Page 11 of Meant to be Mine

We had worked well together. We always had. That was exactly the problem. We were friends. Really good friends.

“It’s different when it’s your job,” I said. “When you’re my boss and I’m on your payroll, it changes things. It puts you in the position of power. How could we be friends if you’re my boss?”

“It wouldn’t be like a boss-employee situation.”

“You’re not going to pay me?”

“I was planning to pay you.” Drew nodded.

“Then you would be my boss,” I said. “That’s weird. I have a boss and I would never joke and tease him the way I mess around with you. It would be very uncomfortable.”

He was quiet for a second. “I trust you more than anyone I know. I don’t trust people easily, you know that. The idea of letting some stranger into my schedule and my business right now, two weeks before a major event, is just not great. Please, just think about it.”

He started driving again.

I sighed. “I’ll sleep on it, but I can tell you I’m really not liking the idea.”

“If it helps sweeten the deal, you can do it for free,” he said with a grin. “Then you’re just my buddy helping me land this plane without crashing it.”

5

DREW

I’d planted the seed and now I had to leave it alone. Pushing her never worked, and it wasn’t like I was trying to pressure her into working with me. She’d either come around or she wouldn’t, and if I kept poking at it, she’d dig in just to prove a point.

I had only suggested she be my assistant because I thought it would be fun, but her reaction made me wonder if I had done something wrong.

I knew we worked well together. We’d proven it. And it would give us a chance to hang out during a really busy time in my life. Was it because I offered to pay her? How was that worse than asking her to do it for free?

I figured she was on a teacher’s salary, so a little extra money couldn’t hurt. But maybe she thought it was charity, which it wasn’t, of course. I never treated her any differently than any of my friends. She wasn’t my poor friend or someone I felt sorry for. She was a good friend and that was that.

Once I had the idea of bringing her on temporarily as my assistant on the Blackwell Summer project, I couldn’t think of any other person to fill the role.

I could eventually find someone, I assumed, but if she could step in and help out, we’d have some fun this summer. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be seeing each other for at least the next month. And I would have to start searching for someone else to help me out.

I smiled when another thought occurred. I could give Kensey that job. I trusted her judgment. She could find me someone I could trust and I would never have to do a single interview.

Stop trying to offer her jobs. I sighed and shook my head. All I could do was stand back and see what she said.

I pulled up to my brother Hollis’s place, a home in a gated community in Santa Monica. We all loved the beach. How could you not? My place was up the PCH in Malibu. Blackwells dotted the California coastline.

I could already smell something cooking when I pushed through the side gate. The back patio ran the full width of the house, a wide stretch of pale stone with a built-in grill at one end and a long teak table that could seat ten.

My brother Callum was already there, leaning against the railing with a beer in his hand. Victoria, his wife, was beside him, her hair catching the breeze off the water, laughing at something Cleo had just said. My sister Cleo was in a sundress and oversized sunglasses, perched on one of the outdoor barstools with a glass of white wine. My brother Micah was chatting with her. Hollis was at the grill. He had on an apron with celery on it, and he was cleaning the grill with an onion.

Callum raised his beer in greeting. “Finally.”

“You made it,” Cleo said, tilting her sunglasses down to look at me. “We were starting to think the store swallowed you whole.”

“Almost.” I grabbed a beer from the cooler by the door and twisted the cap off. “What are we looking at?” I nodded toward the grill.

Hollis’s back was to me, but his shoulders went up slightly.

“Hollis’s special burgers,” Victoria said, with the careful diplomatic tone of someone who had been briefed and was trying to stay neutral.

“They’re not just burgers,” Hollis said, without turning around. “They’re a culmination of eight months of development.”

“They’re fake meat,” Callum said.