Page 42 of No More Secrets
“Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Okay, bye.”
She hung up and covered her face with her hands. “I adore him, but when he goes all temperamental artist on me I want to murder him.”
He could tell that she was beyond frustrated. “What’s going on?” he asked, sliding on to the stool next to her.
“It’s nothing. A lot of nothing. I’m just falling behind on work while I’m here and —” The ringtone of her phone cut her off again. “Hang on,” she said, answering the call.
“Miguel, thanks for getting back to me. Yeah, Carl somehow got his hands on a few extra pages of proofs and isn’t happy that his ad is so close to the piece on a minimalist wardrobe ...”
She refreshed her email while she listened.
“He feels that we’re telling consumers not to consume his line ... Well, we need to move it. His ad rep should have known better ... I realize that. This can be avoided in the future if we can get the reps to pay more attention in the layout meetings ... I know. It’s a losing battle.”
Summer rubbed the spot between her eyebrows. “Okay. Thanks, Miguel. I appreciate it.”
She put her phone on the counter and stretched her arms overhead.
“This must all seem so stupid to you,” she said, rolling her head on her shoulders. “You fought for your life and country and here I am stressing out over ad placement and moisturizer.”
“It’s all relative,” Carter shrugged.
She shot him a disbelieving look. “No. It’s not. I know that none of this is life and death, but I can’t seem to not get sucked into the stress of a false sense of urgency.”
“When everything is important —”
“Nothing is important,” she finished for him.
“Exactly. Are you done with the moisturizers?”
“Yes. Well, sort of. I should take another pass at it to make sure it’s clean. But I haven’t even tackled the outline yet, and I need to get rid of the spam comments on my blog.”
Carter looked at his watch. “You have five minutes to do whatever absolutely has to get done and change.”
“Carter, I really don’t have time for games. I’ve got a lot of things to take care of.”
“And none of those things are remotely life and death. You’re missing out on what’s important. Five minutes.”
She looked good and pissed, which in Carter’s opinion was better than stressed and drowning. “What happens in five minutes?”
“We’re going out. You need jeans and your boots. And a sweatshirt if you have one.”
“I don’t have a sweatshirt. Are we doing more work?”
“Stop asking questions. You have five minutes.”
Her dramatic sigh ended in a growl. And when she began frantically typing, Carter knew he had her.
He left her to her panic and went upstairs to change. It was the perfect night for it, and damned if he was going to sit there and watch Summer stress herself out over things that didn’t matter.
He’d show her how he learned to slow down, get perspective.
He passed her on the stairs. “Two minutes,” he reminded her.
She grumbled and stomped into her room.
In the coat closet by the front door he pulled out a plaid flannel jacket.
Summer hurried down the stairs, her boots clattering on the wood.
