“Sure do. My grandson and I…man, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” They walked down to the elevator and got in.
“You’ve just made a friend for life,” Kyla said smiling.
“He’s a good guy.” He lifted her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. They stood quietly the rest of the ride up to her floo
r. The elevator stopped, they walked down the hall and entered her apartment. She let the dogs off their leashes and Sean set up dinner while she changed her clothes.
“Hey baby,” she called out. “Can you come here, I need your help.” She stood in front of the closed door waiting for Sean. As he came around the corner, Winnie and Simon lead the way.
“What’s up?”
“Here.” She opened the door to the guest room, led him inside and stood at the foot of the bed. “What do you think?”
“About?”
“The room.”
He looked around and it was decorated in her style, but it was very masculine. He recognized the headboard, it was from his last collection and the fabric was one she had asked him about. He remembered that she said it was for a new client. He continued looking around and in the corner was a dog bed with “Simon” stitched on the front. And on the bed, a pair of white cotton pajamas.
“What’s going on?”
“I figured, if you have a meeting up town and don’t have time to go home to change or rest up, you could do it here. There’s room in the closet if you want to leave some things and a bathroom so you can freshen up.” He walked over to where she was pointing and saw a white bath robe with his initials “SMP” hanging on a hook, and a toothbrush on the counter. “And since you and Simon are here a lot, I thought Simon might want his own spot to hang out.”
He walked over to the closet and pulled out the dog sweaters hanging there. He tried to hide his smile. “Ky, this is nice, but I don’t think…”
“And my place is closer to the airport, so when we go on trips, you can stay here and not have to get up so early to pick me up.”
“Ky, I don’t know about this.” She handed him the small brown box she’d been holding on to for the past couple of weeks. “What’s this?”
“Open it.”
He pulled the ribbon off the box and opened the lid. His face lit up as he lifted the silver key ring. “Keys…to what?”
She playfully socked him. “The gold key opens the front door and the silver key opens this room.”
He looked at her trying to hold back his smile. “Thank you, but I…”
“Sean, if it makes you feel better, only use the key and room if you want to. Besides, there’s going to be a time when I’ll need you to check on Winnie, or pick something up or drop something off for me.” She smiled as she repeated the words he said to her when he gave her the key to his place.
“I vaguely remember hearing something similar.” He pulled her close and kissed her. “Thank you.”
“What did you bring for dinner?” she asked, as they walked back into the kitchen.
“I went to that Italian place a couple of blocks over and got some spaghetti with meat sauce, linguine with pesto and chicken, salad and garlic knots.”
“Garlic knots…I guess you didn’t plan on kissing me tonight.” He tickled her. “Stop it. Did you get some gelato?”
“Of course.”
They sat down and fixed their plates. He took her hand in his and prayed, “Thank you Father, for this food and for this time of fellowship with my girlfriend. I pray there is nothing in this food that will harm either of our bodies, but that it will nourish and strengthen us so we can do the assignment You have called us to. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Since you said I couldn’t kiss you after eating a garlic knot.” She smiled. He waited a few minutes before asking, “So, are you going to tell me what happened?”
She took a deep breath and shifted in her chair. “It was horrible. I didn’t want to tell her everything but, she insisted.”
“What?”
“DeeDee told her she didn’t need to know the details, but she insisted.”