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“He got you, I guess. But the rest of them, they worked for my father.” He was suddenly very somber. “They want me to be him, so I suppose they treat me the same way they treated him. They... they miss him.”
“Did something happen to him?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if it was place to ask such a question, but Mr. Miller- or rather, Luke- seemed unexpectedly approachable.
Luke nodded sadly. “He died; half a decade ago, nearly to the day.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I meant it.
“Thanks. I hope you appreciate your father; I’m sure he appreciates you.”
My eyes flickered downward, but I didn’t say anything about it.
“Dammit,” he swore under his breath. “I’m sorry. He’s gone too, isn’t he?”
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bsp; I nodded. “When I was just a little girl.”
“How? If you don’t mind.”
I shook my head. “Car accident.”
He opened the bottle of wine and poured some into the glass. He handed that to me and kept the bottle to himself. “To fathers, wherever they may be.” He pointed the bottle’s neck towards my glass, and we clinked them together. “Eat, please,” he said, pointing towards the tray.
“I don’t have anything to eat with.”
“Are you kidding? Rene always gives me a dozen pieces of silverware, no matter what I’m eating. Seriously, I don’t see why I need ten forks every meal.”
I laughed. I was glad I wasn’t the only one that couldn’t figure it out.
We shared his meal- which, as I expected, was incredible. The meat was tender and juicy; it seemed to melt in my mouth. The rest of it seemed to form more of an experience than a meal. That experience extended past the meal to the man I was sharing it with.
He told me stories of his travels overseas. Exotic places and boundless adventure. He spoke, and I hung on every word. And when I spoke, he did the same. Even though he had lived a life that I had never ever imagined, he still listened to my stories as though they mattered. He made me feel interesting.
“Luke,” I began, the wine helping me to accept his direction. “You’re nothing like I imagined you’d be.”
“What did you imagine?”
I thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. But not you.”
“Thanks.”
There was a moment, then. A very brief moment. Our eyes met; I couldn’t tell if it was the wine or something more, but I could feel something between us. It was instant and undeniable. He leaned in, just a few inches. He opened his mouth to speak, and his phone rang instead.
Luke snapped back to reality. The moment was gone. He glanced at his phone, frowning at the display. “Will you excuse me?” he asked.
Are you kidding? I thought to myself. You’re the boss. And then I realized he was actually waiting for an answer. Outwardly, I only nodded.
Luke practically jumped out of his chair and stormed towards the door, alternating between shouting into the phone in Chinese and shouting for Tyler in English. Curiosity, as it often did, became my master. I maneuvered around the desk, wondering what exactly had been so vexing for him. Immediately, I understood what was so important.
There were maps. Charts. Purchase requests. Mortgages. All from Nebraska. I flipped through the pages, reading through the summaries and proposals. It wasn’t the town that Luke was after; it was the resources beneath it. Untapped and previously unmapped oil reserves, easily worth millions. Maybe more. No wonder he wanted it so badly.
Millions to him, but potentially tens of thousands to me. A drop in the bucket for Luke, but more money than I’d ever had in my life. All I had to do was pass that information to George; recite some of the facts and figures I had read, maybe, and the money was mine. I carefully set the papers back where I had found them, ashamed at just how tempted I was. Ashamed, but tempted nonetheless.
When Luke came back, he was much calmer than he had been when he left.
“Sorry,” he said, his smile disarming and refreshing at the same time. “Business. Now, I believe we were talking about me?”
It took me a moment to realize he was joking. Once again, he made me laugh.
