Mr. H.O.A. by Carina Taylor (readera ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Nola laughed and took the plate I held out to her. "So glad my wisdom will go down in history as mug-wisdom. I've always aspired to greatness. Nice to know I've finally achieved it."

We sat down at the large rectangular table, each sitting on an end. "Does everyone in the community know Mercier? I haven't run into anyone else who knows him."

Nola shifted in her seat. "Actually, I sort of interned for him for a few years."

I sat straight up. "What?"

She grimaced. "Yeah, he did some house flipping, and it was a summer job for me."

"So you do know a lot about him."

She studied her plate. "I thought I knew him better—but turns out I was wrong."

The melancholy mood settled around the table as she seemingly reminisced about her summer job, and I wondered how the heck I'd not realized she knew Mercier. Besides the fact she didn't tell me. Only a small factoid.

She knew Mercier. She could have used her work connection to speak with him.

But when I looked in her face, all I saw was pain. Sometimes the people you admire the most have the greatest power to hurt you. And I found myself not wanting to exploit her connection to the man.

"What happened?" I asked quietly. Though I had a thousand questions I'd like to ask her, I held back.

"He—" she swallowed.

I scooted my chair back from the table and moved to the chair next to her. "Did he hurt you?"

She looked at me in horror. "No! No! Nothing like that."

She reached forward and rested her hand on my arm. "You're very sweet for worrying about me. It was nothing like that. It was more like I had him on a pedestal in my mind, and then he just didn't live up to my expectations. He didn't value his family like I thought he should. And when it came down to it—he was all about the money."

"Most businessmen are." Her sharp glare cut off my chuckle.

"He wasn’t always like that. He started out as a contractor. He was fantastic at custom work and eventually branched out into flipped foreclosures. It escalated from there, and he started buying up real estate."

"Why did you work summers for him?"

She leaned forward and rested her chin in her hands. "I didn't really have an interest in owning or flipping homes, but it was a good job, and he used to be known for all the community work he did. My best friend Riley and I worked together there. In Mercier's spare time, he would work on low-income housing in the community as a way to give back. I've always had an interest in those kinds of things, and I thought it was an excellent way someone of his talents could help other people. Unfortunately, those projects stopped. The more money and property he gained, the less he did for the community. And then he didn't even help Riley, his top intern."

She shook her head. "I'd wanted to emulate his business practices. Find something I was good at and give back with that talent. I guess that's why it hurt so much to see him get wrapped up in the numbers and forget what's important in life."

"And what is important in life?"

She looked at me in surprise. "Loving people, of course. Making a difference in this world. Mattering to someone."

"I imagine you make a big difference in people's lives. You've already made a big difference in my life." By throwing it into utter chaos. "Just because someone else made that choice doesn't mean you have to. Take the good things you learned from Mercier and do those things. But you don't have to stay angry at him; that's only going to steal from you."

"How do you mean?"

"Imagine how much brain space it's taking to stay mad at him."

"Agree to disagree."

I stood up and moved back to my seat. Picking up my fork, I attacked the spaghetti with alacrity.

We ate a few more minutes in silence before Nola spoke. "I'll think about what you said."

I glanced up at her and nodded. "I've known what it's like to hang onto anger. It did me more harm than the other people."

Nola walked into the kitchen and grabbed the plate of garlic bread, bringing it back to the table.

"What do you think the odds are that I can eat this entire plate?" she asked.

"I don't know—it doesn't sound very digestible."

"Oh, very funny. Your dad humor is on point tonight."

I chuckled. "Speaking of kids..."

Her eyes sparkled. "Well, Maya has already planned out her first date with you, so that's nice. I hope you like carousals."

"Love them. And she was adorable. If she asked me out, I wouldn't be able to resist her."

Nola beamed at me and picked up a piece of bread. "Why don't you come meet them sometime? They're always needing more volunteers. It's wonderful and awful at the same time."

"What do you mean?"

"I just mean that a lot of the kids in foster care are coming from traumatic situations. It's awful because I wish I could make that go away for them." She shook her head slowly. "Why can't I change the world with the snap of my fingers?"

I leaned forward and grabbed a piece of bread for myself. "Sounds like you're doing just that with everything you do."

"You think so?"

"I’m sure you are. But you mentioned your friend..."

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. "Riley."

"Yes. First boyfriend?" I asked between gritted teeth.

She shook her head. "She was my best friend."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. It was hard to compete with first loves. And why was I thinking about competing? There was nothing to compete with. There would be no competing.

Nola set down her fork. "Riley had parents who were...well, being neglectful was their best quality. We became friends in the third grade. We stayed close. She was smart. Crazy smart. Good at reading people. She got a full ride scholarship.