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“Later,” she promised, then headed straight to her office and sat down. Since her conversation with Ashley, there was a measure of clarity to her thoughts that she hadn’t had before, but now everything felt sort of surreal. Almost like she was a visitor, peeking in at her life, waiting to see how the ending played out. Lydia busied herself with checking her emails, trying to distract herself until a knock drew her attention to the doorway.
Jack stood there, a sheepish smile on his face. “I was informed that I’d been summoned?”
A flutter of nerves kicked off in her gut, lodging themselves in her throat. “Yeah, come in,” she said. “Mind getting the door?”
Jack closed it softly behind him. When he turned around, he started talking before she could even ask if he wanted to sit down. “I sort of figured this is about what happened last night. And I just wanted to say that I really hope I didn’t cause you any problems. That was never my intention.”
Lydia nodded. “I didn’t think—”
“I didn’t want you to be confused,” he cut in, rocking up and down on his heels. “I know we sort of left things in an awkward spot last night after we were interrupted, and I know we’ve been working together recently, but that’s not why I kissed you. My feelings were real, so I acted on them.”
“Jack,” Lydia said, before he could cut her off again. “I...think it might have been a good thing that we were interrupted.”
“Oh?” His brow furrowed for a beat. “Oh. You didn’t feel—”
“No,” she said gently. “Which is why that won’t happen again.”
“Right. I didn’t mean to assume—”
“I also don’t think we should be partners on the youth center proposal,” she blurted out. She didn’t know how to smoothly drop it into the conversation. How to say that she wanted her work back. “I know you probably already gave it to the rest of the leadership team, but we’re going to have to pull the proposal.” She swallowed hard. “Iwantto pull the proposal.”
“Because of the kiss?”
“No, Jack,” she said, wishing she’d never mixed work and romance. Wishing she’d realized that her crush on Jack had...disappeared before she’d ever kissed him. She hated that he assumed she was asking to pull the project because she didn’t like him like that. “That’s not why. I need to do this because it matters to me how I get my foot in the door. I want to walk through it on my own merit, because my work is good enough. I don’t want to be dragged through it on someone else’s coattails.”
“Lydia,” he started, looking a bit bewildered. “That’s not what I was doing. Or, at least, I wasn’t trying to.”
“You were though, Jack,” she said softly but firmly. He might have been her way through the door, but in order to make that happen, she also had to be his stepping stone. Even if his intentions had never been malicious, she could see it now: Jack was still out to impress Marco to secure his spot as partner. Everything had been to win points. Running the marathon. Selecting the youth center as their charity. And now they were just repackaging her proposal and slapping his name on it—exactly what Ashley had said. “You might not have seen it that way, but some part of you recognized the opportunity to use my work and took it.”
The corner of her mouth quirked despite her words as all Ashley’s ranting about women in the workplace came rushing back. Even now she was working twice as hard to make sure that Jack understood her position. That he didn’t begrudge her for it.
Jack just looked at her, at a loss for words. Finally he said, “I’m sorry for everything.”
Lydia nodded. It felt like too soon to truly accept his apology, but what use was there in dragging this out? “I’m sorry things didn’t work out differently.”
“Me too,” he said. “I’ll go pull the proposal right now.”
Jack slipped out the door, and as he did, it felt like that faded image of her future, all the expectations she had for herself, was disappearing with him. She was letting go of what she’d thought her life was supposed to be, and as scary as that was, it was also sort of freeing. The coiled tension in her chest unwound bit by bit. There was only one thing left to deal with now—the marathon.
After work, she made her way across town. Luke still hadn’t responded to any of her messages, so she did the only thing she could do, the only thing she’d been doing for the past five months, and went to the gym.
It was Monday, technically a rest day, which was probably why Luke looked so surprised to see her when she walked into his office. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said, turning away from his computer. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”
“I know. That’s why I came. Since you won’t respond to my calls.” She wasn’t harsh with her words, but she wasn’t going to try to pretend he hadn’t been ignoring her. And sure, maybe she deserved it after stringing him along all day yesterday before canceling, but soon he wasn’t going to have to worry about any of this.
“I’ve been busy.”
“All day?”
He cleared his throat. “Since you’re here,” he said, handing her a stack of papers.
“What’s this?”
“The rest of your training plan.”
Lydia looked down at the papers. Except for her missed twenty-mile run, each run was shorter than the last, building up to race day. “I don’t need this,” she said, trying to hand the training plan back, but he wouldn’t take it. “Look, about yesterday—”
