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“I’m asking a question.” She shrugged passively. ‘I know how you get when a new woman comes along. The first time you saw Dahlia, you changed your entire life to please her. You can’t fault me for being concerned.”
“Trust me, your concerns aren’t needed. I appreciate them but I don’t need them.”
“Harvey, are you fucking her?”
“What made you ask that? Because I decided to go into business with her?”
“It’s what you do,” she tossed out.
“Are you feeling threatened, Adele? Your insecurities are starting to show.”
“Insecure for what?” she hissed. “I know you Lawton. All of you. I’ve had you in ways that another woman never will. I have zero to be insecure about. Trust me.” Her hand flailed the air.
Adele was full of shit. She was feeling some type of way. It’s the reason she asked if I was fucking Talitha. That wasn’t any of her business so instead of continuing to bait her, I would drop it.
“Okay darling. What’s new in your world?”
“I’m thinking about expanding. As it stands, I only supply you and for a while that’s worked. But the crop is growing rapidly with the climate change. My farmer has been complaining about us not moving it fast enough.”
“Shit Adele,” I groused. “Why am I just now hearing about this?”
“When’s the last time we’ve been able to sit down and talk? You know I don’t handle business over the phone.”
“I know.” I sighed. “Let me get with Sincere and see if there’s anything that we can do on our end. If not, I’ll try to find someone else.”
“Please do. I want to keep my role as minimal as possible.”
“I understand discretion. I’m on the same time as you. Give me a few weeks to figure something out. If we have to up our shipment until I can make something happen then I’ll do just that.”
“Good. Now tell me more about this business that’s got you all invested.”
“Are you sure you’re wanting to know more about it? Or are you being nosey?”
“Probably both. But if what you’re doing is making you happy then of course I want to hear about it, Harvey.”
Running down the most important parts about the school, I explained to Adele what the goal was. After learning about it and realizing how passionate I was, she told me my mission statement needed to match that passion. Hell, I didn’t know I needed a mission statement. Then she reminded me that all schools had a mission statement. Recalling Howard’s had merealizing she was in fact right. I was meeting up with Talitha for dinner tonight so I would ask her if she had thought about one.
From the way Adele talked, it felt like she was genuinely happy for me and that was all I could ask for. Not that I needed her validation or anything but it felt good to know that she was equally excited.
She offered to donate money toward the case and in the beginning, I put up a huge fight. I had never taken money from her before and I didn’t want to start now. I didn’t want to give her a reason to say she helped me with anything. After listening to her reason for wanting to donate, I reluctantly agreed to accept the donation. I prayed that shit didn’t come back to bite me in the ass later.
CHAPTER 20
Talitha
Weaving in and out of traffic, I checked the time on my car screen. I was running late for work today and for a good cause. Willearl and Bonnie had showed up first thing this morning to pick Gema up. Originally, we weren’t expecting them until tomorrow. After dinner last night, I ended up spending the night with Law and ended up having to rush home to see Gema off.
When Willearl discovered I wasn’t at home, I had to deal with hearing his mouth. The whole way from Law’s house, he was on the phone fussing. It took me a minute to realize that I wasn’t the one in the wrong, his ass had shown up a day early so after telling him where to go, he hung the phone up.
It didn’t take me long to get Gema’s shit together, so I don’t know why he made such a big fuss. I knew before the day ended, I was going to hear from the rest of the squad about leaving Gema at home overnight with Mrs. Jessie. If I could help it, I was going to dodge all of their calls. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with their shit.
Lucky for me, I didn’t have anything scheduled for this morning so once I made it to the youth center and noticed Rossi wasn’t at his desk, I was able to slip in unnoticed. I had twohours to handle my business before I had to leave to go meet Law. He and I were doing a walk-through at the school today.
The contractors had called me yesterday to let me know they had a few things they wanted to show me. Hopefully it wasn’t anything bad seeing as though the computers were scheduled to be delivered at the beginning of next week.
Law had solicited a few people from his tech firm to set them up along with everything else they needed to do to make sure the network was encrypted, so at this point we couldn’t afford any hang ups.
Cutting on the lights in my office, I smiled when I noticed the most beautiful floral arrangement in a crystal vase sitting in the middle of my desk. After hanging my coat up, I dropped my brief case and searched the arrangement for a card. Locating it, I ran my finger across it and read: