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He held up a chocolate milkshake. “I thought you could use a treat. Whether it’s celebratory or a consolation prize remains to be seen, but I’m leaning toward celebratory.”
“Spoiling me.” I accepted the milkshake and a kiss.
“I guess this means there’s no word yet?”
I shook my head, and a pinging sound from my computer had me whipping around and practically sprinting to my desk. There was a notification from my boss asking me to come to his office when I was done with lunch.
“Do you think it’ll be weird if I went now? I can’t live with the suspense!”
“Definitely go now if he’s available. I’ll let Luna know and we’ll both be here when you get back.”
It was a huge struggle not to run down the hall. I had to appear cool and refined, and ready to handle anything my boss was about to dish out. He looked surprised to see me when I showed up in his doorway.
“I wasn’t expecting you so quickly.”
“I figured it would be better to know sooner rather than later.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. I already spoke to Trevor and let him know that you were getting the promotion.”
I stared at him for a long moment, my brain freezing in place as it tried to process what he’d just said. My first instinct was to scream and jump in place, but that might cost me my promotion, so instead I stuffed all of my excitement into a tidy bubble. “Really?! You loved my project?”
“We all thought it was excellent and the client made the final decision for us. Allison, your work at this company has been exemplary. I’m glad we finally had the space to show our appreciation for all your dedication. If you want to keep any of your current projects, you are welcome to finish them up, or we can transfer them to one of the junior consultants. It’ll take us a week or so to get all of the paperwork put through, sort out your new projects, and put together your team, so you’ll have some time to figure out your preferences.”
“That sounds amazing. I’ll do what I can on my current projects in that time. A couple of them are almost fully complete anyway, and then we can go full steam ahead into whatever you need me for.”
His answering smile was warm and friendly. “Glad to hear it. I’ll send over all the information to you, but let me know if you have any questions in the meantime.”
“Will do. Thank you so much.”
This time the moment I was out of sight of his office I did sprint, seeing Sidney and Luna standing outside my office waiting for me. I let out the most embarrassing shriek of excitement as I leapt straight into the air. Sidney caught me and swung me around.
“I take it this means you got the promotion?”
“I did! I start next week.”
“Fuck yeah!” Luna high-fived me when my feet were back on the ground. “I knew you’d crush it.”
Sidney kissed the top of my head with a warm laugh. “That’s my girl. Should we have a party?”
“You really think I would say no to a party?”
“Just making sure.”
I floated through the rest of my day on my own personal cloud of euphoria. People came by to congratulate me after the announcement went out and I was so fucking jazzed to have this opportunity to grow at work.
Our street had a lot more cars in it than usual when I arrived. Maybe someone was having a birthday party. I skipped up to the door and stopped dead in the foyer as a bunch of voices shouted, “Surprise!”
The living room had a banner that read Congratulations and everyone wore paper crowns. Sidney set one atop my head and passed me a glass of champagne.
“What on earth is going on? When you said you were going to do a party, I didn’t think you meant today.”
“I took today off work in anticipation.”
I glanced around at the crowd, seeing Sidney’s parents, Nicky, Meg, Luna, my mom, and some of her friends who had known me since I was a baby. They all hugged me one by one, congratulating me on my promotion and asking me questions about what I would be doing now.
Once I had made my rounds, I settled against Sidney’s side, wrapping my arms around his waist. I was near tears over the fact that he’d been so sure I was going to get my promotion that he had planned this party for me. He had taken time off, baked me a cake entirely reminiscent of the first time we had been together, and invited the people that were most important to both of us.
“I can’t believe you believed in me so hard.”
