Lindsay felt heat flood her face. “Well, yeah, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. I hadn’t made a decision.”
“So what’s your decision?” asked Lauren.
“Not yet. I’ll tell you after I talk to Brad.”
Lauren and Evan exchanged a look. Then Lauren said, “We’re not that busy, so I don’t mind you dropping by to talk to him, but maybe don’t make a habit of it? I mean, you’re back together now, right? It’s okay if you come here to see him sometimes, but I kinda need him on pastry duty.”
“Sure. That’s fair.”
Evan closed his laptop. “Unfortunately, I have to leave and will miss the fireworks. I have a client meeting down the street in half an hour. I don’t know why I can’t talk people into meeting me here.”
“Some people have allergies,” said Lauren.
“Yeah, yeah.” Evan stood and slid his laptop into his bag. “I’m meeting the client at a coffee shop over by BAM. You guys make a better latte, though.”
“I appreciate that,” said Lauren. She closed her own laptop. “I gotta do payroll. I should probably go to the office for that. Can you entertain yourself for a bit, Linds?”
“I brought my computer,” she said, patting her laptop bag.
“Cool. Come on back and let me know how it goes after you talk to Brad.”
“Sure.”
“I’d ask you to get a drink later, but Caleb’s working the overnight tonight, so I have to go take care of our child. I bet they are both upstairs napping right now, so Hannah will be full of energy when I go home.” Lauren let out a long-suffering sigh.
Evan laughed as he shouldered his bag. “Aw, sweetie. You have everything you always wanted. Your life is so hard.”
Lauren rolled her eyes, but she smiled.
Lindsay figured she could kill some time by finishing up the last of her assignments before she quit her job, but instead of getting out her laptop, she opened the news app on her phone. As if to remind her that the job she’d had for all of two months was likely to end whether she had any say in it or not, there was a splashy headline on a New York media blog saying that theForumwas going national and would likely start phasing out its local reporting except for breaking news. Which meant fewer feature stories and restaurant reviews and the sorts of things people outside of the greater New York metropolitan area didn’t care about.
The lull also gave Lindsay too much time to analyze what she planned to say to Brad when she finally talked to him.
He appeared about ten minutes later, looking a little frazzled. His hair was disheveled, and he had a bit of flour on his face. When he sat, she grabbed a napkin from the holder on the table and wiped at a floury thumbprint on his forehead.
“Rough day?” she asked.
Brad shrugged. “We were making cupcakes and one of my assistants added flour to the stand mixer too fast and it went everywhere. It’s fine, though. Let him learn things the hard way.”
Lauren nodded. “I’m glad you could talk to me. I have something I want to discuss with you.”
“Okay.” Brad looked around. One of the kittens ran over and hopped up on the table, so Brad petted her. He pointed to the cat’s purple collar. “This one is Shirley, and the gray kitten with the blue collar is Warren.”
“Aha!” said Lindsay.
“Lauren doesn’t usually put collars on the cats, but we couldn’t tell them apart otherwise. They look completely identical.” Brad put the kitten on his lap. “What did you need to talk to me about?”
“Well, I’ll give you the abridged version. That day you ran into me in front of Pepper, I wasn’t just there for an interview with Joey Maguire. Well, I was, or I thought I was when I walked in there, but after we criticized his old chef for a bit, he asked me to cook something for him. He liked what I did so much he offered me a job on the spot.”
Brad stared at her for a long moment. “He… So, wait, is this the big opportunity you keep mentioning?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry I didn’t bring it up sooner. I was certain I’d turn it down, and it didn’t seem worth discussing.”
Brad nodded slowly. “You’ve changed your mind.”
“I did. I gave it a lot of thought. I realized I wanted to try working in a restaurant again. It’s scary as hell, because I’m not at all sure I have what it takes to keep a restaurant in business, but it’s exciting, too. The more I think about it, the more right it feels. And, well, my boss called me this morning to say she was likely getting laid off in theForumreorganization, so I’ll be in the market for a job soon anyway.”
“Wait,what? He… Joey Maguire offered you a job.”
