Page 18 of Lucy Loves Him Not
He slid a folder out of his briefcase and set it on the table between us.
“I have to start by apologizing.” He looked down at the folder in his hands. “I was a complete jerk on the phone with you and then handled our following conversation poorly, too. I’m really sorry. I guess I was in work mode and hoping I could blow past any…extra baggage.”
“Extra baggage?” I said trying to keep any emotion out of my tone. I took another sip.
“Poor word choice. I think I’m nervous.” He looked up at me, his glasses sliding down his nose. His eyes were big, blue, and apologetic.
“Apologies make you nervous?”
“You make me nervous,” he said quickly yet quietly. His eyes flickered to mine.
I’m the angry woman who stormed into his office.Of course, he’d be nervous. Still, him stating it so openly brought back those mistaken, leftover butterflies.
“I’m sorry, too, for the record,” I said, feeling myself let my guard down an inch or two as he dropped his. “I was angry and stubborn.”
“I was stubborn, too,” he admitted. “I had my vision for how things were supposed to go, you know?”
“And I had mine,” I said, not breaking our eye contact.
“See, I have a problem with veering from the established route.”
“And I much prefer to come up with my own routes.” I brushed a lock of my hair behind my ear. His eyes followed it.
He smiled tentatively. “So, a rigid route follower meets a dynamic trailblazer.”
And it was explosive,I thought to myself.
“We’re both control freaks, but here we sit with a mysterious folder between us.” I tapped the folder.
“Yes, the folder.” He cleared his throat. “I think the festival needs you.”
I was so taken aback that I literally leaned against the back of my chair.
“You were right. The vendors, volunteers, everyone expects to hear from you.They want you.” I guess the man was listening to more than reports now.
The doorbell chimed. The espresso machine buzzed. I didn’t say anything.
He lifted his hands as if in surrender. “I do need to make some changes, that much is still true. This festival needs the city manager to oversee it in a big way. But it also needsyou. I was trying to come in and strong-arm things to go the right way, to look at it logically, but I think I forgot about?—”
“The city itself?”
“The heart,” he said earnestly. “You, your grandmother. You were the heart in all of it.”
“My grandmotherwasthe heart,” I said softly in agreement. “I appreciate you seeing that.”
A moment, almost tender, passed between us.
I looked down at my hands resting in my lap. “So, you realized you need me. What are you going to do about it?” I glanced back up at him.
His eyes flashed for a moment at my words. “I want to do things my way still because the logistics matter, but I also want to do things your way, too.”
“You want to do thingsourway.” When I said this, he grinned at me.
“Yeah,our way.” He was still smiling, pushing the folder toward me.
I opened it to find a contract.
“I drew up an agreement. Let’s do this fifty-fifty.” He pointed to the line that stated we would not make any decisions until we could reach a satisfactory agreement. We would divvy up the role fifty-fifty. “Plus, I’d like to officially hire you as a part-time consultant for the duration of the festival planning.”
