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A part of me didn’t want the contract if I hadn’t been able to win it on my own merit. Taking the contract after Troy had pretty much stolen it from me, only to give it back, felt like some sort of charity situation.
What would have happened if I’d known all the facts of the project and was able to do the presentation the right way without Troy getting involved and ruining it for me? Would I have won fair and square, or would he still have been better than me?
Again, I wasn’t sure if it mattered.
At the end of the day, what mattered was the fact that I got the project and the money I needed to figure out my future. I wasn’t going to be alone anymore, and the money would help me do all the things I wouldn’t have been able to do before. I could get the right help so I didn’t have to stop working, and my baby could get all the care he or she needed.
Yeah, no matter which way this had gone or how I’d ended up here, I wasn’t so full of myself, so proud, that I wouldn’t accept this contract. I deserved it, I worked hard, and I was going to take it because it was what I needed.
When I got to my office, I wasn’t nearly as excited as I thought I’d be. My mind kept drifting to Troy, and whenever I thought about him, I felt like I was going to be sick. It could have been morning sickness, or it could have been a side effect of having a broken heart.
It was tough to tell these days.
When the day ended, my phone rang, and it was Hailey on the other end of the line.
“Your timing is incredible,” I said with a smile. “I just heard I got the contract, and I needed to share it with someone!”
“I’m known for having a feeling about this, you know,” Hailey said.
I laughed. “Since when?”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s go out.”
“I can’t go out to celebrate with wine or anything, but let’s do something,” I said.
“Of course! I’m totally down for a glass of milk if that’s what it takes.”
I giggled. Hailey was a great friend, and she would be there for me no matter what. Shit could go wrong in my life, I always had people who cared about me.
“Where are you?” she asked. “I’ll pick you up,” she added when I told her I was leaving the office now.
By the time I got to the parking lot, Hailey was already there.
“You’re serious about getting out there, huh?” I asked with a laugh when I saw her. “You were here in record time.”
“I was around the corner,” Hailey said happily. “It was sixth sense, you know?”
“Right,” I said and climbed in.
Hailey drove us to the usual cocktail bar we always went to.
“I phoned ahead,” she said before I could protest. “They make mocktails.”
“Cocktails without alcohol?”
“You know it,” Hailey said happily. “Then you can have all the taste without anything wrong.”
“Maybe we should do that when we’re not pregnant, too. You know, be more responsible.”
Hailey rolled her eyes. “Let’s just pretend you didn’t say that.”
I laughed, and she pulled into the parking spot that seemed to be open especially for us.
Her phone beeped. She glanced at it, typed a reply, and tucked her phone in her pocket before we walked in.
When we were seated in a booth, each with a cocktail—or mocktail—in front of us, I told Hailey how it had happened that I’d gotten the contract.
“I don’t want this to be a thing, you know?” I said after I explained to Hailey how Troy had pulled out of the contract to give it to me. “I don’t want to feel like by accepting it, I’m giving in somehow.”
