“You’re letting this spiral, Kar, workin’ yourself into a frenzy. You don’t have to talk to Cane about anything. Just relax—you’re overreacting.”
“I better be.” I paused, feeling the fight start to wane. I could hear in Max’s voice that he was telling the truth, but seeing her in my house had tapped into insecurities that were deep-seated. “I don’t like feeling this way, like there are no boundaries all of a sudden with her. Now that I’ve moved in, I . . .” I cleared my throat, feeling it constrict. My voice came out a whisper, “Seeing her in here makes me feel . . .”
“Vulnerable?” Max asked, his voice tender.
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “I won’t compete with anyone, Max.”
He chuckled through the phone. “Compete with someone? Hell, sweetheart. No one can get close to competing with you.”
MAX
After saying goodbye to Kari, I sat the receiver on the hook and massaged my temples. I didn’t get overwhelmed very often. As a matter of fact, keeping calm was a trademark of mine. But I was almost at my breaking point. The weight on my shoulders felt like it was getting heavier and heavier. I was trying to keep as much stress off of Cane as possible, but something was going to have to give. Between the bid issue, the asphalt debacle, now this thing with Kari and Sam, I’d about had enough. So, I did what I always did when I felt shit pilin’ up—I broke it down.
I’d make things up to Kari, explain that there was nothing to worry about. I knew, down deep, someone had burned her, although she’d never talk about it. Her moving in with me had been a huge step and I could sense her fear that it had been the wrong one. She seemed to be waiting on me to decide I didn’t want her anymore.
The hell if that was ever gonna happen.
The work stress would even out as soon as we got another good job. We had a lot of employees at Alexander Industries—somewhere near 300—and I felt an obligation to keep the men working. They had families and bills and their own responsibilities. They counted on the work and the paycheck. I had to keep the work coming in so their families could eat. Although we lived in the United States and it was 2015, people still got by living paycheck to paycheck and I was determined to keep our men working.
The only thing in the equation I couldn’t quite figure out was Sam.
Why would she just go into my house like that? And in my bedroom? I shook my head. Could she just have been confused?
My office door swung open and Cane burst through.
“What’s up, Alexander?” I asked blandly.
He shut the door behind him and sat across from me. “What time do you want to go over the bid for tomorrow?”
We always sat down together in the conference room before a bid. We laid all the plans and specifications on the table and evaluated the job from one end to the other, inside and out. In the early days of us running Alexander Industries, I was shocked by Cane’s attention to detail on bids. He was always a run-and-gunner type of guy, shoot from the hip. But when he took over his father’s company after his death, when we were working, we were working. Very little got by him.
“In the morning. Have you been looking at it?”
Cane looked at his watch. “I’ve been going over it at the house. Jada is still sick as fuck and I don’t know what to do. I feel so helpless.”
“She’ll be okay. Pregnant women are supposed to be sick.”
“Thank God I’m a man. I couldn’t do it. She throws up and sleeps. Throws up and sleeps. Can that be normal?”
“Yeah, man. It is.”
I could see the exhaustion in his eyes. “I’ll bring my notes in early. Say, five in the morning? And we can go over it then? The bid is due at noon.”
“Five is good.”
A knock sounded lightly on my door and it opened a sliver. Sam’s eyes peeked around the corner. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Cane didn’t turn around but rolled his eyes at the sound of her voice.
“I think we’re done,” I said, looking at Cane. He rose from his chair and walked past Sam, not saying a word. She entered and closed the door behind her, sitting the spec book, a bag of food, and a drink on my desk.
“There ya go, boss,” she smiled.
I didn’t smile back. “Thanks. Take that spec book to your desk and enter the bid items and quantities in the system. Let me know when you have it done.” I shoved the book towards the end of the desk.
She picked it up but didn’t leave. After a few seconds, I looked to her and raised my eyebrows.
“I think I made Kari mad,” she said softly. She chewed on her bottom lip. Anyone looking in would think she was contrite, but I had seen her play that card with my parents a time or thirteen growing up. She was anything but sorry.
“Rightfully so. What in the hell made ya think it was alright to walk into our house?”
She released her lip from between her teeth. “She wasn’t home and you needed the book. I was just trying to get the job done.”