Page 49 of Refuel

“Wow,” Tisha said.

“You didn’t know about this?”

“No. Who do you think set this up?” Tisha asked, walking toward the red roses sitting on the glass table.

“I can guess one name,” I mumbled to myself.

“You think it was Kash?” she asked.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Pretty much every day, I get an alert about a sighting of you two.” Tisha bent down to smell the flowers. I groaned already, feeling sick to my stomach that people would hound me like they did the other night at the restaurant.

“You shouldn’t listen to gossip, Tisha,” I cautioned.

“Normally, I don’t, but I’m a huge fan of Kash’s.” She sat in the chair in front of my desk, and I pushed the glass vase of roses to the corner of the desk. I dropped my briefcase to the floor and made sure not to drop my tea and bagel. Landing in my chair, I sighed, feeling exhausted from the night before and wondering how long it’d take to clean out all the flowers.

“Can you call the shelter on Third Avenue to see if they’d like flowers?”

“You’re not keeping them?” Tisha questioned.

“You can take some if you want. I’ll take the vase home later today. Everything else can be donated.”

“He likes you,” Tisha stated.

“I like him too even though we started under unusual circumstances,” I replied.

“Well, I see more than like, but we can save that for another day,” Tisha joked.

“Funny, but we have a full plate of details to go through. Let me log into my computer.”

Typing in my password, I found the file for the charity drive with Pierce and CD Enterprises as co-sponsors.

“So, we have how many invites sent out?” I asked.

“My list has four hundred. This doesn’t include fan tickets,” Tisha said.

“Do you think we should cut down the personal invites?”

“I think the more the better. Most likely, people won’t show up, and maybe put RSVP as another check off,” Tisha explained.

I pulled the file folder with all the details out of my briefcase.

“Okay, let’s do that, and you’ll have to manage things with Rylee while I’m driving. Afterwards, I’ll go change and meet you at the venue for the after party.”

“Food is ordered, and we’ll have chicken, fish, and steak as the main dishes people can pick.”

“Probably should keep it at two items. Too many choices will drive the chef crazy.”

A knock on my open door caused me to smile, and I invited him in.

“Hey, sweetie,” Dad said.

“Hi, Daddy. When did you get here?” I stood, walking around my desk to hug and kiss him on the cheek.

“An hour ago. I was on a conference call. What’s going on here?” Dad pointed around at the flowers.

“Would you believe me if I said I like flowers?” I chuckled.

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