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“Good. We’re great,” she told him. And spent the next five minutes gushing about everything toddler. Then she felt self-conscious for wasting the time of such a busy, important man. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have gone on like that. It’s just...it’s good to talk to you, Johnny.”
“There’s no need for an apology,” he told her, but he sounded different. More...professional.
She wanted to ask how he’d been. What he was doing. But didn’t feel she knew this Johnny well enough to impose.
“Listen, I also wanted to let you know that the initial paperwork for the nonprofit is done and I need your signature on a few things. I was planning to send someone by with a packet if you’re going to be home.”
Jackson had left the blocks he’d been stacking and walked over to her. The smell that accompanied him told her he’d just filled his pants. And, judging by the expression on his face, he wasn’t quite done.
“My signature,” she repeated.
“I’ve named you executive director,” he said. “For now, that’s mostly going to entail signing documents, but once we’re up and running, you’ll have a staff working for you—”
“Wait!” Jackson looked up at her sharp tone, so she softened it as she said, “Johnny, a staff? I have nowhere to put a staff.” Had the man gone bonkers? Forgotten, in three short weeks, what her life was like?
“And I work three twelves,” she added inanely.
“Are you saying you don’t want the job? The pay is good and you can do a lot of the work from home, to begin with.” He named a yearly sum that was triple what she made at the hospital. And would allow her to be home with Jackson.
She loved her job, but to help parents who were suffering as she had—there was no question.
“Of course I want the job, Johnny,” she said. She just couldn’t believe he was really offering it to her.
“I’ll get the packet over to you this afternoon.”
She was grinning. Nodding. Wanted to ask him if there was any chance he could deliver the paperwork himself, but knew he’d be far too busy to make the trip. With traffic, it could eat an hour or two out of his day. “Okay,” was all she said.
And then, as he was ringing off, “Johnny?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
He didn’t ask what she was thanking him for.
She
didn’t elaborate.
* * *
Tabitha had another call from Johnny’s area code shortly after that. It wasn’t Johnny, though. It was his mother.
Anne Brubaker introduced herself as though it was perfectly normal for the billionaire mother of her former billionaire lover to be phoning. She was phoning because, with Tabitha’s new position as executive director of the Angel’s Food Truck nonprofit, Don’t Forget Me, she felt they should at least meet. Johnny had told her about Jackson. He didn’t seem to have mentioned anything else between them.
Including that she’d lived next door to him.
Or worked the food truck with him.
“I was wondering if you’d like to be my guest at a charity fundraiser four weeks from Friday. It’s a lunch event, but will last most of the afternoon,” she said. “It would give you an idea of the kinds of things you might want to think about down the road, when Don’t Forget Me is up and running.”
Don’t Forget Me. She’d cried when she’d read the name Johnny had chosen for the nonprofit. It was perfect. And so Johnny to know that.
“I...” How could she say no to her boss’s mother? “I’m not sure I’d have anything appropriate to wear,” she said, watching as Jackson continued to try to get a plastic truck to balance on top of a purple elephant, picking up the truck again and again as it kept sliding off.
She was learning a lot from her boy. About patience. About the ability to roll with the punches and still find happiness right where you were.
“It’s not all that formal an affair,” Anne was saying, “but I can have a nice day dress sent over for you.”
