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“I’m looking after her kids,” I said. “We’ll have to revisit after the weekend.”
“Johnson wants to see us with an outline for ideas on Monday,” he said. “I just got the note.”
“What?” I asked. Marcus Johnson was the head of Elecoms. “He can’t just jump that on us. We have no time—”
“Johnson is a dick, but he’s dancing to Toussaint’s tune. If I had to keep the world’s most famous jewelry designer happy, I’d jump through flaming hoops, too.”
I groaned. “Except it’s us jumping through the hoops, not him.” I swapped the phone around and helped Rory pull up her tiny leggings. “I can’t leave the kids.”
“I’ll come to you. We’ll do it after they get to bed or something.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure about letting Troy get this close to my personal life.
“Otherwise, I’ll take care of my end of it, and you could always send in your proposal when you get a chance.”
Shit. If I did that, he would have a head start, and Johnson was more likely to choose him. I wasn’t going to let him get ahead this early in the game.
“If you don’t mind coming here, we can do it,” I said tightly. “I’m at my sister’s place. I’ll send you the location.”
“That works for me,” Troy said. “What can I bring? Cupcakes?”
“Oh, God, no. The sugar high is hell, trust me.”
“Right,” Troy said. “I’ll see you later.”
We ended the call.
“Who was that?” Tammy asked. She and Benjamin had come into the room while I’d been talking. Rory had pulled a big jersey on herself, and she looked cute. Her hair was wet but we could dry that off easily.
“A work friend,” I said. “We have to work on something later.”
“Is he nice?” Benjamin asked.
“Yeah,” I said. He wasnice. He was just a pain in my ass in some ways. Heavenly in others.
“Come on, let’s get the pancakes going,” I said. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m hungry.”
We walked to the kitchen together. Benjamin was chatty, and Rory was all over the place, bouncing off the walls like she’d had sugar already—I hoped she hadn’t—but Tammy was quiet.
In the kitchen, I put them all to work. I let Benjamin mix the dry ingredients together with a spoon while I got the wet ingredients in a bowl with Tammy. Rory sat on a playmat in the corner, playing with dolls. She sang to herself.
“You okay?” I asked Tammy.
“Is Mommy okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “They’re going to take good care of her and before you know it, she’ll be home.” I hoped to God that was true.
I was almost ready to get the pancake batter in the pan when the intercom went off.
“Is that your friend?” Tammy asked.
“I’ll get it!” Benjamin shouted and ran out the door to press the button for the gate.
I was grateful I didn’t have dogs to worry about, too.
When we waited at the front door, Troy ran in, laptop bag tucked to his chest.
“This is starting to look and feel like a hurricane,” he announced.
