Page 39 of Family Bonds- Kelsey & Van

“Where do we go from here?” he asked.

“How about dinner? Then you can tell me what you’ve been doing for the past week. Have you thought of me at all?”

“More than I want to admit. It was a nice break while I was trying to figure out the stuff your father sent me about the hotels. I never really felt like an idiot much in my life but do now.”

“If you want, I can help. I wouldn’t be seeing anything I haven’t seen before. You should know that.”

He sighed. He wasn’t sure why that didn’t cross his mind.

“Are you sure you want to spend your time doing that when you aren’t working?”

“I won’t bill you,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

It was the laughter in her eyes. “If you don’t mind, maybe a crash course in things would help.”

“Sweet,” she said. “You order pizza. Or anything else you want. Then we can go into your office and you can ask me what you want. I’ll answer the best I can on the finance part. The operations you might need to ask my father.”

“I will.”

She turned to look at him. “Are you going to keep the hotels and learn the ropes or sell?”

“The easy thing to do is sell,” he said. “Your father brought that up.”

“I don’t think you take the easy way out of much,” she said.

“I moved here,” he said.

“And that had to be the hardest thing for you to do. Nothing easy about picking up your life and starting over. More so if there is a mystery full of emotions and doubt behind it.”

“There is that,” he said. “What kind of pizza do you want?”

“Whatever you order, I’ll eat. Then once we are done, maybe we can get some wine and sit on the deck and look out at the water and just talk about life.”

“We can do that,” he said.

“You didn’t look at the envelope from your grandfather, did you?” she asked.

“How do you know?” he asked. “And no, I didn’t.”

“Because I don’t think you were ready to seek out my father. I think me coming into your life pushed it and maybe that was some frustration you had to work through too.”

He didn’t think someone could know him this well that he’d just met.

“There was that too,” he said.

“When you’re ready to open that envelope, I can be there for you too. But I won’t push.”

It was said so softly. So sweetly.

Almost loving.

The complete opposite of the funny sarcastic woman who knocked on this door and all but barged in saying that she’d waited her week.

“I appreciate that,” he said.

“Woohoo,” she said, doing a fist pump. “I’m batting a thousand today with my decisions and words. I haven’t sworn once. Mark the calendar. Guess I am learning.”

She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and strutted out of the room, leaving him to follow like a puppy wanting some cuddles.

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