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“So, what did you think?” I ask, loudly, looking into the rearview mirror and meeting my boss’s cool gaze.
Caleb Starr may present a cold and calm exterior to the world but I have seen him at his worst, bleeding in the prison yard, as he ruthlessly attacked a man ten times his size. There’s nothing cold about the man but he has ambition and drive, something I have none of.
“She doesn’t eat enough,” my friend responds, turning his gaze to the world passing us by.
I wait for something else but he doesn’t offer any other information. I don’t know why it surprises me. Caleb’s always been a man of few words. Even when we shared a cell, he rarely spoke. We had been on good terms because when he had first arrived, I had looked out for him. But it had still been a surprise when he had been exonerated, one of the first things he had done was hire one of the best lawyers for me and get me out of prison. Then he had gone on to give me a well paying job and an apartment that we shared together.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask, looking over my shoulder.
“To Grayfeld Street. I want to look at whether they’ve furnished that penthouse.”
“You’re sure going through a lot of effort for a childhood friend,” I comment.
Caleb opens his laptop, not saying anything.
So, I add, “If you ask me, women are just a lot of trouble. Better to keep them at an arm’s length.”
“Good thing I didn’t ask for your opinion then,” Caleb retorts and then looks up. “Eyes on the road, Duke.”
Duke, a name my mother gave me when I was born. She never gave me a surname, refusing to give me any link to the man who had sired me. She raised me to be respectful. A dark skinned boy who had roamed the streets with his friends while she cleaned toilets to put a roof over my head and some food on the table.
She had been a good mother, a woman who’d tried to impart all her values to me. A woman who had bled to death in my arms because of one wrong decision I had made, and was the reason why I had gone to prison, avenging her death.
“You’ll like Kendall,” Caleb says, not looking up from his work.
I shrug. “I’m done with women. I’ve waited for the right woman for years and look where that got me.”
Caleb snorts as we round the corner. “You won’t find them on the corner of the street after midnight.”
I shut up at that.
Caleb knows my past and while the scars on my heart have long since healed…I’ve never met a woman who can take my breath away. Seeing Caleb’s obsession with this woman from his past is a strange sight but I know she has always been the sole focus of everything he does. I have to wonder if he knows how deeply in love he is. He denies it, calling it ‘repaying a favor’ but I know a man in love when I see one.
It’s a pity how the woman he’s fantasizing about was in the past. Who knows what she’s like now. Over these past few years, I can safely call Caleb my closest friend. I don’t want to see him hurt.
As the car rolls up to the curb of the apartment building that Caleb owns, I sigh, “Well, let’s go see what the designers have done with the place.”
It takes an hour’s inspection for Caleb to be satisfied and I still feel disbelief. “I can’t believe you bought an entire building just so you could give the penthouse to your girlfriend,” I call out from where I’m lazing on the couch, one arm thrown over the back, flicking through the channels.
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Caleb wanders into the room. “And this was the only building on sale that has a good view of the city. Also, I thought I told you to check the wiring.”
I gesture towards the television with the remote, “The TV’s working.”
Caleb just gives me a deadpan stare.
I blink, not intimidated. “I don’t see why you’re doing a check for the apartment when you have people for that.”
He doesn’t reply and just moves on.
I know the guy has a list in his head and I roll my eyes, sinking deeper into the couch.
Kendall is not as quiet as Caleb initially described her to be.
The woman has sharp eyes and she takes in everything but when Caleb dragged her to the car to go shopping, she looked out of it.
All, while my friend? who thinks talking is a waste of time? is speaking at her while she doesn’t respond.
I have to wonder if he’s finally lost his mind when I see signs of awareness on the woman’s face as if she’s coming out of a daze or a long sleep.
She’s kind of sweet and down to earth but I understand what Caleb meant when he said she looked malnourished. My job description is the designated chauffeur, so I drive them around as he feeds her and buys her clothes and shoes. I’ve never known the man to spend so much money in one day unless it was a business related thing but he’s splurging on the bewildered Kendall and I’ve never seen him look this satisfied since I’ve known him.
The real issue comes? of course, when we get to her neighborhood? the place is one of the worst areas to live.
I glance at Kendall before meeting Caleb’s gaze and giving a small nod.
We’re going to have to be careful.
She’s embarrassed. This much is obvious.
She obviously has no idea that we’ve seen worse and experienced worse.
Caleb, shifty bastard that he is, offers to carry her bags upstairs.
Like hell, I’m going to let him go alone into that dingy looking apartment complex.
He follows Kendall.
I pick up everything else and feeling the comfortable weight of my gun against my back, I follow them upstairs. I hear them talking amongst themselves, a few steps from me and I hear a cry and the bags are dropping from my hands as I reach for the gun. Alarm bells are going off in my head when Caleb shows me his hands, his head shaking slightly.
I see the glimpse of a naked child before I retreat down the steps to grab the bags I left. By the time, I enter the shabby looking apartment, I see a sulking child who’s carrying a wet towel in his hands while a red faced Kendall is explaining something to Caleb.
”Hey, kid.” I greet the boy.
