Page 94 of The False Flat

Her eyebrows kissed as she read over the paperwork. “What . . . are . . . you . . . saying?”

I smiled. “I’m saying I know you’d love to have your own clients, and I want you to be my business partner. You slayed the event last weekend, your organization rivals mine, and clients love you. I would still be struggling if it wasn’t for you. You’re the most overqualified assistant, and it feels weird calling you one when you work as hard as I do. This business is rightfully yours. Now, let’s make it official.”

She moved the hand that had been clasped over her mouth and wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “I don’t know what to say. It’s a dream come true, but . . . I can’t afford the classes, the tests. I’ve looked into it and—”

“I’ll cover everything. It’s a good investment. I know. I’m a financial planner.”

She laughed through tears. I wanted her to stop crying.

Then she lunged at me, wrapped me in another tight squeeze, and said, “We do make a good team, don’t we? But are you sure?”

“You trust my business expertise, right?”

“Of course. I—”

“I’m sure. Now, you catch them, and I’ll reel them in. And use those social media skills to find us a new assistant.”

She squeezed me again and let out a noise that hurt my ears. “I won’t let you down.” She jumped up and down and headed out the door, but then immediately returned. “I totally forgot about the rest of our meeting!”

I gestured to the chair across from my desk. “By all means, update me.”

“Okay. First, your mother called again. We’ve got a WeWork gathering with everyone next week to meet the new lawyer moving into the last office space on the floor. I got married. You need to look at the brochures Michelle created and decide on our name, which might change since I’m going to be your partner!” She squealed again. “I’m moving out this Sunday. And we already talked about the palm-reading monkey, which I’ll handle while you go bike riding, so I think we’re all set.”

She got up to leave.

Back that thing up. “Erin! Did you say you got married?”

“Shh.” She flopped back down, a torn expression on her face. “I haven’t told anyone. My mom would flip if she knew, which is why we’re telling everyone else that we plan to get married in six months.”

“Married?” I was stuck on that word. “Beau? Or another guy you’ve known longer than . . .” I counted back to the party. “Four—”

“Four days. I know. It’s outrageous, right? It is.” She was pacing, throwing her hands up as she walked back and forth. “I’m kind of freaking out, but we have this connection, and he’s so stinkin’ cute and he jokingly asked me to marry him after we had the hottest sex ever, and then we started talking about values and goals and hopes and dreams, and the next day . . . we did it.”

Her rapid-fire speech, coupled with the content of said speech, left me stunned silent for a full ninety seconds. Spend four days in Grant’s guest room and a lot happens, except sex in Grant’s guest room. Didn’t she know the divorce statistics? The US divorce rate was somewhere north of 50 percent: 750,000 divorces each year, and that number was probably significantly higher for people who’d only known each other for four days.

“I don’t know whether to be happy for you or smack you or question my decision to partner with you.”

She pointed at me. “I won’t let you go back on that. We’re committed.” She put her hands in her hair. “Like me and Beau.” Then she spun back into the chair. “We probably should’ve waited, but why? I mean, when you know, you know, right? It feels right. Even when I’m panicking as I say it all out loud, it still feels right. We know each other better after four days than a lot of people do when they get married. We’ve talked about the hard stuff. And you wanna know the best part?”

I raised my eyebrows. The sex?

“I’m really, really happy. And you’ve made me happier. Houston firing me and my moving back to Nashville were two of the best things to ever happen to me. And you get your house back!”

That little tidbit didn’t make me as happy as I thought it would. I liked living with Erin. And my heart hurt thinking about losing Hulk and that tiny little paw that found its way to my leg while we watched TV together.

We finished up the details of the meeting, hugged again, and, as soon as she closed the door to my office, her words echoed in my mind.

When you know, you know, right?

CHAPTER 36

84.49 MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP

Grant and I sat silently in his Jeep in Manchester, waiting for William and Deanna to show up for our overnight ride. Caught up in thoughts, I watched a little girl, still in her Halloween Minnie Mouse pajamas, tug on her father’s arm as they and the girl’s three other siblings shuffled into Walmart.

When you know, you know.

After I’d seen Hannah several times, my anxiety and fear of the future were slowly improving. Until I thought about Erin and Beau.