AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Is it mutual? Did I miss an office romance developing? Isthiswhy you’re not getting unprofessional with Luke?”
“You didn’t miss anything.”
“Are you sure? Should I just go catch up with yourrunning buddyand get all the hot gossip? Don’t underestimate how fast I’ll run for this information.”
“Calm down, Sherlock. Okay,” Lydia conceded. “I might have had a small office crush on Jack.”
“Had? As in past tense? Because that look you gave him had present tense written all over it.”
“I don’t know. Present Tense Lydia is still kind of pissed about this whole proposal thing.”
“Just promise to warn me if you two start banging in your office at lunch. I do not want to walk in on that.”
“Oh, please. You’d be standing outside the door the moment it was over for a play-by-play.”
Kirsten snorted. “Okay, yeah, true.”
“It’s bullshit, is what it is,” Ashley said as she grabbed plates from the cupboard.
Lydia shrugged, cradling her wineglass. She’d felt like drowning her sorrows after work and had shown up on Ashley’s doorstep with dinner and a frown. “I guess I have to accept the possibility that my proposal was actually terrible.”
She’d spent enough time in school having her projects critiqued to know there was a possibility she’d completely missed the mark. Only Marco had never given them a brief. He’d basically handed them the task and set them free. That’s what had made her so excited initially.
“It wasn’t terrible,” Ashley said. “You know how I know? Because it’s like this everywhere. Women are consistently judged to have less leadership potential so they’re less likely to be promoted. And they’re held to much higher standards in the workplace. You know, it’s these ingrained societal attitudes that make women undersell their work. That make them more tentative when applying for—”
“Okay,okay,” Lydia said, holding her hand up to interrupt Ashley’s rant before she started pulling out old case law to prove her point. “I believe you. And I love you for being so passionate about all this. But can you stop being a lawyer for five minutes and just be sad with me?”
Ashley sucked in a breath and let it out. “Fine.”
“Good,” Lydia said. “You can fight the injustices of the world later.”
Ashley sat down on the couch and needled her side. “Show me the proposal.”
“I don’t want to look at it anymore.”
“C’mon,” Ashley said. “I know you worked really hard on it. You deserve to show it to someone who cares.”
Lydia smiled a bit. Sometimes she liked being the younger sibling. She put her wineglass down on the coffee table and got up to retrieve her laptop from her workbag. She sat back down, turning it on. “So, how goes the wedding conversation?”
“We’re reevaluating our options and finally prioritizing what we want,” Ashley said.
“Are the moms going to freak out?”
Ashley grinned. “Oh, definitely.”
“Why does it sound like you’re keeping a secret?”
“You’ll know when you’re supposed to know.”
“Okay, Yoda, just remember, I’m your maid of honor, so some notice would be nice if I have to have a speech ready.” Lydia turned back to the computer screen, opening her proposal.
Ashely took the laptop from her. “What am I looking at?”
Lydia pouted as she pointed to the screen. “Massive double gymnasium. Industrial kitchen. New theater wing. And this was my favorite part. The rooftop garden.”
“The kids would have thought that was so cool,” Ashley agreed. Sitting like this reminded Lydia of when they used to play together as kids. Lydia would make intricate drawings of castles and villages, and Ashley would make up rules for their kingdom. Their parents should have known they’d have an architect and a lawyer in the family way back then.
“I worked really hard on this.” Lydia leaned her head against Ashley’s shoulder. “The corporate ladder sucks.”
