20. Wanting Better In Life

20

WANTING BETTER IN LIFE

“ I ’m going to kill you three,” Laken said when Jamie and Nelson walked into her office thirty minutes later.

“Me?” Jamie asked. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Not you,” she said. “But my three brothers who think they know everything.”

“How did you find out?” he asked.

“West must have fessed up,” Nelson said.

“He did,” she said. “He always does.”

Her brother tried to tell her it was to teach Nelson, but she didn’t buy it. No way. Not when she went rushing to Braylon’s office and he was laughing at his desk.

That particular brother was always somewhat laid back when it came to those things. West was just too serious about life and Nelson was trying too hard to be like West.

Everyone just had to be their own person.

“I can’t figure your family out,” he said.

“Neither can we half the time,” she said. “Come give me a kiss since they know.”

She wanted to see if he’d do it or not and shouldn’t have been surprised when he said, “Why don’t you come over here and give it to me so your brother doesn’t think you call all the shots.”

She frowned and walked over to put her hands on the arms of the chair he was sitting in and laid her lips to his quickly because she wanted to get a taste of him.

She missed him when they weren’t together and it felt like that was a lot lately.

“Now Nelson is going to think you are calling all the shots.”

Nelson snorted. “No one believes that.”

“Are you saying I’m a wuss?” Jamie asked.

She held back the laugh when Nelson’s face got red at the thought he might have insulted the guy he was technically working for.

“No,” Nelson said. “Just that the women in our family tend to rule everything.”

She turned and saw Jamie look at her questioningly.

“Is that true?”

“No one goes against our mother,” she said. “She’s a saint raising us all on her own. So yes to that. I’m not as much like her as everyone thinks. I mean, as my mother has pointed out, she had a lot of kids she was caring for by the time she was my age.”

“And Talia is just annoying,” Nelson said. “But she thinks she rules things since she always gets her way.”

“I’m not so sure Talia gets her way any more than you get yours, Nelson. You both have no clue what it’s like. The life you grew up in isn’t like what the rest of us had.”

“You’re never going to let me forget it either,” Nelson said. “But at least you’ve got more memories of Dad than we do.”

She sighed. That was the first he’d ever said that and she was surprised it was said in front of Jamie.

But she did know that was a fact too. Talia had little to no memory of their father and Nelson was only two years older.

“That’s true,” she said. “But it shouldn’t be a crutch you use.”

She could see her brother wanted to argue with her, but Jamie said, “I know you’re busy, Laken, should we get started?”

“We should,” she said. “I’ve got meetings back to back starting at one. I’ve got two hours for this and we can order lunch; otherwise, I won’t eat.”

“Let’s get lunch set now,” Jamie said. “No reason for you to miss a meal.”

“That’s the parent in you,” she said. “I like it.”

She walked over to her desk and pulled off the specials she’d printed earlier that came via email.

She knew what she was having, got Nelson’s and Jamie’s orders and emailed them in to be delivered and then they got down to business.

“I’m ready to start running job ads,” Nelson said. “We need to get people hired to oversee the setup in the plant once the construction is done. I’m popping in there and checking on things, but I’ve been out of town too.”

“Nelson is still finishing up on a few other projects before he transitions here fully. He’s also put out because he’s living in and out of hotels.”

“Could be because my siblings won’t let me stay with them,” Nelson said.

“You and West would kill each other and you know it. Plus Abby is there now at times when she’s not in the Hamptons.”

Abby was getting set up to work for her and came into the building twice a week with West, and the other three days right now she was working out of the city with West flying there for long weekends to work too.

“And Braylon is with Lily so that is out,” Nelson said.

“You’re not staying with me,” she said. Nelson had asked before because she was on the road so much. In the past, if he was just here a day or so visiting, she’d say yes. But he was here too much and she needed her space. “You’re a slob. I’m not Mom and picking up after you.”

“No one has to pick up after me,” Nelson said. “You just can’t stand things not to be exactly the way you like them.”

“As I shouldn’t have to deal with in my own house,” she said. She turned to Jamie. “Nelson’s biggest problem is he wants to live in the places we do without the work to get there. Just like everything else. He forgets we didn’t live in those places when we first started out and he isn’t going to either.”

She turned to look at Nelson who had a frown on his face. They’d joked with West to bring Nelson here and pay him a project manager salary and see how far it went.

West half did it. Putting Nelson in the position he was in was giving him a shit ton more salary than most his age, but Nelson was too used to the finer things in life.

When he was put somewhere for a few months, he just rented a house. Here it wasn’t that easy.

“My first place here was about eight hundred square feet and I won’t tell you what I paid for it,” Jamie said.

“I feel like he thinks because he’s used to it he can just get it now, but it doesn’t work that way. He could find someplace in his salary range, but he wants better.”

She was smirking now at her brother.

“There is nothing wrong with wanting better in life,” Nelson argued.

“No,” Jamie said. “There isn’t. Where I came from, I didn’t have a lot of material possessions. I can’t even get my parents to accept anything from me.”

“That’s crazy,” Nelson said. “Why?”

“They’ve got their pride. But it’s more their beliefs. My father feels money is evil.”

“Nah,” Nelson said. “Not if you’ve got enough of it and do good with it.”

She realized her brother was right. “True,” she said. “But doing good with it means helping others, not stretching yourself thin so that you can get a space you can’t afford to show off. It should be more important what you think of a place and not what other people do.”

“I’m starting to think I can get more for my money in New Jersey and I’m going to be out there a lot anyway. Even after this project is up and running, if West sends me somewhere, it might be easier to have a house to come back to.”

“Or an apartment to not worry about upkeep and mowing the lawn or plowing in the winter,” she said.

“I can get more space in a house. I just don’t know the best places to look.”

“I’m a pro at finding the best value in a great area,” Jamie said. “I can ask around if you want.”

“Thanks,” Nelson said. “I’m kind of in a hurry.”

“He’s in a hurry because West isn’t paying for his hotel either as if he was on the road traveling.”

She looked at Nelson and saw the frown again. “Hotel living isn’t all that much fun either,” Jamie said. “I did enough of it. I do it now at times too.”

“We’ve bored Jamie enough with our first-world problems. Work time,” she said. “Yes, I think it’s time to start looking for staffing. Abby can help you with that. She’s more than willing. We’ve been talking. Her years in HR will help you get the job descriptions set, then sent to HR to get them posted. HR will weed everything out into first interviews and send those that make the cut back to you.”

“Will Abby be able to help with that?” Nelson asked.

“Yes. She and I have already talked and gone over a few things. She’ll be waiting for you to reach out.”

“Thanks,” Nelson said.

They went back and forth covering a lot of ground for the next hour. Their lunch came and they ate and Nelson left her alone with Jamie for fifteen minutes before she had to meet with someone else.

“Wish you didn’t have such a packed afternoon,” he said.

“Me too. I never know if I’m coming or going. I’ve got a team under me, but they are stretched thin too.”

“Sounds to me like you need an assistant for you alone,” he said. “Just to take care of things that you’d trust to hand off. I get the feeling you don’t trust easily.”

“I don’t,” she said. “Not in work or my personal life.”

“Something we need to talk about?” he asked.

She let out a sigh. “No.”

“Do you not trust me?”

“I do,” she said. “I don’t know I would have trusted the pre-Daddy you, but the post-Daddy you is very trustworthy.”

“I like that you’re honest,” he said, getting up and standing in front of her. He pulled her into his arms and it felt good to be held like this. “I’ll return the favor and say how sexy you look today, especially considering how cold out it is.”

She’d put on a fitted brown dress, brown tights and brown knee-high heeled boots.

“I’m covered and comfortable. It helps not having to be outside too long. Just long enough to catch my taxi. Wish you could wait for me, but I know you’ve got to get home to Penelope.”

He’d told her he tried to be home to get his daughter to bed. He didn’t pay Janelle to raise his child but to watch her. He wasn’t going to be an absent father like he felt his own dad was even though the man never traveled and lived in the same house.

It reminded her of Nelson’s comment about the older kids having more memories of their father. But time didn’t have anything to do with it in all cases. Jamie being a great example.

“I do,” he said. “Don’t suppose you could get out a little early on Friday? I’ll be around most of tomorrow and will give Janelle the day off in exchange for staying later on Friday?”

Which meant he wouldn’t spend the night, but she knew this was going to happen between their schedules and until he let his daughter know.

“I can try to make that work,” she said. She went to her computer. “I have no meetings after two.”

“Then I’ll be at your place at three,” he said, giving her one more kiss and then pulling her close to his body.

She rubbed up against him. “That is going to have to hold me over until then. Or my toys will. I’m used to that.”

“I need to see these toys,” he said, giving her butt a light tap.

“I just might show you.”