Page 17 of Meet Me in a Mile

Seventeen

Lydia

“Y ou’re packing up?” Erik said, frowning as he poked his head into Lydia’s office.

“I know you’re getting older, but that’s usually what the end of the day means,” Lydia teased. She’d had her fill of tedious reviews and client meetings today; she was more than ready to meet with Luke and squeeze in her short run. Months ago she never would have voluntarily taken herself to the gym after work, but that’s apparently who she was now.

“Watch it,” Erik warned. “I’m the one who writes your year-end review.”

Lydia grinned, unplugging her laptop charger from the wall. “Why? What’s up?”

“Projects wants to know if you’re available to stay late to finish up some work for a client,” Erik said.

“Projects has an entire team to pick from. Why are they poaching from yours?”

“Jack said something about an eco-friendly design consult.”

That was odd. Those things usually came across Erik’s desk in a briefing, which he then delegated down to her. Why hadn’t she seen a briefing on this? And why would Jack be asking for her specifically? They’d hardly spoken since Kirsten revealed that the entire leadership team was gunning to make partner.

“So, can you stay?” Erik asked.

“I can’t actually,” Lydia said. “I’ve got nine miles to run with my trainer.”

“That sounds like a lot for a Tuesday.”

“Believe it or not, that’s a short run. They used to only be like three miles, but I’m just so amazing now,” Lydia deadpanned, “that my trainer knows I can handle more.”

Erik narrowed his eyes playfully. “Sounds like you’re trying to tell me something.”

“Only that I’m capable of learning and growing.” She’d done nothing but improve her running technique, steadily closing the gap on the miles she had to run for the marathon. She wanted to be able to put the same energy into her actual career.

“And?” Erik said, waiting for her to finish.

“And maybe that would translate into my job if Poletti’s would actually approve some of our project proposals.” Lydia had realized that having all her proposals red-lined meant Erik was also sitting on the sidelines. They were both filling their days with the tasks other departments didn’t want to do: completing feasibility studies and financial analyses, preparing bidding documents, organizing material cost breakdowns.

“You know if it was up to me—”

“This whole place would go green?” she said.

He smiled softly at her. “You’ve got the skills, Lydia. And a lot of potential. Never doubt that.”

She rolled her eyes at him. It was nice to hear, of course, but she’d rather have a project of their own to prove that.

“I’ll tell Projects that you can’t stay then?” Erik confirmed.

“Do you know what client it’s for?”

“Jack didn’t say. He only mentioned that you should meet him in the conference room,” he said as they exited into the hall. “If you can’t stay, then you can’t stay. I’ll let him know.”

“Wait,” Lydia said as Erik started to text Jack. “I’ll just let him know myself.”

Erik put his phone away and was gone before she could reconsider. Oh, well. She was going to have to smooth things over with Jack eventually. Not that Jack even knew anything was wrong. This was entirely a one-sided disagreement, and that was almost worse because Jack had no idea how disappointed she’d been. But they were coworkers. They were running the marathon together. At some point they would be standing side by side for a sweaty photo at the finish line. She couldn’t exactly ignore him for the rest of her career.

It was best to get this out of the way. Then she could spend the rest of the afternoon sweating out the awkwardness of this conversation in the gym with Luke. She walked to the end of the hall and knocked on the closed conference room door. There was no answer. For a moment, she worried she might be interrupting someone’s private meeting, but she popped the door open anyway. “Hello?”

“You came!” Jack said, hurrying around the edge of the table. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and a shock of dark hair dangled in his eyes like he’d been working furiously at something and hadn’t had time to brush it back. “I didn’t know if I would catch you in time. Remind me to thank Erik.”

Lydia just blinked at him, confused as Jack ushered her into a seat. She spun around, watching him throw his arms out in a ta-da motion.

“Well?” he said. “What do you think?”

“What do I think about what?” Her eyes narrowed in concern. Had she missed the briefing on something important? Did this have anything to do with the marathon? Maybe she’d accidentally deleted an important email.

Jack turned and frowned at the blank projector screen. “Oh, damn. I always forget to take the cover off this thing.” He walked to the projector, where he had a laptop set up, and took the cap off. A floor plan popped up on the screen.

Lydia stared at a familiar-looking image. This was her design. She opened her mouth, but unsure of what to say, she just pointed at the screen and blinked at Jack. He waltzed up to the screen, all suave and easygoing, wearing that charming grin of his. Lydia had seen him use that grin on rooms filled with prospective clients a dozen times. But there was no one else here. Just her and the floor plan she’d created for the Manhattan Youth Center. “What’s going on?”

“This is my pitch,” Jack said, beaming. He held a tiny black remote in his hand. He clicked it, and a new image filled the screen: a photo of Jack at his desk, studiously working. It was a selfie that had obviously been taken today since he was wearing the same clothes.

“Your pitch?” Lydia repeated.

“Yes. About why you, Lydia McKenzie, should choose me, Jack Carson, as your proposal partner.”

Lydia rubbed her hand across her forehead. “I am so confused right now. My proposal was rejected.”

“Right,” Jack said. “But I’m proposing a new proposal. A revise, revamp and resubmit, if you will.”

“As partners?” she clarified.

Jack nodded. “You didn’t get a fair shot. I read your proposal and it was really good. Good enough to land on Marco’s desk. We both know that.”

Lydia bit her lip, refusing to let her feelings spill over.

“I haven’t submitted my proposal yet,” Jack explained. “And I really think if we combine your eco-friendly, urban style with my modern, cost-effective design, we could come up with the winning selection from Poletti’s.”

The corner of Lydia’s mouth quirked.

“But hold on,” he said. “Here’s what I bring to the table.” He clicked the remote, a new image popping up on the screen. “Today’s coffee and snacks.” He rushed to the other side of the room and produced two coffees and a honey cruller doughnut. “Courtesy of Charmaine’s.”

“That wins you some points,” Lydia admitted. She reached for her coffee as Jack poured a to-go bag filled with sugar packets onto the table.

“A little birdy told me this is how you take your coffee.”

He returned to his presentation, and Lydia couldn’t help the smile that stretched across her face.

“I also bring a winning attitude.” A photo of him in the break room with the word Winner taped to his chest.

“Nice.”

“I’m team oriented.” A photo of him and Kirsten engaged in a fake conversation.

“Great communication skills,” Lydia teased.

“ And I’m your running buddy.” The last photo was of the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon. “So we’re kind of already in this together.”

Lydia didn’t know if she was more impressed or amused. “How long did this take you?”

Jack made a face. “I might have rescheduled a client meeting.”

She couldn’t believe he’d rearranged part of his week just to plan all this. “Why not just ask me?”

“Because I felt like we veered off on the wrong foot somewhere and I wanted to make it up to you. I realized that a lot of proposals were getting lost in the shuffle. Yours included.”

“The shuffle?” Lydia said. “That’s what you’re calling it?”

He sighed, coming to sit on the edge of the table next to her, and she could tell that this was him attempting to apologize for the breakdown in communication from the leadership team to the rest of the firm. “It’s not a perfect system. I know that. But I really think we have a shot here. If we team up, we could really make this happen. For Poletti’s. For the kids. They deserve something like the center we’re trying to build for them. I say we go back to the drawing board together, lean into the best parts of our ideas and make something magical.” He reached for her hand and squeezed. “Sometimes you just need to get your foot in the door. It doesn’t matter how you get there. So, what do you say? Are the running buddies officially becoming proposal partners?”

“All right,” Lydia said, pulling her laptop from her bag. “But you’re in charge of supplying all the coffee.”

Jack grinned. “Deal.”

If Lydia were ever this late for a client meeting they would have dropped her. And honestly, she wouldn’t even have blamed them. But when things had run late with Jack, she’d texted Luke to let him know she was still tied up at work, and he’d told her not to worry. Then he’d shifted his schedule around to accommodate her, which was how she found herself walking into an empty gym at nine at night.

“Where is everyone?” she asked as Luke let her into the building.

“We close at eight on Tuesdays.”

“Eight?” Lydia said. “Why did I think it was midnight?”

“That’s Friday and Saturday.”

“Clearly I don’t spend enough time here,” she remarked, following him down the hall. “I can’t believe you waited. You should have told me to kindly fuck off.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I wanted to show you your updated mile times.”

“You could have texted.”

“It’s not the same. I can’t see the look on your face.”

Lydia walked past him as he opened his office door for her. The fact that she was sort of excited to see her new mile times almost made her laugh. Maybe Luke had turned her into a gym girl for life. Maybe when this was all over, they’d spend weekends on the treadmills with her complaining about Poletti’s and him telling her all about the progress he was making on his revamped business plan. “Are you ever going to clean this space up?”

“It’s tidy,” Luke protested, sitting down in front of his computer.

Lydia picked up a framed certificate that Luke had left leaning against the wall. “What are you talking about? You still haven’t hung this. And everything from your bookshelf is sitting in that box over there. You know they finished the repairs in here months ago, right?”

He turned slowly in his chair to face her. He had a pensive look on his face. “I guess some part of me kept thinking there wasn’t much point in putting everything away because I was going to get the business loan and be packing up my office soon. When it fell through, I was too disappointed to start putting things away.”

“Oh,” Lydia said softly, wiping dust from the glass covering Luke’s certificate.

“It’s silly,” he said, moving a bunch of papers out of his way and pulling out the hard copy of her training plan. “You’re right. I should tidy up already.”

Lydia put the certificate on the sofa and walked to the desk. She didn’t know what she meant to do. Hug him? Tell him everything would be okay, or that the second time’s the charm? Before she could decide, she got distracted by the papers he’d moved.

“What’s all this?” she asked, picking up a rough sketch.

Luke tried to nab it from her. “I was just working on some mock-up drawings for the warehouse space to add to my new business plan. They’re...not very good. I know. I was hoping drawing it out would inspire a new business model.”

“What are you talking about?” Lydia said, her voice pitched too high. “These are great.”

“Says the actual architect who’s clearly lying through her teeth. These are kindergarten quality.”

She did her best not to laugh. “Want some advice?”

“From a professional? Sure.”

“Invest in a ruler.”

Luke scoffed. “I could have figured that one out.”

“Hey, that’s solid advice. It’ll take this from a negative two to a solid four point five.”

“Negative two?” he said, feigning shock. “Is this the part where you tell me not to quit my day job?”

“I think you’re pretty good at your day job.”

“Speaking of,” he said. “Come over here.”

“I want to see my numbers. But I’m trying not to think about how few weeks are left between now and the marathon and how many miles I still have to run.”

He rolled his chair back so she could see the figures on the training plan. “We’ve got six...almost seven weeks, and you’ve been making great progress,” he insisted. “I’m not worried.”

“Says the professional,” she teased, though she leaned over the training plan to indulge him.

“Look how far you’ve come from where you started,” he said, tapping the first page. “A few months ago you could barely run a mile.”

“I think barely is overstating it. I wasn’t that bad,” Lydia laughed, snapping her head around. He was a lot closer than she’d realized. Close enough that she could smell his shampoo and see the stubble that trailed down his jaw. Her eyes flickered to his lips. A little closer and she could lean down and kiss him. Her stomach did a somersault at the thought. What was she doing? God, this was where Luke worked . This was his office . She immediately put some space between them.

She should know better than to mess around with mixed signals.

Her thoughts skittered to Jack and the ridiculous feelings she’d been sitting with for the better part of the afternoon. Just this morning she’d been avoiding him, but then she’d learned that he’d canceled on a client to prepare that presentation for her. As they’d laid out a tentative plan for their combined proposal, some part of her had wondered if there was something more to his apology. Was it all in her head? Had she read that instance as wrong as she’d just read this moment? She hadn’t expected to still be harboring a crush on Jack after everything, but his sweet gesture had caught her off guard, and that’s what started her thoughts tumbling again. Maybe she wasn’t overthinking things. Jack had asked to be her partner, so even he must have thought they’d make a good pair in some capacity. And Jack was the kind of partner she’d always imagined herself with, right? Was it really so wrong to think that maybe their miscommunication was behind them?

“Are you okay?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, good,” Lydia lied, heading for the door. “We should get out there and start doing burpees or whatever.”

“Burpees?” Luke said, sounding as confused as she felt.

“I’ll see you on the floor.” Without even a glance back, Lydia fled his office.