring. It’s for an organization that helps underprivileged kids in San Diego, a cause important to Phil that he did a lot of work for over the years, and perhaps the inspiration for wanting to adopt me in the first place. In any case, I feel like I need to represent him tonight. So I grudgingly don my tux and head there.

I mingle with some of the San Diego executives over cocktails, and as I’m turning to head to my table for dinner, I see Gwen walking my way. She’s tried to talk to me several times tonight but I’ve been successful so far in evading her. Apparently, me telling her not to come near me again went in one ear and out the other. What is it with me and females who don’t hear me? I clench my jaw and will her to turn the other way. She doesn’t.

"Jake!" she calls.

I turn slowly. "Gwen. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, mom couldn’t come. Daddy flew me in to be his date tonight." She smiles a big, dazzling smile.

Right at that moment, a photographer who has been taking shots of the guests mingling, comes up to us and asks for a picture. I briefly consider telling him to f*ck off but don’t want to cause a scene, and so I lean in to Gwen and say with a phony smile, "If we were anywhere but in front of a camera at a company event right now, you’d be watching me walk the other way." She laughs as if I’m joking. I’m not. As soon as the camera flashes, I turn and walk in the opposite direction. After a few steps, I hear Gwen call behind me, "It’s because of her, isn’t it?"

I stop, turning slowly. "Her?"

Gwen has her hip cocked, one hand resting on it. "The girl on your back. You can’t let her go, can you?"