Visitors
He switched the phone over from his right hand to his left, so he would be able to scribble a reminder on the pad of paper that sat next to his keyboard.
"Blake, I needed those reports on the Secretary's desk an hour ago," Nadine said in passing.
She was due at the White House, and, like the rest of the seventh floor, she had been running behind since early this morning.
"Meredith, I'm really busy," he mumbled into the receiver.
"I have an idea." He could hear her smile through the phone. "Quit. Your boss is a bitch." Although he technically only worked for one woman, he wondered whether she was referring to Elizabeth or Nadine. "Let's go get a late lunch."
He rolled his eyes.
"You'll be just fine by yourself for the afternoon." It would be good for her, actually. "Get a table somewhere nice over in Logan Circle. My treat." She laughed at that, and he had to admit that his offer to pay sounded humorous even to his own ears… The last thing his sister needed was to be treated. "I've sent over the address of my apartment. I'll see you later."
"Fine." She sounded glum that she hadn't managed to get her way.
He let out a breath once the phone had been returned to its cradle.
Meredith's surprise visit couldn't have happened on a worse Friday afternoon, but she was his sister and, although her sass could be derisive, he loved her to bits and pieces.
He hit a few keys on his computer, and the latest email he'd written up was sent out with a whoosh.
State's upcoming trip to Malta had them scrambling. They were scheduled to fly out first thing Monday morning, but one catastrophe had led to another, and they were behind on the prep work that was typically sorted out by five o'clock on the Thursday before a trip.
"Here," he said to Frankie as he handed off the file she had come looking for at his desk. She would be accompanying Elizabeth to the White House this afternoon.
He was up to his nose in work and the last thing he wanted to do on a Friday night was entertaining Meredith.
He moved two manilla folders into the leather outbox that sat at the corner of his desk before he set off to the third floor to sort out these missing reports.
~MS~
One catastrophe had led to another and the bad luck at the Truman had seemed to follow him home.
The water pipes at his building had busted and he'd found his apartment flooded and not suited for sleep. While Meredith hovered, he'd called around, looking for two open hotel rooms, and after about an hour of making phone calls, his Friday night had just gotten that much worse.
It turned out that this weekend was one of the popular dates for the notorious eighth-grade trips to Washington, and of course, the cherry blossoms being almost at peak bloom brought photographers from across the country to capture photos of the Tidal Basin inundated in pink. It hadn't helped matters that CPAC had kicked off yesterday, booking out several hotels after deciding to hold their annual conference here instead of in Orlando.
"What are we going to do," Meredith had asked.
He scrolled down his contact list and called in a favor.
"Thank you for doing this," he said as they cleaned up the takeout boxes.
"It's really no problem."
Meredith had taken out her checkbook, offering to pay Nadine for the inconvenience of putting them up for the night, and after a firm refusal, his sister had insisted to at least hand over the amount of money they would have paid for two hotel rooms… They'd eventually found an agreement in Meredith treating Nadine to a dinner in and a nice breakfast out tomorrow morning.
"And I'm sorry about my sister." He closed the lid to the trash bin and looked across the counter. "She can be a bit much."
Nadine flashed him a smile as she began on the few dishes they'd used for dinner. "She's fine," she insisted with a chuckle.
He wiped down the counters while she finished up at the sink, but when she started unloading the dishwasher, he took a seat at the island.
"I have to ask," she said as she returned a mug to the cupboard. "Why didn't you ask the McCords if you could stay the night? Elizabeth adores you." She lifted one shoulder in a shrug before letting it fall. "Plus, they have two spare bedrooms instead of my one."
"Meredith and Elizabeth don't get along."
Nadine's eyebrows jumped towards her hairline. "Really?"
He sucked in a breath. "It's a long story."
One that involved Meredith flying down to UVA from New Haven in the middle of the fall semester. He'd tried to stop her as she'd marched across the quad, but no such luck. She blamed Elizabeth for his grad school decision and the two women had gotten into it right there in the back of an auditorium full of students.
Nadine loaded up the dishes before stepping up to the counter.
She arched a brow. "Does it have something to do with your upbringing?"
He sighed as his eyes fell to the granite.
"Your sister's handbag alone costs more than what I pay in rent for almost an entire year," she said softly. "Did she marry into money?"
His head lifted and he looked her in the eye. "Yes, but…"
Her lips shrugged. "We don't have to talk about it," she told him before walking over to the hall closet.
He wasn't surprised that she had backed off— she was always the one reminding the staff about boundaries.
"It's fine." He swiveled on the barstool, so he was facing her. "It's… It's just that 'Hi, my family owns a multimillion-dollar company' isn't a great conversation starter… Usually."
"I understand," she said.
She didn't… Not a lot of people did.
Although he didn't know much about Nadine's background, he did know that she had worked for everything she had… It was the difference between her and himself. Though finances were no longer a worry for her, she continued to work hard. She made a high-dollar purchase here and there, but she wasn't careless with her money.
He on the other hand…
He'd grown up with a cousin who pissed through half a million dollars in less than a week for the sole sake of seeking attention. And when that hadn't worked, Lucas had walked down to the street and handed off his Amex platinum card to a stranger… It had taken his father two whole weeks to notice the charges.
Although he'd never gone to such extremes himself, he wasn't proud of some of his previous spending patterns… During the spring of senior year, he and Stella had formed the habit of ordering a bottle or two of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti from Ai Fiori just because they could.
When Nadine began to pull down a set of sheets, he jumped up to help. She grabbed an extra pillow from the shelf and handed it off to him.
"It's just that Meredith and I have been used."
Strangers, so-called friends, and even bosses…
He'd been too quick to trust when he was young. Money, connections, and power… It's what those people really desired.
His junior year he'd snagged an administrative job at a firm that was only once a week for a few hours after school. When an interview was forgone, he'd believed his resume had been solid enough to hire him on, but it'd turned out that the position was handed to him for the sole reason that his last name was Moran.
"I have Fred's son working for me," he'd overhead while doing some filing.
"I know I'm choking on my silver spoon right now, but it's quite off-putting when time after time the people who claim to be your friend turn out to have an ulterior motive."
He followed Nadine over to the couch.
"It caused Meredith to have a psychotic break," he mumbled as he threw the pillow he'd brought over into the chair closest to the couch.
Her sophomore year boyfriend had used her to get a summer internship with Lichtenburg Financial Group. Andrew Lichtenburg Jr. was a family friend, and, after a three-sentence conversation at dinner, his father had graciously agreed to put in a good word at the ask of his daughter. Meredith had been devastated when Sam had broken up with her come fall.
Blake glanced over his shoulder towards the bedroom door that was closed.
"You can't ever tell her that I said that."
Nadine smiled as she tucked the top sheet down into the couch cushions.
"You don't have to worry," she said.
He leaned down and tucked his end of the sheet.
"You haven't said why she's visiting."
"I didn't know she was coming," he told her as he caught the blanket she'd thrown his way. "She's freaking out a bit. I think she just needed to get away from the city for a little while."
He sunk down onto the far end of the sofa, balling the blanket into his lap.
"And why's that?"
His eyes followed her as she sat.
His eyes flashed to the hall before he leaned in. "She's pregnant," he whispered.
"With her first?"
He nodded. "Growing up she had always said that she wanted kids, but she's become very career-focused since business school." She'd take over the company when the day came to do so. "She was born and bred for it."
He knows that his father had hoped for him to carry on that legacy— they'd had a handful of fireside chats about it, conversations that would never leave the four walls of his father's study.
"Meredith can never know."
His parents had bribed him to come home.
"We want you working with the family," his mother had said.
They didn't prefer the finance job that he had accepted fresh out of college, but they couldn't stand the idea of him committing to a position in civil service.
"Her husband? Is he supportive?"
He stared into her eyes.
"Nothing but." He was a rare thing to come across in their world just up the coast. "He really cares for her."
Nadine patted his knee.
"Then she'll be okay."
He knew.
Meredith was always okay.
She was Meredith.
The firstborn who had followed the path paved by their father, the plan written by their mother. She attended Yale, married Jacob the year after she'd graduated business school, and was fast-tracked to COO… She was literally seated at the right hand of their father.
"You know," he began. "I know you don't know her, and I know you barely know me, but if you'd be willing, I think she'd like to talk with you."
He knew Meredith had friends, but, although they could be supportive, they could be talkative too, and the last thing his sister needed was this news spread around.
Nadine smiled. "How about after breakfast?"
"Thank you," he said. "For everything." She tried to wave him off, but he continued. "Really, it means a lot to me."
"Get some sleep, Blake," she told him as she stood.
He watched her go, but halfway down the hall, she turned back.
"You can consider me a friend." Her lips twitched. "And I already have money, connections, and power, so…"
He laughed. "Goodnight, Nadine."
~MS~
When he returned from the bathroom early the next morning Meredith was standing in the kitchen, quietly opening and closing cabinets until she came across the mugs.
"I'm surprised you know how to use that," he teased as she hit a button on the Keurig. He really couldn't make fun though because he hadn't known how to work a coffee machine until he was nineteen.
"Don't be silly."
Right, she liked to make her bedtime tea after eleven and by then the staff had gone already.
"How are you feeling?"
She'd admitted on the drive over last night that she'd been experiencing some morning sickness.
"I'm fine."
The middle of his back hit the edge of the counter as he leaned back.
"It's going to be okay."
Meredith may be Meredith, but he was Blake, and he knew that she put on a brave face.
He'd sat with her while she'd made herself sick over the stress of taking the SAT, he'd held her hand through three breakups, and he'd comforted her in the back of a limo after Jeff Rhodes had forced himself on her at the Trinity School's spring dance.
He would always worry about her.
She nodded as she faced him.
"You do know that this baby of mine is going to need you too, right? There is a thing of too much of Mom and Dad, so I need you to promise me you'll come up and visit."
He chuckled. "I promise." He avoided going home, but there was no way he was missing out on time with a niece or nephew. "You're always welcome here too, Meredith."
When he opened his arms to her, she stepped in for a hug.
"Where to for breakfast? I'm starving," she said against his shoulder.
"Let's allow our host to pick."
