Gwen poked her head around the corner. “Stephanie?” She walked into the room with her arms open. “Hey, baby, I thought that was your voice.”
Smiling, she got up to give Gwen a hug. Well, she got up and then she bent down. Coming in at around five-three, Gwen made her feel like an Amazon whenever they were together, especially when Stephanie wore heels that increased her five-six height.
After their embrace ended, Stephanie said, “I hope I’m not interrupting your dinner plans.”
Gwen smiled. “Child, please. I hope you know you’re staying to eat with us.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to intrude.”
Gwen looked at her husband. “Is she serious?” Turning back to Stephanie, she pointed a finger at her. “You’re staying.” Then, she disappeared into the kitchen again.
Stephanie sat back down and laughed. “I guess that means I’m staying.”
“Good.” His expression clouded over. “Then you’ll have plenty of time to tell me what’s been happening at the station.”
Her chest tightened. His eyes held a sadness that, try as he might to hide it, was plain to see. “Don’t worry,” she said quietly. “You’ll not only get your job back, you’ll get the one you were supposed to have.”
He lifted his eyebrow. “What’s that mean?”
She shrugged.
Groaning, he ran his hands down his face. “Please tell me you don’t have a plan, kid.”
She crossed her arms. “I may or may not have a plan.”
He groaned again. “God,” he said as he looked up at the ceiling. “She has a plan.”
Stephanie smothered a grin. “I plan to take the GM spot when I’m offered it and then...well,” she looked around, “let’s just say I’ll be putting some immediate changes in place.”
“When you’re offered it?” Kenny chuckled. “You’re not insecure when it comes to your job, are you?”
“Hey, I’m good.”
He nodded. “You’re the best. You definitely could have handled my old job. But,” he added, “Executive Assistant is a great opportunity.”
“Yeah, I realize that now. I got to meet with some of corporate this morning and—”
“They were back in town?”
Giving him a sly smile, she shook her head. “I was in Beverly Hills, thank you very much.” When his jaw dropped, she laughed. “That’s not even the best part. I got to tell them my ideas about a format change.” Though she’d talked his ears off with her ideas over the years, and it had been fun to dream, she’d never expected to get anywhere when it came to making them a reality.
He leaned forward. “And?”
“They liked them.”
“Yes!” He shook his fist in the air. “Way to go. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
Bouncing in her seat, she clapped like a giddy little kid who’d just been told they were getting what they wanted most for Christmas. Objectively, she knew she looked ridiculous. But it was nice.
This must have been what it would feel like to have a dad—not a father, but a dad. Someone who celebrated your successes as if they were his own, someone who looked out for you, and loved you no matter what, someone you could count on without fail. She was glad to face it: Kenny was her dad.
She didn’t realize she was still smiling at him until he asked, “What are you grinning about over there?”
Stephanie tilted her head. “You’re my dad.”
“Huh?”
She pointed. “You’re my dad.”
He chuckled. “I must have slept with an extremely white woman for you to have come out so light.”
Stephanie laughed. “No, Gwen’s my mom, of course.” She could have two black parents if she wanted.
He smiled. “Naturally.”
“And that’s why I’m definitely getting you back on at the station. A girl’s gotta have her dad around, after all.”
The smile slowly left his face. “I won’t be coming back to the station,” he said softly.
She waved him off. “I’ll handle Chance. That bastard made the biggest mistake of his life when he fired you, and I’m damn well going to make him live to rue the day.”
“Why are you still being so hard on that man?”
Stephanie widened her eyes. “You’re kidding, right? That asshole fired you.”
He sighed. “Let it go, kid.”
“I’ll never let that go.”
He came over to sit next to her. Clasping his hands between his knees, he stared at the floor. “He didn’t fire me, okay?”
Leaning closer, Stephanie frowned. “I’m sorry. What?”
“I wanted out.”
She straightened up. More of this ‘I’m fine with it, really,’ bullshit. “Kenny, drop it. We both know you loved that job. There’s no way you ever would have just quit—”
“I did,” he said quietly.
“What?” Her frustration turned to confusion. “Seriously? Why?”
“I have my reasons, all right? Anyway, all you need to know is that Mr. Valentine didn’t fire me. I’d called corporate the week before and asked who would be stepping in as interim GM. They gave me his name and contact information. I emailed him and asked him to give me a call. He did.”
She shook her head slowly. “Chance never said anything, though. All the times I told him what an asshole he was for firing you...”
“I told him I had reasons for leaving. I asked him to leave it at that. He, unlike you, knows how to listen.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t want anyone to know my business so I kept my mouth shut, knowing everyone would assume I’d just been laid off. Mr. Valentine, bless him, went along with it, even though he caught a lot of slack from,” he gave her a pointed look, “certain staff.” He frowned. “Wait...you call him Chance?”
Stephanie stared into space while she digested what she’d just been told. The primary reason she’d hated Chance’s guts in the first place no longer existed. Her righteous anger dissipated all at once. She felt as deflated as a popped balloon—but relieved and grateful.
Kenny leaned over to bump her with his shoulder. “You call him Chance?” he repeated.
She purposely ignored the implication. “That is the man’s name.”
“He’s your direct superior.”
“So were you. I never called you Mr. Thomas, did I?”
“No, but I’m your dad.”
She smiled.
“You’re not answering me, kid.”
“Other than hating him for firing you and—” Plotting my revenge, she finished mentally. Kenny didn’t need to know how she’d decided to make Chance look inept by underhandedly working against him at the station. She cleared her throat. “—or so I thought, he’s been...okay.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Oh my God,” he said slowly. “You like him.”
She shook her head.
After staring at her a few moments, he narrowed his eyes. “You more than like him, don’t you?” He turned and looked straight ahead. “Your dad didn’t see that coming,” he muttered to himself.
“I’m not even going to justify that with a response.”
“Because there’s nothing you can say,” he said, grinning. “The kid’s falling in—”
Stephanie held up her hand. “Don’t even go there.” Dropping her hand, she tilted her head. “Why did you leave, Kenny?” she asked softly.
He rolled his shoulders. “It’s personal.”
Looking into his eyes, she suddenly feared the worst. Her voice shook with emotion when she said, “But you’re my dad.”
They stared at each other for several seconds. Finally, he looked away. “I need to have surgery, kid.”
A trickle of unease made its way from her mind to her stomach, where it immediately transformed into a full-blown wave. She forced herself to keep breathing normally. “What kind of surgery?”
He expelled a long breath. “Heart bypass.”
Her own heart rate
skyrocketed. “What?” she cried.
“I have a few blocked arteries and—well, let’s just say I need to go under the knife.”
She tried to stay calm. “Okay, so you have surgery, you take time to recover, and then you come back to KMLP.”
Kenny shook his head. “I’m not having the surgery.”
“Shit, man, this is no time for the stubborn routine. This is your life we’re talking about.”
He gave her a sad smile. “I know, kid. I know. It’s not that I don’t want the surgery. I just...I can’t afford it.”
Stephanie sat there, numb, only half listening as Kenny explained that even with insurance, the cost of surgery would be too much for him to take on while he was still sending one of his children through college. That’s how amazing, and stubborn, her dad was—he’d risk his life to make sure his child had a better chance at one.
Her biological one couldn’t have even been bothered to put down the bottle long enough to give her a goddamned hug. Stephanie’s chin began to quiver a tiny bit and she pressed her lips together to stop it. She stared ahead at the chair he’d been sitting in earlier. Finally, she asked, “So what do we do?” She glanced at him. “There’s something...there has to be.”
“I’m on medication and...well,” he shrugged.
“That’s it?” she asked in disbelief.
“There’s nothing else,” he said wearily.
“So what happens?”
“Eventually, the blockages will cause me to have a heart attack. How many, who knows? The only certain thing is, one of them—I won’t come back from.”
Stephanie crossed her arms and tapped her foot furiously, her eyes stinging like mad. “So you’re just waiting around to die?”
“No, kid. I’m finally taking the time to live while I can.” Kenny pulled her arm free and kissed the back of her hand. “As your dad, I advise you to do the same.”
Chapter 26
Dinner at the Thomas home passed in a blur. She was grateful their kids had come over; there was no way she could have handled being the lone guest. All she’d been able to think about was the fact that Kenny was sick, and Chance wasn’t the asshole she’d always thought he was.
The thoughts mingled and overlapped until she wasn’t even able to fake following the conversation going on around the dinner table.
The only things she did manage to notice were the loving looks Kenny and Gwen had shared, and the hand squeezes they gave one another. How would Gwen cope if something were to happen to him? That man was everything to her.
As Stephanie drove home, her sadness finally gave way to a familiar emotion—anger.
Why the fuck did things like this have to happen to people like Kenny and Gwen? There were plenty of slime buckets out there just begging for a taste of something horrible. The Claytons, the Carlene-Carlys, the Donnas.
By the time she stomped into her house, she was shaking. After yanking off her coat, she slammed the door. A slight pounding had begun behind her eyes, and it was getting stronger. She pressed her trembling hands together as she paced the floor.
She’d known she thought of Kenny as a father figure, but she’d only just realized tonight how much he meant to her. And now she would lose him too.
The knock on the door interrupted her thoughts, and her pacing, which only pissed her off more. She stormed over and snatched it open. “What?” she snapped.
Chance stood there, scowling at her.
She slammed the door, but he stopped it from shutting in his face by putting his hand to it just in time. He pushed it back open.
“I’m not in the mood for any of your shit, Valentine.” He held up her laptop case. Oh. She snatched it from his hand.
“Thanks, but you could have just brought it to the station in the morning.” She slammed the door once more.
Again, he stopped it mid-slam before stepping into the house.
Dropping the laptop case on the couch, she turned back to face him.
He walked to stand directly in front of her. “That was only part of why I’m here.” Dangerous sparks flashed from those blue-gray eyes. “The real reason is because I wanted to tell you to your face that you can kiss my ass.”
She frowned. “What are you even talking about?”
He pointed at her. “You have got to be the most exasperating person on the fucking planet. I go out of my way to help you—God only knows why—and then you bite my head off.” He held his hands up. “Okay, okay...I should be used to that by now, right? But you went a little overboard when I dropped you off earlier.”
Sighing, she walked away from him. She sat down on the loveseat as he continued his rant.
He crossed his arms. “You call me every name in the book, cuss me out like I’ve never been cussed out before—”
“I always do that,” she said wearily. She was exhausted. For once in her life, she didn’t feel up to a fight. If he wanted to unleash his pent-up fury on her, he could knock himself out. She supposed she deserved it anyway. It turned out that, though he was undeniably a bastard, he wasn’t quite the bastard she’d thought him to be at first.
He marched up to her. “This was ten times worse. I’m getting sick of your tantrums. If I had a brain in my head, I’d have let you quit when you offered.”
Stephanie looked up at him, but said nothing.
“All I wanted was to help you. If you needed to meet with your father alone, you could’ve said that. But no, you had to be secretive. Of course that made me worry. Excuse the hell out of me for not wanting you to go into some random person’s house alone!”
A tiny part of her heart melted at the fact that he worried about her. Another part of her resented it. She wasn’t some helpless little damsel in distress; she could handle herself. She wasn’t used to anyone worrying about her except Kenny. It was a little insulting—and a lot nice.
Chance began to pace. “Why couldn’t you just tell me who he was? Did you think I’d think less of you? I don’t care if your dad’s house could use some repairs. I was worried about you, you nut. And what do I get for that? Treated like crap, yet again. Well, you know what? I’m sick of it. I drove home thinking, ‘Nah, I’m gonna let this go’, but then I thought, ‘Why? Why should I?’”
He squatted down in front of her. “This is it,” he said, looking her straight in the eye. “I’m done with your disrespect.”
Her chin started to quiver as she stared back at him. This was too much. Having her ideas validated by corporate, meeting with her useless biological drunk of a father, finding out Chance wasn’t the ruthless pig she’d thought, finding out she was going to lose her real, though non-biological dad, and...realizing Chance really did care for her.
That was more than enough to deal with in one day. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, but she was about to fall apart now. And damn it to hell, right in front of Valentine.
He took a deep breath. “So...I think it’s best you don’t work—”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Love...” Frowning, Chance leaned in. “Are you crying?”
She held up her hand as she breathed deeply. Then, she shook her head quickly, wanting to deny her emotions. However, the hurried movement only caused the tears to spill down her face.
“The hell?” He leaned in closer. “You’re crying?”
Okay, his disbelief was kind of pissing her off at that point. “I do have tear ducts, you know.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he got up to sit next to her, “but I didn’t think they worked.”
Stephanie gave him a weak punch in the arm before wiping at her eyes.
“What happened?”
The concern in his voice touched her, and her chin trembled again.
“No, no,” he said gently, “don’t do that.” He grabbed her face gently and lifted it, though her gaze remained directed at the floor. “Look at me.”
Finally, she did.
“Tell me.” He dropped his hand from her face
. When she didn’t speak, he continued. “Look, I don’t care that your father has problems—well,” he wrinkled his brow, “that didn’t come out right. I care that he has problems. It’s just...I’m not going to judge you for them. You can talk to me, I swear.”
She gave him a fleeting, shaky smile as more tears fell. “Thanks,” she said, her voice thick. “But Frank’s the least of my worries right now.”
Chance frowned. “What else could possibly have you this upset? I just assumed it had to do with your dad—”
“It does,” she said softly.
“But you just said it didn’t.”
Stephanie brushed more tears away. “Frank’s not my dad.” Sighing, she looked at Chance. “Kenny’s my dad.”
He regarded her for a moment. “Wow. You are really white for a mixed woman.”
She laughed lightly. “Shut up,” she said, bumping her shoulder against his. “You and Kenny would get along.” Her smile fell as she thought about it.
Would have gotten along. She cleared her throat. “I only meant that Kenny’s the only man I’ve ever had in my life who’s treated me like a daughter. Frank is...just some guy who knocked my mother up.”
He nodded. Then, he frowned. “This is why you’re crying?”
“No. It’s just—Kenny’s not doing well and...” Then, her chin started trembling again, and she knew she had to get it out before she totally lost her composure. The words tumbled out; she only hoped they made a lick of sense.
“I needed to see him and I called him so I could come over. After seeing Frank, I just felt... And I see him and there’s Gwen and they’re so perfect together. And then he was so happy for me when I told him I got to meet with corporate and then he told me...he told me...” Her shoulders trembled as she started to cry.
Wrapping his arm around her, Chance pulled her back on the loveseat with him. He stroked her hair as she pressed her face to his chest, sobs shaking her body. “What’s wrong, Love? Tell me.”
Stephanie sniffled and rested her head on his shoulder. “He’s dying,” she said quietly.
Chance on Love Page 17