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“Oh, Joselyn! That’s so great!”
“You’d think so. And as much as I’m doing what I love every day, it’s all temporary. So the happiness feels fake. Like I’m accomplishing everything I’ve been wanting to do for years, and then I remember that it’s not even for me. The building is officially Marcus’s in three days, and it will officially open in a month and three days. Then that’s it for me. I’m back to having dreams that I’m not putting into play.”
She clicked on another tab and looked at what she’d typed in four years ago after working at a toy store and sighed.
“And you’re not any closer to figuring out what you want to do?”
She clicked over to the tab where she’d entered all the businesses that they had brain-stormed the day she thought she might get the hardware store for her own business. “No. None of these sound as much fun as Marcus’s ice cream shop. How can I go from working on something as exciting as that and then have my own business be something as boring as a Laundromat?”
There was a pause before Macie spoke, and Joselyn could hear the smile in her voice when she did. “Are you sure it’s the ice cream that’s exciting you and not the person you’ve been planning it with?”
“Macie!”
Her sister chuckled. “You don’t have to answer as long as you’re asking yourself that question.”
A knock sounded on her door.
“I’ve got to go.”
“No, wait! Just leave me on speakerphone and just set me out of the way. I’ll listen to your conversation and within five minutes, I’ll be able to answer that question for you.”
“Bye, Macie.”
“You love me lots, sis. I know it.”
“And you love me too.”
Joselyn ended the call, set her laptop and phone on the kitchen table, and walked to her front door. She opened the door and her breath caught as she saw Marcus standing there, a container in his hand that she was sure held ice cream. His cheeks were red from the cold night, and his topaz eyes shone in the light outside her door. The smile on his face wasn’t his normal gregarious, happy to see everyone smile— this one was more reserved, yet seemed to hold so much more meaning behind it. She could’ve stared at that expression for hours, trying to decipher everything behind it.
“Come in— you must be freezing! Well, notyou, exactly, but normal people would be freezing in these temperatures.”
“Punxsutawney Phil sure likes to go back on his promises. But,” he held up the container, “it kept the ice cream nice and cold!”
Joselyn got out two bowls and spoons, scooped ice cream into each bowl, then took them to her little round kitchen table that barely fit in the space between her kitchen and living room. Between her notebook, her laptop, the ice cream, and the neatly stacked piles of paperwork, the table was filled.
They both sat down, and as she loaded up her spoon with ice cream, she said, “Okay, we’ve got a lot of legal stuff to do online and some paperwork for you to sign. We’ll need to file your Articles of Organization as an LLC with the state, get your EIN, which we’ll need for you to open a business bank account, and submit form one-oh-four with the Colorado Department of Revenue. Then we’ll need to look at the final few things for taking over the lease on Thursday, fill out various permits, and decide on a few random things to do with construction so that can start on Thursday, too. Then there are a few final details to address with the equipment. We’ll also need to talk about the periodic reports you’ll need to file.”
She was so focused on their list of tasks for the night that she’d put the bite of ice cream in her mouth without even thinking about it. Then the taste of chocolate, peanut butter, and brownies exploded on her tongue and she moaned at how incredible it tasted. “Oh my goodness. Oh, wow. I think I died and went to heaven.”
She got another spoonful and put it in her mouth, closing her eyes so she could devote all her senses to tasting the creamy peanut butter, the punch of chocolatey goodness in the crisp yet chewy brownie, the silkiness of the chocolate ice cream. “I’m going to call it right now— this is my favorite flavor.” She pointed down at the ice cream with her spoon as she talked, but only for a moment because she needed it to scoop up another bite. “There’s no way anything else could beat this flavor. We’ll just stick a blue ribbon next to its name on the menu.” She put a spoonful in her mouth.
“So we’re calling it ‘Died and went to heaven’ then?”
Joselyn laughed and then wrote exactly that in their list of ice cream names in her notebook. And then took another bite. A small part of her wanted to get right into the exciting business stuff, but the much, much bigger part wanted to not pull her attention away from this ice cream.
Unless her attention was pulled away by the man who was watching her eat his creation. Heat rose to her cheeks at his intense gaze, so she took another bite of ice cream to cool it.
“I’m glad you like it.”
In much the same way that his smile was different when she had opened the door, his words came out different, too. There was so much more behind them than usual, and it made all the thoughts that had been going through her mind about him in the past several weeks take center stage again. She put her ice cream aside, half worried that she’d nearly kiss him, like the last time they’d been alone with his ice cream, and half hoping that she could set all her fears aside already and just kiss the man.
She cleared her throat. “I think we should probably start on filing the Articles of Organization since so many things hinge on that.” She pulled her laptop to her, opened the bookmark in her browser for the Colorado Secretary of State site, and then clicked on the link they needed. Once the form was on the screen, she pushed the laptop toward Marcus so he could fill it out.
Marcus started filling out the form, saying in an official-sounding announcer’s voice that made her laugh what he was typing into each blank as he went. He hesitated any time he wasn’t sure about an item, so she scooted her chair closer so they could both see the screen—notso she could be close enough they were nearly brushing arms— and explained as they went.
About halfway through filling out the form, right after she explained the difference between an individual filing and an entity filing, Marcus pushed the laptop a few inches away and turned toward her.
His gaze was intense and earnest and pleading and tender and passionate all at once. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from him, even though logic was screaming at her that they were entering a danger zone. The curious side of her, though, the side that felt something strong and powerful coming from him couldn’t back away. It had to know the source.
