Page 63 of Lovesick
Lizbeth:It’s ... hope.
JJ:That a Viking warrior is going to sweep you off your feet and to your own castle full of really fun dresses?
Lizbeth:Well, sort of. Yes. Obviously that probably won’t happen in this day and age, right? Castles are at a premium. But books help me remember that that option isn’t TOTALLY gone. Maybe it won’t happen to me now, but I can pretend it will.
JJ:Do you want a Viking warrior to sweep you off your feet? They raped and pillaged and murdered like crazy people.
Lizbeth:Not the ones I like! There were gallant ones, I’m sure.
JJ:Gallant Vikings. Riiiiight. I mean, living in the Middle Ages?
Lizbeth:Yeah, I would have sucked at that.
JJ:Would not have been pretty.
Lizbeth:Maybe that’s what romance does. It takes undesirable circumstances and makes them a little more ... doable.
JJ:That’s your best argument so far.
21
Lizbeth
“Mark, I created some design boards for you to look at on Pinnable. They give some color schemes and a feel for what we can do with Adventura’s website,” I said the next day.
His head popped up from where he was sitting on the couch, pouring over some documents I’d eventually have to file. I leaned forward to putpush Mark into this centuryon my list.
“Are you already working on the website?” he asked.
“Soon. I’m just prepping for it in between scanning these documents and losing all my brain cells. There’s only two boxes left.”
He grinned roguishly and stood up to skim through what was there. I angled my laptop to go through some of my ideas, but before I could explain, he nodded. “Looks good, Lizbeth.”
“But you haven’t even looked at it.”
“I have. I read ahead of you. I can already tell you have a vision for it that aligns with mine. The colors are earth tones, I like the landing page on the left you have pinned there, and you already have the URL that reflects the company name. Looks good.”
“You said part of the reason you wanted me to stay here was so you could help design the website. This could easily be done remotely.”
“Yeah, but that was before I implicitly trusted you.”
“Oh.”
“Looks good to me. Go for what you think is best.” He turned back to his work without another word.
I sat there for a second, simultaneously flattered and stumped. Mark was a classic laissez-faire leader. He hated details and just wanted to guide the general direction, which made it easy for me to work with what I knew. But I hated the lack of guidance because it left more decisions for me. Still, this would help the résumé because I could create a stunning website. The back-end work was always fun.
And I really wanted to make him proud.
“Okay,” I drawled slowly. “I can do that.”
A few more hefty stacks of paper needed to be scanned and organized onto his new cloud storage. In between waiting for the internet to upload each file, I updated my spreadsheets and my to-do list and regarded the love binder, which I’d hidden underneath the desk.
Among my general theories on romance, I’d included the point that romance may have been defined differently in the medieval period, but surely it had existed.TheLais of Marie de Franceand all its courtly upheaval and romantic affairs proved it.
My task list outside of work included reading other historical texts that could prove romance had always existed, which would debunk any argument that romance was a modern construct created to sell products—a debate I’d certainly won with other people before.
But not with JJ.
