AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I am. It is,” she said. “At least, I think so.”
“What does that mean?”
She sighed, though she felt impressed at her ability to carry on this conversation while running. Weeks ago she would have been gasping, trying to get the words out. “I just feel like I’m at the point where I keep adding to it because I’m worried it’s not...the best it can be.”
“And is adding to it making it better?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted as they turned back toward the gym. “I think I just put so much pressure on myself with this project that I’m afraid of the judgment from the leadership team and from Marco. What if they don’t think it’s good enough?” She knew it was a possibility, of course. She just wanted to be sure that she submitted her best work. That she was satisfied with the quality, even if it wasn’t the project chosen to represent Poletti’s in the end. “But now I’m also worried I’m just making it worse at this point with all these little tweaks and changes I’m doing.”
“Sounds to me like you have to just let it go.”
“Gee, thanks. Are you gonna charge me for that bit of wisdom?”
Luke laughed. “Sometimes you just have to jump the hurdle.”
“A running metaphor. Should have seen that coming,” Lydia muttered.
“Hey, I’ve got a running metaphor for every occasion. But seriously, when you’re training hurdles, you do it over and over again until it becomes muscle memory. Until you think it’s perfect, that you’ll clear the hurdle every time. But the truth is, you don’t know if you’re gonna make it until you’re in the air. Until you jump.”
“So you’re saying I have to jump some hurdles.”
He laughed as the gym came into view. They slowed, lingering outside the door. “What I’m saying is that no amount of tweaking is going to change the brilliant design that’s already there, so if you think you’ve thrown everything you have at the project, then you have to trust your training and your prep work, and jump, hoping everything pays off.”
Lydia hummed in the back of her throat. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of just handing over her design and hoping for the best. She wanted a more concrete sign that it was ready. That it was good enough. That she was going to clear the hurdle or whatever. But maybe Luke was right, maybe there would be no concrete sign. She just had to go for it.
“Look,” Luke said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “If your design is half as good as everything you’ve been telling me, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
Lydia nodded, a lump caught in her throat as emotion bubbled in her chest. Sometimes Luke said exactly the right thing, even if it was coated in running metaphors. Why was she so afraid? She’d done her research. She’d talked to the kids. She couldn’t possibly have prepared herself any better than that. “Thanks, Luke.”
He grinned. “The running metaphor strikes again.”
“All right, I’ll give you that one,” she said, humoring him as she slipped into the building to shower and change for work.
A flutter of excitement washed through her as she got closer to Poletti’s. With Luke’s support, she’d come to the conclusion before she left the gym that she was going to do it—she was going to hand in her proposal. It was ready.Shewas ready. So when Lydia reached her office, the first thing she did was send the entire document to the printer.
Kirsten barged into her office a moment later, closing the door behind her. “In case anyone is wondering, you saw me going downstairs to get supplies and you have no idea when I’ll return.”
Lydia smirked. “Are you hiding?”
“The Marshalls just walked in.”
“Ah,” Lydia said. Mr. Marshall owned a string of high-end residential buildings in Midtown. He’d been working with Poletti’s since before Lydia had even been employed, and was both one of their biggest and wealthiest contracts. He never stopped talking, and he also flirted openly with Kirsten despite her lack of interest and his wife’s constant presence on his arm.
“Jack took them off my hands,” Kirsten said.
“Jack’s great like that.” Lydia scanned her emails quickly. “Did you see this email from the outreach team?”
“The lovely office jog to get our blood pumping?” Kirsten asked, grimacing.
“It’s marathon prep,” Lydia said.
“I’m not running the marathon! I don’t know why I have to get sweaty in the middle of the workday.”
“Because you love me.”
“I will fundraise your money, but I draw the line at needing to shower after lunch.”
“Maybe we’ll get a short day out of it.” Lydia left Kirsten and headed down to the copy room. She found her document sitting in the paper tray and flipped through it to make sure everything had printed properly—the last thing she wanted was weird ink smudges cluttering up her design. Pride swelled in her chest like a balloon as she got to the end of the document. Dare she say that she was hopeful about her chances of being selected to represent Poletti’s in the competition? Maybe Luke and his weird metaphors were paying off.
