Page 36 of Small Town CEO Grump

“The editor said he would like for me to start in three weeks,” I answered.

“Are you going to stay here for the entire three weeks? Or will you take a week for yourself?”

Although I liked the idea of having a week for myself before starting the new job, I didn’t want to inconvenience Ryan.

“If we can get someone in here and trained in two weeks then I would like to take the extra week off,” I said. “But I will stay that final week if you need me.”

“Okay,” he answered. “Thank you. Let’s get an ad posted and hopefully we can get someone in here soon and you can start training them. Will you post the ad? I know we have a generic ad we use at our other offices, but you know best what the actual job entails.”

“Sure,” I said. “I can write it up and get it posted today.”

I started to stand up, but I could see that Ryan looked like he had something he wanted to say.

“Is there something more on your mind?” I asked.

Ryan stared at me for a minute, and then finally spoke.

“There is something else on my mind, but I feel strange telling you about it,” he said. “This is such a great day for you and I don’t want to take away from your excitement or your news at all. But there is something pretty great that has been happening for me, and I wanted to share it with you.”

I laughed. “Don’t be silly,” I said. “You’re not going to take away from my day. Hearing good news about you would only add to my great day.”

Ryan smiled. “You really are something, you know that?”

I shrugged my shoulders, not quite knowing what to say.

“Okay. Well, my news is that I have started helping coach baseball at the high school.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” I said.

I could tell by the smile on his face that he was really happy. The night he had helped coach Tyler's game I had seen that he loved it, and I was hoping he would find a way to be around the game more.

“When did this happen?” I asked.

“The day after I coached Tyler,” he said. “I called the school, went to meet the players and coaches, and I have been helping out ever since!”

“Oh, that’s awesome,” I said. “So you get to do what you love!”

“And now so do you,” he said.

“Right,” I answered, nodding. “Speaking of baseball, Tyler has a game tonight. Will you be there? My parents are going to be there and I’d love to introduce you.”

“Ooh, meeting the parents?” he said, with a twinkle in his eye that made me blush.

I chuckled, “Something like that.”

“As much as I would like to do that, I can’t make it tonight. Unfortunately I have a meeting I have to go to. I’ll be at the next game, though, if that’s alright. And if your parents are at that game I would love to meet them.”

“They’ll be there,” I said, standing up. “Okay, I am going to go and get the ad ready. I will keep you posted as soon as we start getting applicants.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Congratulations, again.”

“Thank you.”

As I got to the door he softly called my name.

“Jenna?”

I turned around, my heart pounding at the tone of his voice.

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