Page 57 of Kiss and Tell

It was at least twenty minutes later that I found myself still in the shower, water raining down on me, as I stood there lost in thought.

I rinsed off and stepped out to dry myself before getting dressed and heading back out. Connor sat on the sofa scrolling on his phone with his small suitcase at his feet, ready to go. A couple paper bags sat on the coffee table.

“I got us some food for the road,” he said, nodding to the bags.

“Sandwiches again?” I asked.

“I know how much you love them,” he said with a sparkle in his eyes and a grin on his face.

Connor was much more cheerful than usual. Worry gnawed at my stomach as we made our way to the car, but I pushed it down. Last night had been amazing. No need to ruin it with constant fretting.

As we pulled away and started heading home, Connor tapped a constant beat against the steering wheel with his fingers and thumbs, humming every so often.

“You want something to eat?” he asked.

“I’m good for now,” I replied.

He nodded and returned to tapping.

The silence grew between us. I fiddled with the seatbelt. The silence felt awkward to me, but Connor had a small smile on his face as he tapped out a tune only he could hear.

“Have you always been into music?” I asked.

“Since I was a kid,” he said. “I used to put on these talent shows and play air guitar for my parents.”

“That’s cute.”

“What about you?” he asked. “Have you always been into this interior design stuff?”

It didn’t escape my notice he had immediately changed the subject from music to me.

“Whenever I played with dolls I always spent more time putting together a house for them to live in than actually playing with them,” I said. “I ignored the Barbie and played with the Dream House instead.”

“What about the rest of it?” he asked. “All that other business stuff you know?”

“I went to school for some of it, then did internships,” I said. “That’s how I got into my current company even though I’m still pretty young. I interned there and must have impressed them, because they kept me on.”

“Of course you impressed them,” Connor said. “You’re great at what you do.”

“I like to think I am,” I told him. “I just want everyone to also think that, too. I want to prove to the world I can do it.”

“Why is that so important to you?” he asked. “Proving yourself, I mean.”

“I suppose…” I trailed off. I’d never really thought about where my drive came from. “It might come from my mom. She’s this high-powered executive. But she didn’t start that way. Way back, decades ago, before I was born, she was hired as just an assistant. Everyone told her to be grateful for her job, but she wanted to be doing more than making the coffee and taking meeting notes. So she worked her way up, promotion after promotion. She bought her way into a partnership at the firm and then eventually she left to start her own.”

“Sounds like an amazing woman,” Connor said.

“I really look up to her,” I said. “I want to make her proud.”

“I’m sure she’s proud of you already,” Connor said.

“I know,” I replied. “But still, I want to prove I can be just as successful as her.”

“Seems like you’re halfway there,” Connor said. “You’re working on this as a solo assignment. Clearly your company trusts you know what you’re doing.”

“That’s not enough,” I said. “I don’t want to be a cog in someone else’s machine. I want to be like my mom and start my own company. To be in control of my own career.”

“I love that about you,” Connor said.