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“Exactly. We have been out in public. Some came over to talk on Saturday also. I’m not hiding who I might be interested in. That’s not right for either of us.”
“Good for you. And how did Colson handle it?”
“Like it wasn’t a big deal.”
Her mother nodded. “You need that.”
“I do. Then at lunch, same thing. No one came to talk, but someone hesitated like they wanted to.”
Another attorney. On a case she was working on.
Her look said don’t even try it.
Many were feeling her out and they’d learn that she was just as strong and strict as her mother.
She could play the game as well as them, but she’d make sure everyone was respectful.
Except for the pushy councilman who she let get under her skin and shouldn’t have.
Thankfully, she had this meeting set with her mother because she really needed that support more than she thought she would.
And if she wanted to have a damn forty-minute lunch with someone and not stress or focus on her job, then she was going to make sure she got that and that she could show she could give it to the person she wanted to get to know more.
It was important for her that Colson know she could form boundaries. Not just between them but around them.
“I’m proud of you but am not surprised either. Set those invisible lines up now while you can.”
“I learned from the best. We are going to have coffee again this week.”
“Three dates in a week. That’s a record for you.”
“I’m trying to put the effort in. To make the time. His is limited too. It will be something to navigate.”
“Nothing slows you down when you want it enough.”
Her mother looked at her watch. Marly knew she was on the clock.
“No,” she said. “Nothing does. Seems we both had to be here at the same time. I ran into him in the parking lot.”
“And you walked in together?”
“We did. Kept it professional. I thought we did. But then I got a text while I was waiting for you to come here.” She beat her mother there and had been waiting.
“What did it say?” her mother asked.
She unlocked her phone and slid it across her mother’s desk. Her mother read it and laughed.
“Sounds like someone said something to him about us being seen together.”
“Which is going to happen. I take it you have no idea what was said?”
“Nope,” she said. “He’s in his meeting and I’m here.”
“What is it you want from me?”
“Do you think it’s a big deal if someone asks and I say I’m seeing him?”
She had no idea why she was so unsure of this. She’d just given herself a mental talk that she was allowed a personal life.
