Page 103 of Wish You Faith

“Just turn off your phone until tomorrow morning,” Mei said to Rosie. “Then you don’t have to lie to Evan. Is that what you’re concerned about?”

“Well, he’d be worried about me if he couldn’t get ahold of me.” It was the truth. Rosie didn’t want Evan to worry at all. He had a lot of pressure at work as it was.

“I will talk to Connor while you and your mom pack. He will make sure Evan doesn’t freak out if he can’t talk to you tonight. That should be enough. You’ll see him in the morning at work.”

“How about I see him tonight?” Rosie suggested. “Then neither one of us has to prolong this.”

“Fine. We won’t leave for another couple of hours, so by the time we get to Seattle and drive to his house, it will be after work hours.”

Rosie remembered Evan saying that he had to work late tonight. Maybe she could surprise him at work after all, just this evening instead of the next morning.

Her heart skipped a beat thinking about the surprise early reunion.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for wonderful surprises.

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

Evan woke up on Friday morning worried about everything, including a new pain in his neck. He realized that he’d fallen asleep at the desk at his home office. It was the smaller room in the rental condo, and it was cluttered with boxes he didn’t want to unpack because he was anticipating moving to Savannah.

To that end, he had worked late on Thursday night, trying to polish his proposal for a Savannah office. Granted, he hadn’t worked alone on this. Connor had brought two staffers to help him out the last two weeks. They went as far as they could. The rest was up to Evan.

To cut funding, he decided to keep the staff to a lean and mean crew of three people to begin with: himself, a sales person, and the office manager.

By the time he took his first break of the evening, it was midnight in Seattle and three in the morning in Savannah. He wasn’t done with the proposal, and it was looking disastrous. If he sent this to Mom, it was a guaranteed failure.

Oh, why had Mom given him such a short time to come up with a plan for Savannah?

In a bad mood, Evan decided not to text Rosie in the middle of the night. He might say something he’d regret or come across whining like a baby. And Rosie might wake up thinking it was an emergency in the middle of the night.

He worked at his desk until he fell asleep. It might have been two in the morning, but he wasn’t sure.

Evan didn’t wake up until seven o’clock when Connor texted him to remind him of their meeting at 8:30 a.m. to go over his plans. Evan had asked Connor for his professional opinion, and he brought some financial experts to sound out any problems. They would all be in the conference room waiting for him.

He brushed his teeth at lighting speed, hopped into the shower, and barely dried his hair before he rushed out of his rental condo. No breakfast. Coffee would have to suffice. He decided he’d eat an early lunch to make up for it.

He almost broke the speed limit getting to his office. He arrived at work at eight, an hour after he’d planned to. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d actually gotten but it felt like it hadn’t been enough. He had a headache now from the stress of not being fully prepared for the meeting.

His walk from the parking lot to the elevator was a big blur. He didn’t remember pressing any button, but the elevator door magically opened on the right floor.

Carrying an insulated travel tumbler with half-filled coffee—his third cup in an hour—he tried to walk a straight line down the hallway toward his office, his backpack with his laptop weighing down his shoulders. The weight made him feel pressed down, as though he would always be under this stress and strain.

I don’t want this kind of life, Lord.

But what could he do? He’d made the deal. Whether his Savannah proposal was approved or not, he was still stuck at Cavanaugh Shipping for ten years.

So groggy was he that he didn’t say a word to anyone outside his office, not even to his administrative assistant, Lloyd, who waved to him. Lloyd knew not to talk to him when he was in a bad mood.

Evan unlocked the door to his office and made a beeline for his desk. He put down the tumbler and then took the laptop out of his backpack. He had maybe ten minutes before he would need to rush downstairs to the meeting with Connor’s consultants.

He called Lloyd on the intercom connected to his phone. “Could you go to the break room, heat up a blueberry bagel, and put some cream cheese on it? Bring it to me in my office within five minutes.”

He sipped coffee and paced through his Power Point presentation. He doubled-checked his talking points. Whatever it was, it was too late to change anything now.

He closed his eyes. Prayed. Or at least tried to.

Nothing seemed to be working.

His life was slowly falling apart before his very eyes.

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