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Her phone started to buzz in her hand. She looked down to see a call coming through. The number looked...familiar? Since when did work call her on the weekend? Had Kirsten gone into the office for some reason? She answered. “Hello?”
“Hey there, running buddy.”
“Jack? Hi,” she said. He’d never called her before.
“Sorry, I’m calling from the office. I grabbed your number from the personal directory. Got a minute?”
“That’s fine, yeah...” She glanced at the stove clock. She could spare a minute before she had to leave to meet Luke. “What’s up?”
“I just... I’m working on the write-up for our proposal. I thought having a second pair of eyes on it would be helpful.”
“I thought you were going to finish the write-up last week...” Lydia said. The deadline was tomorrow—the last Monday of October. If the proposal didn’t get finished by tonight, they weren’t going to make it at all. Jack had said he’d take care of the write-up. She hadn’t even thought to ask about it, just completely put it out of her mind, trusting that he would get it done and pass it off to leadership. She smoothed a hand over her hair, grabbing her ponytail and giving it a soft tug out of frustration.
“I was,” Jack said. “The days totally got away from me. I had to finish up the Carpelli sketches and the Madisyn portfolio came due. And Marco’s got the leadership team chasing new clients.”
“Oh, Jack.” The twenty miles she had to run suddenly felt like one hundred.
“I’m really sorry. I know I dropped the ball. That’s on me. And you’ve probably got other commitments. I totally get it. Don’t worry. I’ll get it done.”
“Wait,” she said, scrunching her nose up. She sort of wished she’d never answered the phone. She was supposed to be meeting Luke, but if she went on this run first, she’d be too exhausted to focus on the proposal. At this point in her training, her runs weren’t twenty-minute events. Running twenty miles would take her and Luke a few hours at least. That’s why they’d already had to swap the run from Saturday to Sunday, to accommodate his other clients. This run needed to happen today to keep her on target for her training plan. But the proposal wasbothof their responsibility now. That’s what it meant to be partners. If she and Jack worked quickly, maybe she could just push the run back an hour or two. Luke had been great about rearranging things before. Hopefully he wouldn’t mind doing it again. “I can make time,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the office.”
“Great,” Jack said, sounding relieved. “See you soon.”
Lydia grabbed her workbag with her laptop and headed out to catch the train. On the way, she texted Luke an apology.I am the absolute worst, she said, knowing he would already be at the gym, preparing.But a work thing came up and I’ve got to run into the office for a couple hours.
He answered almost immediately.Do you want to push our run to later this morning?
Yes! Thank you! That would be perfect.She sent a flurry of emojis. WhenLydia arrived at Poletti’s, she hurried past her office and into the conference room, where Jack was already set up. She dumped everything on the table, pulling out her laptop.
“Hey, I really appreciate you coming in like this. You didn’t run here, did you?”
“I, oh...” She looked down at her outfit. She’d already been dressed for her run. “No, I was on my way to a training thing. Didn’t even think about changing.”
“Good. I thought we were saving the sprinting for the last leg of the marathon.”
She chuckled, but it was a hollow sound. “Okay, want to show me what we’re working with?” He sent her through his working copy of the proposal and she scanned it quickly, her heart sinking. It had been over a week since she’d looked at their file, and in that time, she realized Jack hadn’t finishedanyof the things he said he was going to. It wasn’t just the write-up, it was so much more.
“Okay,” Jack said. “To save us time, I think we should repurpose some of your original write-up and tweak it a bit to fit our new design.”
“I guess that would work,” Lydia said.
“While you track down the file, I’m gonna pop downstairs and grab us some coffee from Charmaine’s. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared before Lydia could protest. Her foot bounced against the floor as frustration flooded her veins. She tried to shake it off. There was no use in being annoyed. This was how partnerships went sometimes. And if she didn’t help Jack now, it might not get done at all.
It was almost ten minutes before he returned.
“Here you go,” he said, hurrying back into the room. He put the coffee down next to her, looking over her shoulder before pointing to the laptop screen. “We should probably tweak that part there.”
The frustration she thought she’d stifled flamed to life, so she took a sip of her coffee. Why hadn’t he done any of the things he said he would do? She was also busy juggling work and training and life, but if she’d promised to finish something on the proposal, it would have been done. She shoved those thoughts away again since they werenothelping. They would finish this proposal today, Jack could submit it tomorrow, and she could stop stressing.
After an hour passed without much progress, she realized this wasn’t going to be a simple or quick finish. Meeting Luke for a morning run was looking like less and less of a possibility. Lydia rubbed the bridge of her nose. If she genuinely wanted to put the effort in, she needed at least a couple of hours to finish the design properly. She picked up her phone, already feeling wretched.
I’m so sorry, she texted Luke.I’m not gonna make it this morning. I’m in a bit of a mess here.
Are you okay?
Yeah. And I’m definitely not canceling. I know this is an important one for the race prep. Any chance you can do this afternoon? Do you have other clients?
I’ll move some things around.
