back at him and he was smiling, his green eyes sparkling in the late afternoon sun that shone through the window. “Thank you. No one has ever said that to me before and I appreciate it. I must admit that sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it and if my hard work pays off. While I realize it all is, it’s definitely nice to hear it.”
He leaned over his desk toward me and rubbed his knuckles across my cheek. Fire erupted inside me at his touch. I closed my eyes, unable to deny the sensations his touch brought me.
The sound of his cell phone blaring shattered the moment. I instinctively stood up from the desk and smoothed out my black pencil skirt. I heard Paul curse under his breath as he picked up his phone to see who was calling. Looking at me, he said, “I’m sorry. I have to take this.” I nodded and turned around to give him some privacy. As I got to the door, I heard him answer his phone. “Hey, baby. What’s up?” Realizing it was Casey, disappointment like I’d never felt before punched me in the gut. Shutting his door quietly, I went to my desk. A few minutes later, I heard Paul open his office door. I put a smile on my face so he couldn’t tell I was upset.
“Aly, will you come back in here for a second?” he asked me.
I got up from my chair and went back into his office. He was seated at his desk, looking at his computer screen. When he saw me, he motioned me over with his finger. When I reached him, I glanced over his shoulder at his computer screen. What I saw was an email to him from a name I didn’t recognize.
He looked up at me and I gave him a questioning look. “I just received this email from a Norman Shay. He’s a resident of a neighborhood a few towns over. He recently heard about Pierce Homes and wanted to alert me to the crime rate of his neighborhood, and of the devastation. This is the worst I’ve seen, Aly. Look at the pictures he attached.”
Grabbing a chair so I could sit down and look at the email, my eyes started tearing up when I saw the pictures. Paul was right, this was by far the worst we’d ever seen. When I got to a picture of a small child holding what appeared to be her mother’s hand, standing outside of a dilapidated house, I grabbed a tissue from Paul’s desk. Dabbing at my eyes, I finished scrolling down, then slumped back against my chair. Feeling absolutely ridiculous for being so self-absorbed about my unrequited love for Paul just a few minutes earlier, I raised my eyes to find him looking at me.
“This is why I am so happy you work for me. The tears you’re shedding for the people of this neighborhood, your love and desire to help them, to make their lives a little easier. I need you to help me with this, Aly. We need to help them.”
I nodded as my heart swelled with even more love for this man and his words for me. There was never any doubt that we would help these people. I knew it from the first picture I saw that Mr. Shay had attached.
“I know we just barely secured the last of the funding for the Glendale project, but I don’t think we should wait long to start working on this. Pierce Homes continues to grow and develop and I think we have the men and the funds to begin working on this. These people can’t wait.”
Looking at him, I smiled. “My thoughts exactly. I know we have enough money to start working on this and we definitely have enough men to help start.” I knew that this was the project that would mean the most to us and I hadn’t even seen it in person yet. There was something in the look of the small child in the photo that called out to me and I was determined to help her.
I felt Paul lean back in his chair, and caught his wide smile. “Aly, I think you and I need to take a trip over to this neighborhood and see it for ourselves. We need to meet Mr. Shay and the people of his neighborhood. We need to let them know we received the email and that we’re going to help