Page 98 of Love Off-Limits
And that didn’t include me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tyler
I leaned into my laptop, studying a series of video clips for a commercial we were putting together. The filming had been done before I was hired, but the Ethans had asked me to work on the final edit. The ad was for a brand of running shoe that was fashionable enough to wear anywhere. The target audience for this particular advertisement was mostly full-time moms, so the ad poked fun at the idea of “athleisure wear,” listing all the reasons women came up with to justify staying in their workout clothes all day. The writing was brilliant, and the acting was spot on. But the video transitions were a little slow, working against the fast-paced, quick-witted content.
“Tyler.”
I looked up to find Tall Ethan standing next to my desk. “Hey. I think I figured it out. We just need to speed the transition from—”
“We can talk about that later. Right now, we have a potential new client. Ethan and I would like you to take point on this one.”
“What?” I backed away from him in my rolling chair. “No. No, I’m not ready for that.”
“Trust me. You’re ready for this one.”
“Trust me. I’m really not,” I deadpanned. “I don’t know anything about how to have a conversation with a potential client. If you send me in to meet one, I will lose this client for you.”
“In fact,” Ethan said stoically, “I think you’ll do the very opposite. Come on.” He walked away, giving me little choice but to follow him. We stopped briefly outside the consultation room. The room held an enormous conference table and a wall covered from floor to ceiling in video monitors. I’d only been in the room once, when I’d sat in the corner in awe as the Ethans had presented a new ad to a very happy client. I hadn’t said a word. I’d been too blown away by how polished they were, how seamlessly they worked together. I was not that polished.
“This is a mistake,” I said.
Ethan only smiled. “It isn’t.” He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Now, hopefully, at some point during this meeting, you’re going to have a question for Ethan and me. You’re not going to want to ask it. You’ll think it’s too soon. You’ll think you haven’t been with us long enough to prove your value. But you should ask the question, Tyler. Wedosee your value. And the answer would be yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Just go on in. You will soon enough.” He left me standing there, my heart in my throat and my brain upside down. What was he talking about?
I took a deep, calming breath and pushed through the conference room door.
Olivia stood on the other side of the table.
She wore a green dress—the same color as the dress she’d worn at Isaac and Rosie’s wedding. Her hair was down, her eyes intensely green even across the distance of the table. “Hi,” she said shyly.
I swallowed. I hadn’t seen her in six weeks. Six weeks, four days, and—I glanced at my watch—fifteen hours. “Hi.”
“How have you been?”
I pushed my hands into my pockets. “Um, good. I’m good.”
She looked around the conference room. “This place is amazing. And it was good to see the Ethans again.”
“Yeah, they’re pretty great.”
“I, um, I thought about bringing Penelope with me to say hello. But she’s grown out of her diapers and has been accepted into the herd like a big girl.”
I smiled. “That’s.. .” It was great. I’d always have a soft spot in my heart for the little goat. But I didn’t think Olivia had come all this way to talk about Penelope. Hope stirred in my chest. “Is that the only—”
“I’d like to hire your agency!” she blurted out, and the hope fizzled.
“Oh. Okay.”
She pressed a hand to her forehead. “I mean, that’s not—” She shook her hands out. “Gah. I am really screwing this up.”
I had never seen Olivia so nervous. “Why don’t we sit down?” I said calmly, motioning toward the two chairs at the closest end of the table.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to sit down. Because then this will feel like a business meeting. And it is a business meeting. I do, actually, want to hire the ad agency to help us promote the restaurant. But mostly I’m just here so I can tell you.. .” She breathed a sigh and lifted her shoulders. “That I love you.”
