The Littlest Boss. Janet Lee Nye

FOUR

      DESHAWN LOUNGED BACK in a chair around the table in the conference room of the Cleaning Crew offices. He’d spent four years of his life working here. He closed his eyes and tried to put himself back in the head of the young man he’d been when he first walked in here, all those years ago. He couldn’t do it. He didn’t fit there anymore.

      What those years had been, for him, was work, hard work. He’d caught a little side-eye, at first, from those who couldn’t see a man in that role. Cleaning houses? But he figured out was that there was a world of difference between just doing the job and doing the job right. You did the job if it was a good day or a bad one. If you were sore or under the weather, you pushed that to the other side of your head and kept going. You learned to see more, to notice, to take pride in that wow in the client’s eyes. Yeah. And the friends he’d made here. The family he’d made.

      He felt at home. There was no other way to say it, was there? He smiled. He liked that, a lot. At home.

      Sadie came in and sat beside him. He smiled at the sight of her huge cup of coffee, steam still rising. Getting between Sadie and her coffee could drop a guy into seriously dire straits.

      “I miss seeing you sitting here,” she said.

      “It feels strange to be here. Like seeing your bedroom from when you were a kid. It’s perfectly the same, but somehow looks and feels completely different.”

      “How are you doing, DeShawn? I know you’re going to say fine, but losing out on your Army commission was a huge blow. Are you really okay?”

      “I am,” he said. He slouched back in his chair, looked up and then back at her. “I know I had a vision of myself traveling the world, building things, experiencing life. It was a hard decision to make, but I’m okay. On a different path is all.”

      “You can still travel.”

      “I know. Stop. Recalibrate. Make a new plan. I’m good. Actually beginning to feel a Divine hand in it. I feel like I’ve come home. Like this is where I belong.”

      “Good. We’re your family. You should be with us.”

      “My mother called me.”

      And, hell. He hadn’t meant to say that. The words just fell out of his mouth without permission. The small part of him that wasn’t stunned into silence by the unexpected announcement was amused by Sadie’s transformation. She went from relaxed and happy to momma grizzly standing over a cub.

      “And?” Just one word, but a word crackling and sparking with little pops of not-so-slight hint of am-I-going-to-have-to-kill-someone around the edges.

      “And I don’t know. It was completely unexpected. I don’t even know how she got my number.”

      “What did she want?”

      Tipping the chair back against the wall, he laced his fingers behind his head. “To tell me she’d been clean and sober for three months. Wanted to talk to me.” He shook his head, still not wanting to believe it ever happened.

      Sadie put her foot on the cross rung of the chair and sent the chair back to the floor with a jarring thud. “Told you not to do that to my chairs. Clean and sober? Three months. She’s probably doing that AA step where you’re supposed to make amends to those you’ve hurt.”

      He stood and pushed the chair slowly back under the table, his fingers gripping the back. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

      Sadie stood and took his hand. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs and talk.”

      It was easier here. Sitting on opposite ends of the couch in the apartment Sadie had built above the office. More like he was talking to his sister than his former boss. “If she is trying to stay sober, then I’m glad for her. That’s no way to live,” he said.

      “But?”

      “But do I have to go back down that road with her? What’s this amends stuff? She reminds me of all the horrible things she did and said? All the times she made Momma G cry? Dragged me out the house to hide me away with her wherever she was living until...until Momma G gave her money. Money for drugs. That’s what Momma G had to give her to get me back.”

      He stood and paced around the living room. It was still right there, always just below the surface. That cool exterior was thin, and all it took was the right trigger—a word, a picture in his head, the whiff of something—to snap it and release all that poison. He’d only been hiding it from himself, pretending he was over it when really, he was just ignoring it. He rubbed at his face with shaky hands and tried to slow the pounding of his heart by taking a few deep breaths.

      “Then what?” he asked quietly with his back to Sadie. “I say I forgive her? And she walks away feeling happy and free? I don’t want to go back there. Mentally. Emotionally. I walked away from all that.”

      He heard Sadie’s footsteps and looked down at his feet. He felt selfish. Petulant. He should be a better person than this. Sadie put her hands on his shoulders.

      “No.” The word was spoken firmly. “You do not owe her that. You don’t have to put yourself through that, DeShawn. That is your right. This mess is hers. You don’t have to help her clean it up. Okay?”

      He felt the anger drain away. His shoulders relaxed under her hands. “Okay,” he said, turning to face her.

      “But,” she said as she looked him in the eyes.

      “Of course there’s a but with you.” He tried to make it a joke. Tried to grin. Because he knew what it was and didn’t want to hear it.

      “Think about it, DeShawn. Don’t dismiss it automatically. You are obviously still angry and hurt, with good reason, but that means it is still affecting you. I had to forgive my mother so I could let go of all those feelings. I’m not saying that is your answer, but think about it, okay? I love you too much to know you are hurting like this.”

      That got a real smile from him. “I’ll think about it, Boss.”

      “Promise?”

      A clatter arose from the kitchen downstairs. Josh and Mickie were back from picking up Ian. Relief flooded him. He shouldn’t have said anything. Sadie was going to hound him until this issue was resolved. “I promise,” he said. “Let’s go see that kiddo. You have to see Josh if there is any snot on Ian’s face. It’s priceless.”

      Sadie scowled. “Ew. Snot? There better not be snot.”

      * * *

      PEEKING DOWN THE HALL, Tiana felt a sense of walking on eggshells. People were either sitting quietly or doing busywork. No one was acknowledging the truth: there were only two patients in the entire ER. A laceration that needed stitches and a migraine. Even for a Sunday night, this was unprecedented. No one dared to utter a word lest the magical spell be broken and an avalanche of critical patients buried them.

      Stepping into Bay Six, Tiana pushed the cart she’d loaded with supplies to the cabinets. Shaking her head impatiently, she began restocking supply drawers. Yeah, it was nice to have a break, but dang! Without the constant flow of adrenaline, her body began to remind her it was two in the morning. Eyelids were heavy. Head all muffled. Thoughts of how much she loved her pillow. It was a great pillow. She missed it right now.

      Kasey Rattigan twirled around in the room’s chair, her ponytail swinging from side to side. “Tell me something,” she said.

      Kasey was her preceptor in the emergency department. Smart, tough, fearless and in possession of a sense of a wicked and black humor, she and Tiana had bonded over a particularly heinous code brown.

      “What?”

      “I don’t know. Something interesting.”

      Tiana snorted out a laugh. “There is nothing remotely interesting in my life,” she said, stacking packages of sterile gauze. “I work, I sleep, I eat.”

      “Let’s