Page 36 of Soft
We walked another half block in silence. It was, for lack of a better word, comfortable. Which made no sense given how short of a time we’d known each other.
"What about you?" I asked. "The advocacy part of it, the work with kids, all of that—was that always part of the plan or did it come later?"
"Always. I knew pretty early that if I made it where I wanted to go, I didn't want it to just be about me. I've had a lot of people in my corner my whole life. It doesn't feel right not to pass that forward." He shrugged like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. "Besides, kids are good for you. They're honest. They don't care what your stats are."
"No, they don't." I smiled as I pictured him running around with a bunch of little T-ball players at practice. He’d make a great coach one day.
We reached the office building, and he held the door again. “See you soon, Grizzly.”
I turned to face him, my mind reeling as unease shot through me. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want to stop this connection that was forming between us.
But instead of saying any of that, I waved and whispered, “Bye, Paxton.”
Cheyenne and Moseley were waiting. Of course they were.
That was perhaps too gentle a way to describe it. More accurately, they were poised, like two predators ready to strike their prey. Moseley was standing up from his desk before I had fully cleared the threshold.
"How was it?" he asked. Then, before I could answer: "Was it good? Did you talk? What did you talk about? Did you eat? Was the food good? Did you?—"
"Moseley." Cheyenne cut him off."Breathe."
He took a slow, deep breath, then tried again. "How was lunch?"
"It was good," I said as I moved toward my office.
Cheyenne stepped into my path with a raised brow. "Come on. Give us more than that."
"There isn't more than that. We had gumbo and talked about the city. It was a nice lunch."
"You were gone fortwo hours," Moseley whined, his eyes wide.
I shrugged. "The service was slow."
"Grizzly."Their pleading voices synced together.
I sighed. They weren’t going to let this go without at least a short rundown of the meal. I leaned against the doorframe of my office and looked at the two of them. "It was good. He was easy to talk to. We had a normal lunch like two normal people and then we came back. We said goodbye. That's all."
Cheyenne tilted her head. "And how did it feel? Being around him, now that the business part is handled."
"Professional," I said quickly.
She gave me a look that communicated very clearly she didn’t believe me.
"It felt fine," I tried again. "He asked some solid questions, and he listened well."
"He's attentive," Moseley commented. "I noticed that when he was here before too. The way he just locks onto whoever's talking. Some people do that and it's weird, but when he does it, it just feels?—"
"Important," Cheyenne supplied.
Moseley pointed at her. "Yeah. That's it."
I didn’t confirm or deny that. Confirming it would open a door I wasn’t fully ready to walk through in the middle of the afternoon when there was work to be done. Denying would have them asking even more questions until I caved. It was a lose-lose situation.
"He's going to be a good client," I said, which was true.
Cheyenne folded her arms. "He's good for you. You know that, right?"
"You've mentioned it."
