Page 36 of Anatomy of a Meet Cute
A not-insubstantial voice in the front of Sam’s mind pointed out that this was the same date her mother wanted for her party. But her mother’s party wouldn’t be until like 6:00 p.m.—and that was on the early side, Sam reasoned. She could absolutely do both. “Works for me. I just want to thank you for meeting with us today—”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Duesa interrupted with a dismissive wave; then, taking a massive breath, she yelled, “Sherilynn.”
Grant jumped, then looked at the phone on the desk before glancing sideways at Sam, who realized that she was clutching a stitch in her chest. Grant seemed to be in the process of stifling a laugh when Sherilynn burst into the room with as much energy. “All done?”
“Yes! So excited about this one. I said you’d be back in touch with all of the paperwork, monthly reporting requirements, and to sort out the details for the launch.”
Sherilynn nodded as if all of this made sense to them, and Sam took that as a sign to go. Nodding at Duesa, she stood up and extended herhand. “Thank you again for your support. We look forward to working with you.”
“I think this is going to be great fun,” Duesa said, releasing Sam’s hand and turning to shake Grant’s, who managed to rebutton his coat jacket with one hand while shaking Duesa’s with the other. Releasing his hand, she said, “See you soon!”
Chapter Ten
Sam barely heard a word Sherilynn said as she walked them toward the elevators. In fact, she hardly noticed when she took their coffee cartons from them and replaced them with real coffee. She knew Grant said something to her before they got in the elevator, but it wasn’t until the doors shut that everything began to sink in.
“Oh my God! This is happening.” Sam started to bounce on the balls of her feet until she realized that her coffee was sloshing precariously close to the edge of the cup.
“Congratulations,” Grant said, his voice as even as the smooth elevator ride.
“We really have to get going on this. I need to tell Kaiya. We need to start recruiting additional doulas. I just hope we can find enough people who want to work for us.”
“That’ll be challenging. Have you given any thought to the administrative end of this program? Like who will keep track of the budget or the monthly grant report she just mentioned?”
“Well, no ... but that will go on the list too,” Sam said, refusing to let Grant’s reality-based questions bring her down. Taking a big sip of her coffee, she looked back up at Grant, who was smiling at her in the way that someone smiled at a friend who’d just shown them the wonky holiday cookies they’d made—one part humoring and one part trepidation over having to eat a questionable cookie.
Whatever. It wasn’t like she could expect the charming man from the interview to last forever. Grant likely still thought this idea would fail. He was probably just being nice to soften the anticipated blow. How magnanimous, Sam thought, suppressing an eye roll.
Grant had opened his mouth to say something else when the elevator doors opened and the security guard looked up. The mischievous glint returned to Grant’s eye, and he pasted the most outrageous and oversize grin on his face. It was so absurd that it took everything in her not to crack up as the guard said, “Well, you look happy.”
“Sure am! I just have so much energy,” Grant said, putting his hands in the pockets of his slacks and sauntering out of the elevator. By now, his face muscles had to be hurting.
“Have a good one,” Sam managed to say. Giving Grant a shove out the door, she stumbled away from the giant glass window before laughing.
Grant maintained his weird smile and said, “Do you think I smiled big enough? I mean ...” Whatever Grant was going to say got lost in a fit of laughter as he slowly broke character.
“What was that face?” Sam said, straightening up.
“What face?” Grant said, making the absurd V shape with his mouth again. “This is just how I smile at men who tell me to smile.”
Sam guffawed, then looked down at her much-improved cup of coffee. “Well—”
“Do you want a ride home?” Grant asked, then added, “Sorry to interrupt you. You can finish.”
“No worries. I was actually just thinking about locating the train station.”
“I’d be happy to give you a ride.”
“It isn’t out of your way? I still don’t know the city, but I feel like Potrero is out of everyone’s way.”
“It’s not that far,” Grant laughed. “I live toward Golden Gate Park, in the Outer Sunset.”
“That means nothing to me yet. But I’ll take your word for it,” Sam laughed.
“You haven’t been to the park?” Grant looked stunned.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’ve driven by it, and I went as a kid.”
Grant threw a hand over his chest and slumped dramatically. “This pains me.”
