Kim’s list of things she’d rather do instead of opening the front door was longer than the tall fence that enclosed her entire property. Rain pelted down outside, a fresh band of storms predicted to taper off by lunchtime. Or so claimed the fleets of regional weather forecasters, who as a collective seemed to at last be getting some much-needed sleep. A raft of forecasters? An index of forecasters? The correct collective noun eluded her. Likely because one didn’t exist. But after Houston’s unprecedented and devastating floods, she thought it was about time someone developed one.
The doorbell cling-clanged again, and Kim shoved away from her desk to stop the noise. Probably she should have checked her virtual assistant’s message to remember who exactly was standing there waiting for her. The plethora of beveled and leaded glass in the door turned him—she remembered it was a man—into a fractured, splintered mass looming on her porch.
“On my way,” she called out, in case she was as obscured to him as he was to her. A flurry of flapping resolved, as she unlatched the deadbolt, into a man emerging from his dripping rain poncho.
“Kim-ly Phan?” He shook dry his outerwear before wiping a hand on his jeans then offering it to her. She took it and added a layer to her surprise. First he’d pronounced her name correctly—in person and online both she too often got called Kimmy—then he’d managed to possess warm, dry fingers despite the raging rain and his general bedraggled appearance.
Cute, but bedraggled. He had some of that same frenetic energy as the fleet of forecasters after the past week of watching the hurricane approach the city, then hit, then stall out and deluge their coast. A level of internal vibration and coffee-fueled focus she remembered all too well herself, from her hackathon days. Behind the nerdish wire glasses he likely wasn’t blinking those sharp brown eyes quite enough. She suppressed the ridiculous urge to offer him a glass of water and a place to nap. Instead she waved him in.
“You can call me Kim. Can I take your coat?”
He shook his head even as he handed it over. “Tomás Mireles, DFPS. Thanks for getting this meeting set up so fast.”
“It wasn’t me, it was my assistant.”
His hair was getting flatter by the second. Like the manifestation of his inability to glower at how brusque she was being. Like his open disapproval would mess up the deal, so the rain snaking through his slight curls was making the point for him. Well, she didn’t want to be doing this, so why should she hide the fact?
As usual, an imaginary scolding from one of her relatives forced a smile to her face. She opened the front hall closet—another space she hadn’t gotten around to occupying with anything of her own. Not even a hanger for his poncho, so she flung it over the clothing rod and propped his umbrella in the corner. He made half a fuss until she pointed out that the polished marble floors wouldn’t begin to suffer from the odd puddle or two. She didn’t mention, because that would be crass, that she’d take any excuse to redecorate her entirely too Versailles-by-way-of-Tokyo entryway. Averting her eyes from the gold-veined marble and gleaming chrome fittings, she led Tomás into her study.
Almost by decree, every conversation with every resident of the Texas Gulf Coast now began with, “Were you affected by the flooding?” She’d answered the question in person and via text and over social media and during the god-awful conference call after she’d been roped into this foster home plan, so she figured Tomás knew all about her status. She asked about his.
“I was fine, thank you. My apartment is on the second floor and our parking lot only got a few inches.” As he lifted off the messenger bag slung across his torso, Kim caught herself ogling the revealed strip of skin at his hip. She didn’t think he spied her, but she avoided his eye as he smoothed his fitted button-down. Which just gave her time to notice the rosy-pink undertone of what could be a blush. Or could be the way the light hit him now they weren’t under that cold waterfall of a chandelier in the entryway.
“Do you want anything to drink? Coffee? Water?” She gestured him to a chair.
“I’ve think we’ve all had quite enough of water this past week, correct?”
She lifted her chin to acknowledge the joke. “It’s been something, all right.”
The hurricane’s effects were off the charts bad, in truth. So much of Houston was still under water, with flooding and power outages and tornadoes and thousands of people evacuated from their homes. The repairs and clean up would go on for months, and the analyses of what to change, for years. Newscasters had abandoned hyperbolic speculation in favor of grim reality, and everyday people like Kim were taking to understatement to help process the overwhelming nature of it all.
At least, that’s why she did it. Not her job to explain why anyone else would joke about the disaster.
Tomás sighed, pulling a tablet out of his bag. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d love a coffee. I think this is the first time I’ve sat down somewhere dry in days, and I just realized I skipped lunch.”
Kim pushed the intercom button. When Eveline picked up, she asked for tea and coffee and a couple of bánh mì. “Any preferences?”
He closed his gaping mouth. Smiled, polite, and not at all like he found her beyond privileged. “Anything is fine, thanks. Though I’m not really one for seafood.”
“Sausage? Chicken?”
“Sure. Either.”
“A couple with that grilled chicken would be perfect, Eveline.”
“You got it,” her housekeeper replied.
“Thanks. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“No, stay there. I’m doing inventory and the dining table is a jumble. I’ll bring it in to you.”
“Sure?”
Eveline sounded all kinds of exasperated. “If I have to tidy things away to seat you, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
Kim laughed. “You terrify me.”
“Good.”
“Okay. We await you in my study.” They disconnected.
Tomás looked up from his screen. “Just updating my supervisor I'm here and we're getting started.”
She slid her cell onto the desktop and consulted the latest texts from her virtual assistant. “Right. So. What do you want first? Sheela said you need a tour and to go over some paperwork? Maybe get my signature in blood?”
He was blushing again. Or flushed with anger. Or it was too warm in her house. She always had trouble with the air conditioning in the west-facing rooms, though the zoned air in the north and south wings were—no pun intended—a breeze.
He cleared his throat. Tapped at his pad. “No blood, though I do need your fingerprints. And does Eveline work here?”
She nodded.
“Live here?”
“No. I mean, there’s a guest apartment over the pool house, and sometimes she stays if we’re pulling an overnight session—if my team is, that is. But normally she’s here five or six hours a day.”
“Right.” He was tapping again. More notes, she supposed. He pushed his glasses up his nose then looked up at her. “She’s okay for us to fingerprint?”
Something in his tone stopped her from saying yes without thinking. She regarded him. “Oh. You mean is she undocumented or criminal?”
His noncommittal silence was an answer.
“She’s been on my payroll for three years. I think she’s fine, but you can ask her. Or I can. If she’s worried about it, is that a problem? I suppose she can take a holiday until this is all over.”
Apparently hers wasn’t a good enough answer. He bristled. It was probably not to her credit that she noticed how bristling made his chest so expansive and his chin so firm under his short, neat beard. But she hadn’t asked for any of this, not really, and if her bad responses caused this whole thing to tank before it got off the ground, she wasn’t going to put up a fuss. Especially if she didn’t come off looking like the jerk.
The doorbell cling-clanged again, and Kim shoved away from her desk to stop the noise. Probably she should have checked her virtual assistant’s message to remember who exactly was standing there waiting for her. The plethora of beveled and leaded glass in the door turned him—she remembered it was a man—into a fractured, splintered mass looming on her porch.
“On my way,” she called out, in case she was as obscured to him as he was to her. A flurry of flapping resolved, as she unlatched the deadbolt, into a man emerging from his dripping rain poncho.
“Kim-ly Phan?” He shook dry his outerwear before wiping a hand on his jeans then offering it to her. She took it and added a layer to her surprise. First he’d pronounced her name correctly—in person and online both she too often got called Kimmy—then he’d managed to possess warm, dry fingers despite the raging rain and his general bedraggled appearance.
Cute, but bedraggled. He had some of that same frenetic energy as the fleet of forecasters after the past week of watching the hurricane approach the city, then hit, then stall out and deluge their coast. A level of internal vibration and coffee-fueled focus she remembered all too well herself, from her hackathon days. Behind the nerdish wire glasses he likely wasn’t blinking those sharp brown eyes quite enough. She suppressed the ridiculous urge to offer him a glass of water and a place to nap. Instead she waved him in.
“You can call me Kim. Can I take your coat?”
He shook his head even as he handed it over. “Tomás Mireles, DFPS. Thanks for getting this meeting set up so fast.”
“It wasn’t me, it was my assistant.”
His hair was getting flatter by the second. Like the manifestation of his inability to glower at how brusque she was being. Like his open disapproval would mess up the deal, so the rain snaking through his slight curls was making the point for him. Well, she didn’t want to be doing this, so why should she hide the fact?
As usual, an imaginary scolding from one of her relatives forced a smile to her face. She opened the front hall closet—another space she hadn’t gotten around to occupying with anything of her own. Not even a hanger for his poncho, so she flung it over the clothing rod and propped his umbrella in the corner. He made half a fuss until she pointed out that the polished marble floors wouldn’t begin to suffer from the odd puddle or two. She didn’t mention, because that would be crass, that she’d take any excuse to redecorate her entirely too Versailles-by-way-of-Tokyo entryway. Averting her eyes from the gold-veined marble and gleaming chrome fittings, she led Tomás into her study.
Almost by decree, every conversation with every resident of the Texas Gulf Coast now began with, “Were you affected by the flooding?” She’d answered the question in person and via text and over social media and during the god-awful conference call after she’d been roped into this foster home plan, so she figured Tomás knew all about her status. She asked about his.
“I was fine, thank you. My apartment is on the second floor and our parking lot only got a few inches.” As he lifted off the messenger bag slung across his torso, Kim caught herself ogling the revealed strip of skin at his hip. She didn’t think he spied her, but she avoided his eye as he smoothed his fitted button-down. Which just gave her time to notice the rosy-pink undertone of what could be a blush. Or could be the way the light hit him now they weren’t under that cold waterfall of a chandelier in the entryway.
“Do you want anything to drink? Coffee? Water?” She gestured him to a chair.
“I’ve think we’ve all had quite enough of water this past week, correct?”
She lifted her chin to acknowledge the joke. “It’s been something, all right.”
The hurricane’s effects were off the charts bad, in truth. So much of Houston was still under water, with flooding and power outages and tornadoes and thousands of people evacuated from their homes. The repairs and clean up would go on for months, and the analyses of what to change, for years. Newscasters had abandoned hyperbolic speculation in favor of grim reality, and everyday people like Kim were taking to understatement to help process the overwhelming nature of it all.
At least, that’s why she did it. Not her job to explain why anyone else would joke about the disaster.
Tomás sighed, pulling a tablet out of his bag. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d love a coffee. I think this is the first time I’ve sat down somewhere dry in days, and I just realized I skipped lunch.”
Kim pushed the intercom button. When Eveline picked up, she asked for tea and coffee and a couple of bánh mì. “Any preferences?”
He closed his gaping mouth. Smiled, polite, and not at all like he found her beyond privileged. “Anything is fine, thanks. Though I’m not really one for seafood.”
“Sausage? Chicken?”
“Sure. Either.”
“A couple with that grilled chicken would be perfect, Eveline.”
“You got it,” her housekeeper replied.
“Thanks. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“No, stay there. I’m doing inventory and the dining table is a jumble. I’ll bring it in to you.”
“Sure?”
Eveline sounded all kinds of exasperated. “If I have to tidy things away to seat you, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
Kim laughed. “You terrify me.”
“Good.”
“Okay. We await you in my study.” They disconnected.
Tomás looked up from his screen. “Just updating my supervisor I'm here and we're getting started.”
She slid her cell onto the desktop and consulted the latest texts from her virtual assistant. “Right. So. What do you want first? Sheela said you need a tour and to go over some paperwork? Maybe get my signature in blood?”
He was blushing again. Or flushed with anger. Or it was too warm in her house. She always had trouble with the air conditioning in the west-facing rooms, though the zoned air in the north and south wings were—no pun intended—a breeze.
He cleared his throat. Tapped at his pad. “No blood, though I do need your fingerprints. And does Eveline work here?”
She nodded.
“Live here?”
“No. I mean, there’s a guest apartment over the pool house, and sometimes she stays if we’re pulling an overnight session—if my team is, that is. But normally she’s here five or six hours a day.”
“Right.” He was tapping again. More notes, she supposed. He pushed his glasses up his nose then looked up at her. “She’s okay for us to fingerprint?”
Something in his tone stopped her from saying yes without thinking. She regarded him. “Oh. You mean is she undocumented or criminal?”
His noncommittal silence was an answer.
“She’s been on my payroll for three years. I think she’s fine, but you can ask her. Or I can. If she’s worried about it, is that a problem? I suppose she can take a holiday until this is all over.”
Apparently hers wasn’t a good enough answer. He bristled. It was probably not to her credit that she noticed how bristling made his chest so expansive and his chin so firm under his short, neat beard. But she hadn’t asked for any of this, not really, and if her bad responses caused this whole thing to tank before it got off the ground, she wasn’t going to put up a fuss. Especially if she didn’t come off looking like the jerk.