Page 136 of June

Enid lifted herself, earning a groan from Caroline in the process because Enid was still inside her, and she licked her lips and looked down.

“I’m staying, Care.”

“Inside? That’s not a problem for me. We can go again. Just give me a minute.”

Enid smiled and said, “No, I meant I’m staying here. I’m not taking the job.”

Caroline’s eyes widened, and a smile spread across her face a second later.

“Really?”

Enid nodded.

“Best birthday ever,” Caroline repeated.

CHAPTER 34

“You mean it?” Caroline asked.

They were lying on their sides now, facing one another. Gone was the toy and the tie. They were blissfully naked, and Caroline’s hand was stroking Enid’s cheek, needing her to confirm what she’d said only a few minutes ago.

“Yeah, I mean it. I’m actually going to look for an apartment tomorrow. That list of availabilities you showed me – I’m checking out a couple of them. There’s a one-bedroom I’m really interested in.”

Enid pulled Caroline in a little closer.

“But the job…”

“The interview went well. Sylvie and her colleagues all seemed to really like me, and I liked them. The pay they were offering was good, not great, but there were ways to work my way up to great potentially.”

“All of that sounds good, Enid,” she replied. “You can’t just stay for me.”

“I’m not.” Enid shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong; I thought about it. But I know I can’t put that kind of pressure on us. This is too new for that.”

“Then, why aren’t you moving to Jacksonville?”

“Well, for starters, I’ve never wanted to live in Jacksonville. I thought I could do it if I really wanted the job, but the jobwas only okay. The interview was good, but I mainly did that because Sylvie went out on a limb for me, so I didn’t want to let her down. Besides, if they ever decide to offer roles remotely and I interviewed well, they could think of me in the future. Then, there’s the fact that I’m actually starting to like grad school.” Enid chuckled. “That one meeting with my group really made a difference. They all kind of looked to me to be the one making the decisions, and I liked sitting around the table with them bouncing ideas off one another. There’s pressure because we have a massive project ahead of us, and we need to do well to graduate, but it’s not a real job kind of pressure, so it’s a practice run, and I think I could use that. I could learn a lot, too, and it’ll help me narrow down exactly what I want to do. I’m pretty sure it’s finance, but there are a lot of nuanced roles in finance, and this will help me figure out which one I want. If I left, I’d be doing this all online, and it would take another year. I would have to take more classes next year just to get ready for this whole capstone practice business building thing again with a different group, and that sounded exhausting.” Enid kissed the inside of Caroline’s palm, which was still on her cheek. “I talked to my parents about getting an apartment today and crunched some numbers based on my paycheck with NOLA Guides, and I think I just need them to take care of the first month and security deposit. They said they would, and I’ve already worked out interest terms for a loan with them.”

“You did interest?” Caroline laughed. “You are such a nerd.”

“I know,” Enid replied. “Not all of us can be the sexy, creative type.”

“You’re a sexy nerd, though,” Caroline said, slipping a thigh between Enid’s.

“Thanks.”

“So, you’ll be moving into your own place, staying in school, and working with Melinda and Jill?”

“Melinda offered me an opportunity that I didn’t really take seriously the other day, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“The extra hours?”

“No, it’s more than that,” Enid explained. “She wants to open another office. Jill would run the one in the Quarter, and she wants to see if I can get trained up to run the other one. Mel would oversee the whole thing, but I like the back-office, day-to-day stuff, and she just kind of tolerates it because it gives her the chance to do what she really loves – showing people around the city.”

“You’d run NOLA Guides?”

“One of them,” Enid said. “Mel told me if I work this year and everything goes well, that would give her time to find the new location and lease it. I could then manage it, and it’s possible that that would be it: I just manage it for a while and find something else. But if she opens a few more spots around the city, she would need someone to run a couple of them. Jill likes doing the tours, too, so I don’t think she would want to be that in the weeds on the business side. It might be me.”

“So, you went from having zero opportunities to having two in the same week?”

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