Page 36 of Losing Faith

We are not close. Hope this helps!

Coldest regards,

Jones.

He doesn’t reply for a while and I let myself believe he’s working on his grammar rather than sitting in his anger.

When I hear the door open quietly, I can see Belle peek her head in from the corner of my eye.

She walks over to me quietly and I feel a smile grow on my face as I pretend I don’t see her sneaking into my office. She walks over quietly, her hand covering her smile as she laughs.

I look up from my laptop but don’t turn to her, and she goes still. I glance to the side she isn’t on before shrugging and looking back at my laptop and she giggles harder.

When she gets closer, she crouches in front of my desk before popping up. “Hi, Dad!”

I jump back in surprise, and she fills the room with her precious laugh.

“Where did you come from? You scared me.”

She laughs harder and I smile down at her as she folds her hands on my desk and rests her head down. “Watcha doin’?” She fiddles with a paperweight as her pretty eyes gaze up at me, and I want more than anything to shut my laptop and go hang out with her.

Instead, I raise my brows at her. “The real question is whatchadoin’? I thought you were supposed to be working with Lissy?”

She lets out a sigh as she rolls the paperweight between her hands. “We’re taking a break ‘cause she’s on a phone call.” She shrugs. “So whatcha doin’?” She gets on her tippy toes as she tries to pull my laptop into her view, but I gently push her hand before she bends the screen back.

“I’m working on a proposal to negotiate a client’s pay with a contractor.”

Belle nods in understanding. “Yeah, I was working on that yesterday. It’s a lot of work, huh?”

“Not really. Writing the proposal is easy, but the back-and-forth negotiating is a lot of work sometimes.” I know she doesn’t understand what I’m talking about, but watching her pretend she does is my favorite thing.

“Yeah,” she shakes her head this time. “That part is a stress.”

I bite back a laugh and she peeks up at me from the side of her eyes.

“What’s negoate?”

“Negotiate.” I correct her and she tries the word on her tongue twice before she gets it right. “It’s like when I say it’s time for bed and you say one more movie and we agree to ten more minutes.”

She nods.

“That’s us negotiating.”

I see it click in her head as she stands up straight. “Oh, well, that reminds me of a negotiate I have.” She turns to her small desk in the corner of my office and sits in her pink chair before opening her toy laptop.

She types a bunch of nothing before nodding to herself and turning to me. “So how do I write the prosal?”

“Proposal.” I help her again. “You just say what your client wants and what you’re willing to agree to. Then talk about how this will be a good agreement for the other person.”

She nods before typing. “Okay.” She grabs her laptop and puts it on her lap as she turns to me. “My client wants to have a sleepover at KC’s house.” She looks up at me as she waits for my reaction. “This will be agreatagreement for you because you can scream at the TV with her dad. You guys had fun doing that yesterday.” She smiles proudly as she shuts her laptop.

“That was a great proposal.”

She nods excitedly.

“I’m going to have to decline your offer, though.” I shrug as I turn back to my laptop.

“What?” I see her shaking her head as she opens her laptop again. “You can’t do that.”

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