Chapter Fifteen
Liz
I sat rigidly at my desk, a cup of coffee in front of me, untouched. The Japanese businessmen, from Kokomoro Industries, would be here in the office tomorrow. Everything needed to be perfect but I was freaking out. How could I make it so that this meeting went off as well as possible? Jamie had mentioned that they’d want to see the office run as a “tight ship,” whatever the hell that meant. I thought we already had a good process here but was I supposed to be changing something?
“Hey, how’s Tom doing?” Marta’s voice came from over my shoulder.
I spun around. “Who?”
She blinked and gave a little laugh. “Tom? Your boyfriend?”
“Oh, sorry—my mind’s just been totally on this meeting with Kokomoro.”
“Well, luckily we don’t have too much to do with any of that,” she said.
“Right.”
She had no idea how much was riding on this meeting, what it would mean for Tolbert Developments… what it would mean for me and Jamie.
“Anyway,” I said, “Tom’s doing great. He’s such a sweetheart. I really am the luckiest.”
Marta smiled. “Glad to hear it!” Then she turned around to walk back to her desk. “Ha,” she said, spinning back around. “I almost forgot, I was supposed to deliver this to you.”
She dropped a large envelope on my desk.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Some branding mock-ups from the graphic designers. We wanted your opinion on which was best. Amy’s idea—she says you have a good eye.”
I pulled open the envelope. A stack of papers came out, each with brightly colored, eye-catching designs. Some geometric, some more amorphic. I thumbed through them quickly. “Ooh. These are nice.”
“I thought so, too,” Marta said.
One of the designs was in a bright, eye-catching red and orange, with the app title, I Seek U, in a starburst. Another had the app’s name in a simple red heart over a white background. I continued flipping through. Jamie should really look at these. I knew he’d want to see them—all of them—even before we’d narrowed down the choices to the office’s top picks.
“Well, bring it back to us after you’ve picked your favorite,” Marta said.
“Will do.”
She walked away, and I held the stack of papers to my chest. I had a quick talk with myself. Yes, I wanted to see Jamie. Was I using these designs as an excuse to go to his office? Partly. I always wanted to see him. But was my excuse legit, anyway?
Yes, I realized. He’d want to see them. This was work-related, and it was something he’d approve. After all, wouldn’t it look even weirder if I never talked to Jamie at work? It seemed like that would be as much of a relationship red flag as us always talking.
I straightened the pages, placed them back in the envelope, and stood up. Then I made my way down the hall to Jamie’s office.
After I knocked on his door, he said, “Yes, come in.”
I took a deep breath and opened the door. Jamie sat behind his desk in a gorgeous suit. His cufflinks caught the sunlight streaming through the window. In front of him, the company’s lead programmer, the blond-haired Tanya, as opposed to the red-haired Tanya, sat in one of the other chairs.
“Liz, hello,” Jamie said.
His voice held warmth, but not the usual warmth I got from him. I used that as a reminder to keep this strictly business. After all, Tanya could gossip about whatever interaction we had to other people in the company.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were in a meeting. I can come back,” I said quickly. “Or actually, I can just leave this envelope for you. The graphics team came up with some great mock-ups for the app’s logo. It’s hard to choose a favorite, and I had a feeling you’d want to look at them, as well.”
I made to set the envelope in his inbox but he waved me to a chair. “No, have a seat. We can all look at them together. This is pretty exciting.”
I sat down in the indicated chair, next to Tanya, and handed him the envelope. Jamie emptied the papers onto his desk and started moving them around like they were tiles in some kind of memory game, but they were facing up.
“This one’s especially nice,” he said, pointing to the red heart on the white background.”
“I like it, too,” Tanya said. “But what about this teal and orange number? I mean, what do I know about design, but I do know those are complementary colors and catch the eye.”
I nodded at her, impressed. “That’s right. Like you two, I was really intrigued by the red heart on white, but it seems like the heart needs some small tweaks. I’d like to see it in different sizes, how it takes up the space. Or what if the text extended out from the shape, instead of being all scrunched in there?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Jamie said, making some pencil notes directly on the pages.
Tanya pointed to some of the other designs, and the three of us considered them for a few more minutes. Finally, there seemed to be nothing more to say. I shifted in my seat, to get up.
“Liz,” Jamie said, “how is your workload going?”
“Oh, um. It’s a lot. I miss doing my usual routine in the evenings, you know. I’ll be glad when things settle down here.” I hoped he got my meaning—I missed him. I missed seeing him in the evenings.
“Yeah, same here,” Jamie said.
Tanya cleared her throat.
“Sorry, just another minute,” Jamie told her. “I’m hosting those Kokomoro businessmen tonight at my place, though, so at least nobody else here needs to deal with that.”
I got his meaning perfectly—tonight would be yet another night that we couldn’t be together. “Yes, there’s a lot going on,” I agreed. “I hope you have everything in place for the dinner?”
“Yeah, I expect so. I hired an organizer to get all those things taken care of, so that last week I had some more leisure time in the evenings. It was worth it.”
My heart melted a little. He was talking about hanging out with me. I bit my cheek and tried not to smile.
Tanya checked something on her phone.
Jamie looked at the images spread out on his desk once more. “Let’s use this heart on the white. It’s a consensus between the three of us that it’s the best one, right?”
Tanya nodded. “Right. Maybe with Liz’s idea to expand the text.”
“Great. Liz, will you take this back to the graphics design team with our notes?”
“No problem. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Tanya.”
I left the room, the envelope and designs in my hand, and a little bounce in my step. It had been a short, innocuous meeting, but those few words exchanged with Jamie had already helped to improve my day.