Keep it," Desmond Booker said, sliding the envelope back across the table. Inside were $900, almost exactly what the black single father needed to repair his failing truck. Celeste Rowan, a millionaire accustomed to men chasing her wealth, stared at him in disbelief. She had invited him to stand beside her at a family gala, and thought paying him for the time he would lose was fair. Desmond Booker picked up his keys and met her eyes.
You can pay me when you need an electrician. Don't pay me when you need someone beside you. Then he walked away. Every other man seemed desperate to get closer to Celeste. Why was the one man who needed her money most the only one willing to leave?
Now, let's go back to where this began several weeks earlier before either Desmond or Celeste understood what that envelope would come to mean. Desmond Booker was awake before his alarm. The apartment was still dark when he stepped into the kitchen and found a thin line of water shining beneath the faucet. He tightened the handle until the drip slowed, then looked toward the small stack of mail beside the fruit bowl. One envelope came from the property office.
Another came from Tessa's orthodontist. Beneath them sat the brochure Victor Sloan had given him for a supervisory training program Desmond had postponed twice already. He turned the envelopes face down before his daughter entered the room. Tessa came in wearing an oversized school sweatshirt and carrying the small wheeled robot she had been building for weeks. A sensor dangled from the front by two colored wires.
Desmond reached instinctively toward it and she pulled the robot against her chest. Don't touch it. Desmond poured coffee into his dented travel mug. I wasn't touching anything. Tessa narrowed her eyes.
You were thinking about touching it. Thinking is still legal in this apartment. Barely. She set the robot carefully on the kitchen table and began packing her school bag while Desmond opened the refrigerator. Their apartment was clean, warm, and smaller than he wanted for the two of them.
It was not a place he was ashamed of. It was simply a place where every expense had to wait its turn. The rent had risen by $175 that month. The orthodontist needed a deposit of $1,500 before beginning Tessa's treatment. Desmond had managed to save part of it, but the rest was sitting somewhere behind a truck he knew needed work and the training program that could finally move him from senior electrician into a foreman position.
Victor had told him several times that he was ready. Desmond always answered the same way, "Soon. " He had been saying soon for almost a year. Tessa zipped her backpack and looked at him. "You remember tonight? " Desmond raised an eyebrow. Tonight.
She stared at him until he smiled. 7:10. Final robotics run. And I'll be there. Not 7:20.
7:10. Not 7:15. Desmond pointed toward the front door. Go before I start charging you utilities. Tessa grinned, lifted the robot, and headed out.
By 7 that morning, Desmond's truck needed three turns of the key before the engine finally caught. He sat behind the wheel, listening to the rough idle, and rested both hands on the steering wheel. "One problem at a time," he murmured. It was the rule he lived by, partly because it was practical, and partly because looking at every problem at once made the weight of them feel heavier than he was willing to admit. Across town, Celeste Rowan was already dealing with more than one problem at a time.