He pauses to let that sink in and maybe to gauge my reaction. I remain as cool as possible under the circumstances. Having Dev across the table helps to remind me that I can handle myself well under pressure. I just have to remember that night in the office and how I didn’t run out the door screaming in a blind panic. I dealt with that, I dealt with Frank’s sorry ass, and I can certainly deal with this too.
“So, if you’d be willing, we’d love to have you join the team. We’d start you out on a ninety-day trial basis, to see if it’s something that’s a good fit for you and for us, but if it all works out the way we think it will, you could be a full-time employee and entitled to all the benefits that come along with that.”
I swallow a couple times trying to get my voice to work. Should I do it? Should I take the risk? Should I stop worrying about all the things that might happen and instead focus on all the things that could happen?
I look across the table at Dev and he’s staring me down with a serious expression on his face. He nods, like he has all the confidence in the world in me, like I actually could be a member of the Super Friends team. My heart soars and my courage hops up to ride shotgun.
I nod. “I’d like that. The trial basis sounds like a good idea.” That’s my out. If I hate it, no harm, no foul; I’ll back out and there’ll be no commitment to anyone that I have to blow off, and May will be safe from her team’s ire. I refuse to consider where Dev falls in this scenario.
Ozzie nods. “Great.” He looks around the table. “Does anybody else have any other business to discuss right now?”
I’m pretty sure they continue on and talk about another client at this point, but I don’t hear any of it. I sit at the table in a daze, unable to believe my good fortune. Or is it my misfortune? I have no way of knowing right now. All I do know is that I’m sitting at a table with my sister—arguably the best friend I’ve ever had—and a man with a killer dimple who’s giving me the most adorable look I could ever imagine, and I’ve just been offered a full-time job. It feels like this trial version is not just a trial for my job but also a trial for my heart.
Will I survive is the question. And if I don’t, where will I be then? What if this turns out like my last job, where I work really hard and then get destroyed and left out in the cold?
It doesn’t even bear thinking about right now. Always looking in my rearview mirror isn’t the way for me to move forward. Up, up, and away! as Superman says. I’m going to focus on my future and not the mistakes of my past.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Well, it’s here; the moment I’ve been thinking about for the past several days. I drop the curtain in the front window back into place. Dev is in the driveway getting out of his car. He looks nice, wearing khakis and a cotton, button-down shirt.
I look down at myself, glad that I splurged at the mall today and bought this dress when I went shopping with May. I’ve spent so many years in comfy, boring clothes, going to work in sneakers and jeans, I almost forgot what it feels like to dress up.
The kids are happily installed at Auntie May’s townhouse. It’s a rare treat for them to have a sleepover there. Usually, May prefers to watch my kids here, but when she offered to take them to her place, I’m pretty sure she did it because she was thinking that this date might go really well. But it can’t go that well; it’s not like I’m going to sleep with my coworker on a first date. Besides . . . it’s not a date. I lost a bet, that’s all.
The doorbell rings, sending my heart rate soaring. I check my eye makeup and teeth in the front hall mirror really quickly before I go to the door and open it. I try to affect an air of casualness that I don’t feel as I lean on the doorframe.
“Hey there, Dev.”
“Hello.” He stands on my porch towering above me, and if I’m not mistaken, he seems a little nervous. “You ready to go? Or did you want to stay here for a drink first?”
I do have a bottle of wine in the fridge, but I’m worried the conversation will stall out if we’re left in this empty, quiet house together for too long. “We can go. It’s fine. Unless you have later reservations . . .”
He shakes his head. “Nope. We’re all set.”
I grab my purse off the front hall table, double- and triple-checking that I have both my phone and my wallet. Since tonight’s dinner is on me, I made sure to stop off at the ATM to get some extra cash earlier. Every once in a great while my debit card doesn’t work, and I don’t want to suffer that kind of embarrassment tonight. Actually, I don’t want to suffer that embarrassment ever in my life, but because Miles gives me bouncy checks sometimes, it’s unavoidable. The bank doesn’t like fronting me money for some strange reason.