Page 19 of Meant to be Mine

“Drew,” she said with awe in her voice. “This is a real office. Like a grown-ass man office.”

I laughed. “Newsflash, I am a grown-ass man.”

“I know,” she murmured. “Trust me, I know.”

Did I hear admiration?

She set her bag down on the couch. When she turned to look at me, it was my old friend. There was a softness in her smile.

“I never pictured you with an office,” she said. “Not like this. It’s really good to see you like this. Motivated. Driven.” A small smile pulled at the corner of her mouth and she tilted her head slightly. “The boy I knew is growing into a man.”

There was something in her voice. Just the faintest edge of something underneath. A coyness I would expect to hear if she was flirting. And there was no way Kensey was flirting with me. I held her gaze for exactly one second longer than I should have, and then I put it out of my head.

I had asked her here to make my life easier. That was the whole point. I did not need to start reading into the way she smiled at me. That road led somewhere complicated. I had enough on my plate this summer.

“Sit down,” I said, rounding the desk and dropping into my chair. “I need your brain.”

She pulled the chair from the opposite side of the desk toward her and sat, crossing one leg over the other and pulling her bag onto her lap to fish out a notebook.

“Okay.” I leaned forward and pulled up the files on my laptop, turning it slightly so she could see the screen. “So we’ve got the Blackwell Summer event. Most of the big pieces are in motion, but I’ve been running everything in my head and notes here and there, emails. Nothing is in one place.”

“So there’s no master document.” She nodded. “Okay.” She clicked her pen. “So we’re building one from scratch. Walk me through everything. Every single piece. Don’t filter, don’t decide what’s important yet. Just tell me everything that needs to happen between now and the event.”

I started talking. She started writing. For the next forty minutes, I poured everything out. She asked the right questions. By the time I ran out of words, I was pretty sure her pen had to be out of ink.

“Okay,” she said, tapping the pen against the paper. “I need to make a spread sheet that you and I will work from. Confirmation calls, vendor follow-ups, and all the other details. I’ll handle the things that don’t require your formal signature. We’ll work from the same spreadsheet. When you do something, you check it off and vice versa so we’re not wasting time doing the same thing.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sounds like a plan.”

I pushed my laptop at her. “Can you do it on here?”

“I brought my laptop. I’ll work on it later.”

“How’s your mom doing?” I asked, leaning back in my chair. “The arm.”

She smiled. “It’s mostly healed at this point. The bone is fine. But she’s still in the cast for another couple weeks and apparently it’s become unbearable.” She twirled the pen between her fingers. “The itching is driving her absolutely insane. It sounds like a special kind of torture.”

“That sucks. No one wants a cast in the summer.”

“She’s taking it out on everyone within range. My dad has developed an extremely convenient habit of suddenly needing to check something in the garage whenever she starts talking about it. It’s every man for himself. He leaves me alone with her.”

I laughed. “Smart man.”

She smiled. “But she’s good. She’s happy I’m home. I was worried she’d be upset I was going to work, but she told me to come.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out her laptop. “I’ll build out the spreadsheet and share it with you. We can both update it in real time.”

“You’re already better at this job than I deserve.”

“Remember you said that when you’re tempted to be demanding. If I choose to bring you muffins and coffee, I’m doing it because that’s what I do, not because you’re paying me.”

“I’m not demanding.”

We worked for another hour. She was fast and methodical. By the time she had a working draft pulled up and shared the link with me, it was starting to feel like something I could actually manage. Bite-size pieces. Color-coded by urgency.

“This is genuinely great,” I said. “Holy shit. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She saved the file and looked up at me. “What else?”