The Billionaire's Assistant

Chapter 47

"Well," she said brusquely. "We have to get it done today, we spent all yesterday lollygagging."

"Lollygagging?" Jove repeated with a laugh.

"Yes," Kat said, her frustration at how quickly the mission had slipped from her mind coloring her tone. "Lollygagging, you've never heard of lollygagging?"

"No," said Jove lightly. "I have. I just wasn't aware you were in your 70s."

Kat squinted at him, failing to hold back a laugh.

"No, no, I love older women," Jove continued. "It's just, I was wondering how the great depression was and everything."

"Shut up," she intoned reproachfully, still laughing. "It's a perfectly normal word to use, everybody says lollygagging."

"Right, everybody in your knitting circle."

"Look, I'm sorry for having an expansive vocabulary."

"I'm sorry too," Jove said seriously, giving her a look loaded with meaning. "Sorry that I still have my original knees, I don't mean to make you jealous."

"Shut up," Kat droned, dragging out the last syllable as peals of laughter overtook her.

"You look good for your age," Jove offered, laughing as well. "Really good."

Kat smiled, looking down at her nails.

"I was basically raised with my grandparents," she volunteered. "That's why I talk like an old lady sometimes, my friends make fun of me for it too."

She winced lightly, feeling like a traitor by mentioning the other members of FES to Jove, even in anonymity.

"Your grandparents live here?" Jove asked

"Yea, kinda. I mean yes, but they aren't my biological grandparents. They own the place my mom works, she's been working there since before I was born."

"Wow," Jove marveled.

"Yea," said Kat, nodding. "She worked a lot and she was good at it and they wanted to retire and they didn't have any kids so they basically adopted us. Both of us."

Jove nodded, encouraging her to go on.

"They're really sweet people, they're Greek, and they would always read to me, or pick me up from school, or take me to the park or the lake or the aquarium, they just..." She paused, wistful. "And my Yia-Yia, she's in her 80's and she uses words like lollygagging, so there you go," Kat finished with a laugh and an eyeroll.

"That's sweet," said Jove. "I loved my grandmother."

"She passed?" Kat asked. "I'm so sorry."

Jove waved her off with a hand. "A long time ago. I was just a kid. Your mom, how'd she meet them, the..."

"Protgolio's," Kat supplied, realizing a split second too late that she maybe shouldn't have provided their real names. "She met them when she started working there," she said quietly. "They just gave her a chance basically, I don't know," she muttered.

"Gave her a chance?" Jove asked.

"Yea," said Kat, looking up at him and instantly finding herself too weak to fight the smile that seeing brought about, that the pleasure of his attention drew forth.

"Yea," she repeated more firmly. "She didn't have any work experience and they gave her a chance, let her try out serving."

"She came to the city with no experience and no job linked up?" Jove asked, clearly impressed.

Kat nodded.

"From where?"

Kat looked down, the subject sore. "I'm not sure actually," she said quietly. "I have no idea. She's never told me."

"She never told you where she moved from?

"Never talked about it. Never talked about her parents either, when I was a kid I always just assumed the Protgolio's were her parents. She never corrected me. I found out that wasn't true later on but," Kat shrugged. "If she wanted me to know, she'd tell me."

Jove nodded, his expression serious.

Kat's lifted in a half smile, unable as she was to pull her mind from thoughts of his face.

"What about you," she said, beginning a new paragraph on the document she and Jove had been typing the day before. "Tell me about your relationship with your grandmother."

There was a silence, and Kat panicked.

"If you want," she blurted. "I didn't mean..."

"No, no," Jove interrupted. "It's alright, I love to talk about her. I just think it's crazy she's coming up because," he laughed. "Because you said something just now that reminded me of her."

"What," Kat asked, confused. "Lollygagging?"

"No," said Jove. "Outside. You said that all the flowers were too much, that one or two was nice but that all of them were bad for the environment. That was like, her catchphrase."

"Really?" Kat asked, her heart pounding.

"Yea," Jove went on casually. "She loved all the tree hugger stuff. She was obsessed with being outside, wouldn't go on a vacation where she couldn't camp, called everything bad for the environment. She loved the stars," he went on, his voice heavy with memory. "She taught me all about them, about the constellations and what they mean and the myths behind them. My grandfather was constantly trying to impress her. He'd moved from England with millions that he turned to hundreds of million and he would buy her anything he could think of, jewelry, paintings, crystal. All she ever wanted was to be outside." Jove chuckled. She'd take me to the beach when I was a kid and I'd bring her little shells, she always told me they were the best presents she'd ever got. As a kid, I thought she was just trying to make me feel good but," he shrugged. "She didn't like anything else. She liked nature, and that was pretty much it."

Kat was listening on the edge of her seat, enraptured.

"She would've liked you," Jove said. "You're smart like her, you think about the same things she does. She died when I was 14."

"I'm sorry," Kat consoled quietly.

"It's ok," Jove replied. "Really, it is. She was the kind of person where no matter how much time you had with her, it always felt like more. She could make time stretch like that, make every moment so full of importance and of memories. I was with her for 14 years, it felt like a lifetime. Still feels that way."

Kat looked at him, her heart swelling. She had never really talked to anyone like this, wasn't even aware Jove was capable of it.