Page 106 of Pulse
“Good to have you back, Troy.How’s Dahlia?”
“She’s here, actually. She said she can’t sit at home doing nothing.”
“I told her to take time off. What is it with you two?” Ford asks.
I shrug.
He swipes his phone screen. It rings through the speaker.
“Hi, Ford,” Dahlia says.
I furrow a brow.
“Good morning. I’m in Troy’s office. Could you come by, please?”
“Sure. Be right there.”
It’s not thirty seconds before there’s a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I say.
She enters with a confused look on her face.
I helped her get dressed this morning—black pants and a loose-fitting top. Her arm has been hurting and she didn’t sleepwell. So I sat up reading to her, trying to keep her mind off the pain.
“What’s going on?” she asks, looking around the room.
“How do you feel?” Ford asks.
“It hurts. A lot.”
Ford kicks back, resting one ankle on the other knee. “I have a proposition for the two of you.”
Dahlia comes around my desk and stands beside me.
“Okay,” I say, wondering where this is going.
“I’m in a bit of a pickle with the two of you. I don’t love the idea of Troy being in the field and Dahlia in the office.”
“So you want me in the field. Makes sense,” Dahlia says.
I snort.
Ford laughs. “Not where I was going, but interesting angle.” He shakes his head. “Maybe you’d like to head our new Safety and Consulting division. We’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Troy, I think we’ve talked about it before.”
“Yeah. We sure have.”
“You can totally say no,” Ford says. “We’ll figure it out. But I’d like to dip our toes into consulting and I don’t have anyone else I’d trust to run it. It might be a perfect fit.”
Dahlia looks at me.
“Wow,” I say. “That’s a big deal. Are you sure?”
“You’re my best guy. Don’t tell Theo. It’ll hurt his feelings.”
“I’m definitely telling Theo.”
Lincoln and Dahlia laugh.
