Chapter 6 - The Jefferson Lease
The townhome on Jefferson Avenue smelled of fresh paint, new wool rugs, and the sharp, clean scent of cedarwood from the built-in cabinets.
At 8:30 PM, Emily sat on the wide window seat in the second-floor master bedroom, her legs tucked beneath her flannel pajamas, watching Leo sleep in the smaller room across the hall. He was tucked under a thick navy blue comforter that had a pattern of small silver stars across the cotton—a blanket that Chloe Ashford had personally picked out from the corporate hospitality storage room before they left the tower.
"He likes the stars, Emily," Chloe had said, her small hand holding Emily’s finger as they walked through the executive garage that afternoon. "When my mommy went to the stars, daddy told me they’re very warm if you have the right blanket."
Now, the boy was warm. His small red boots were lined up neatly by the closet door, their soles scrubbed clean of the Detroit mud.
A soft knock sounded at the front door downstairs.
Emily’s body went instantly rigid—an automatic defensive reflex honed by months of expecting landlords, state inspectors, or process servers. She crept down the hardwood stairs, her bare feet silent on the oak, and looked through the glass peephole.
Adrian Ashford stood on the brick porch. He wasn't wearing his executive overcoat; he wore a thick gray cashmere sweater and dark jeans, a brown paper bag from a local Italian delicatessen tucked under his arm. Behind him, parked at the curb, his black SUV sat with its lights off, Marcus Lane nowhere to be seen.
Emily opened the door three inches. "Mr. Ashford? It’s late. If there’s an issue with the compliance filing for Hub Four—"
"There’s no issue with the filing, Emily," Adrian said, his breath blooming in a small white cloud in the porch light. He lifted the paper bag. "I realized your kitchen wouldn't be stocked until the weekend. The deli down on Woodward makes a lasagna that doesn't taste like cardboard. I brought enough for two, if you haven't eaten yet."
Emily looked at the bag, then looked past his shoulder at the quiet street. The neighborhood was silent, the old brick streetlamps throwing a soft, golden glow across the snow-dusted sidewalks. It was the kind of peace she hadn't felt since her sister was sixteen years old, singing radio songs in their mother’s kitchen before the fever took the old lady.
"Leo’s asleep," she said, pulling the door open to let him in.
"Chloe’s with her grandmother in Grosse Pointe," Adrian said, stepping into the warm foyer and kicking the snow from his boots. "She wanted to come, but I told her you were still setting up the perimeter."
They sat at the small granite island in the kitchen, eating the lasagna straight from the aluminum container with plastic forks. For twenty minutes, neither of them spoke about Ashford Freight, Dennis Greer, or the Michigan family court. They spoke about the radiator in the Lincoln Street apartment that used to bang like a broken drum at three in the morning, and the old stray cat that lived under the loading dock at Hub Four who only ate the premium salmon bits from Pete’s lunchbox.
"He’s been there since nineteen-ninety-nine, I think," Emily said, a real laugh escaping her throat—the low, musical sound Adrian had heard through the mirror of his SUV the night before. "We called him the Supervisor before Dennis took over. He was much better at checking the seals."
Adrian watched her over his fork, his eyes tracking the way the golden light from the kitchen pendants caught the dark strands of her hair. Without the burgundy work shirt and the exhaustion of the sorting floor, she looked younger, her shoulders dropping into a natural, fluid grace that reminded him of the girls he used to see at the sailing clubs in Chicago before he became a name on a letterhead.
"Why didn't you leave, Emily?" he asked quietly, setting his fork down on the marble. "Six years in freight prep with a degree in logistics from Wayne State. Marcus showed me your transcript. You had a three-point-eight GPA. You could have gone to FedEx or DHL five years ago."
Emily’s smile faded into something smaller, tighter. She looked down at the silver ring on her finger—her sister’s ring, a cheap piece of turquoise set in pewter.
"Sarah was sick for three years before her heart gave out, Adrian," she said, using his first name for the first time without noticing. "She didn't have insurance, and the treatments at the county clinic required her to be at the pharmacy by five AM every Tuesday. If I took a corporate tract job in Chicago or Grand Rapids, who was going to drive her? Who was going to stay with Leo when she couldn't get out of bed?"
She lifted her eyes, her gaze clear, level, and entirely devoid of regret.
May you like
"Sometimes you stay in the mud because that’s where the people you love are standing," she said. "You don't look at the sky when someone’s drowning at your feet."
Adrian reached out his hand across the granite island, his long fingers hovering an inch away from hers before settling onto the cold stone. "The sky’s clear tonight, Emily," he said, his voice dropping into that deep, rhythmic cadence that made her heart skip a beat against her ribs. "You can look up now."
