That’s when Russell noticed me.
He stood near the center of the ballroom, silver touching his temples, dressed in a tailored suit that probably cost more than my car.
He took a glass.
Then he looked directly at me.
Not through me.
At me.
“Long day?” he asked.
I laughed softly.
“You have no idea.”
He glanced down at my feet.
“They hurt, don’t they?”
I blinked in surprise.
Nobody had ever asked me that before.
Not customers.
Not bosses.
Not even most people I’d dated.
Then, without making a scene, he caught the catering captain’s attention and quietly moved a chair behind one of the columns.
“Take five minutes,” he said.
I stared at him.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
I sat.
And for the next ten minutes, we talked.
Nothing extraordinary.
His late wife’s garden.
The mystery novel I was reading on the bus.
The fact that his enormous kitchen hadn’t seen a homemade meal in three years.
Then he called me the next morning.
And the morning after that.
Eventually, kindness became routine.
