Page 10 of The Perfect Deal
Sitting down in my chair, I pulled my phone out to check my messages really quickly, realizing I hadn’t done so all day, and almost spilled my coffee. I had a text from Joshua asking me to call him!
My heart began to hammer in my chest as I thought about what he could possibly want. Thoughts of the fun we’d had the other night playing Monopoly came back to me, making me smile as I hastily dialed his number. It had been difficult being so close to him and having to pretend like he was just another brother to me, but Landon hadn’t caught on to anything yet.
The phone rang several times, and I began to panic. What if Joshua was with one of his teams now and couldn’t answer? He could even be in the pool or in the shower. If I had to wait too long to speak to him, I would obsess over it the whole time.
“Hello, there.” His voice filled my ear, and a smile took over my face. “How’s my favorite woman in the world?”
Giggling like a teenager, I felt my face catch fire. “Stop,” I whispered to him. “How do you know Landon’s not at my desk?”
“Oh, well, I guess I just trust you not to call me with him standing there,” he replied, which made sense.
“Still, he could’ve been calling you to tell you I got hit by a bus or something.” I was reaching now, but giving him a hard time was always fun.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Joshua said. “If you got hit by a bus, your phone would be smashed. He’d have to use his phone to call me.”
I shook my head, not sure how to respond to that. “I see that you’re very concerned about my fake accident.”
“Oh, stop, Libby,” he said, using the nickname he only said when no one else was around. It sent a thrill shooting down my spine to hear it from his lips. “Besides, I’m calling with some amazing news.”
I took a deep breath and held it for a second, wondering what it might be. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but Joshua was pretty good at coming through when he said he was going to do something, and he’d told me he was going to help me get a photography job. Could this be about that?
“What’s going on?” I asked, literally crossing my fingers.
“How would you like to come to camp with us next week?” he asked, and I felt my heart drop. What was he talking about? Why would I want to do that?
“Um, why? I’m a little old for that, aren’t I?” I asked, trying not to let my disappointment show in my voice.
Joshua laughed. “One of our photographers can’t make it. I was hoping you could take his place. I’ll assign you to one of the girls’ cabins, along with another counselor. It’s not the most luxurious accommodations, but it’s a lot of fun. You’ll get to meet all the kids and take their pictures for us. The photos go on our website, and the kids get to take some of them home for their parents so they can see what they were up to.”
My mouth dropped open the moment he mentioned photography, and I stayed that way, slightly frozen, while he continued to talk. He had to call my name a couple of times before I regained my ability to speak.
“Yes, Joshua. Of course, I’d love to do that,” I finally managed to get out. Of course, the camp part didn’t sound all that fun. It had been a long time since I stayed in a camp bunkhouse. But I would make it work. I was excited to meet some of the kids he was always talking about. “That sounds amazing.”
“That’s great.” I could hear the cheerfulness in his voice as he spoke. “I’ll text you the information so you know when we’re leaving and all that. Of course, I’ll leave it to you to tell your boss.”
A bit of the joy I’d been feeling evaporated as I realized I would have to talk to Landon about this. I’d need someone to take over my job for me for a few weeks. If I’d planned to take a vacation, that would be one thing. Whenever someone was out on a planned trip, we covered their work easily enough, but we weren’t prepared for this.
I glanced at my computer screen and was instantly reminded of the awful assignment I’d been working on all morning. I would’ve done just about anything to not have to do work on this ever again. And the idea that I could hand it off to someone else to actually be able to take pictures made me want to leap out of my chair and go speak to Landon immediately—with hardly any fear of pissing my brother off.
Taking one more bite of my cookie, I headed to my brother’s office and was pleasantly surprised to see his door was open and no one was in there with him. Most of the time, he was so busy that I had to wait for at least an hour to squeeze inside.
“Hey, sis, what’s up?” Landon called, spinning around from facing his computer so that he was looking at me.
I strolled in and sat across from him. “I have some amazing news,” I said, hoping to get him on board with how great this was for me before I gave him the bad news about having to take a few weeks off.
Landon’s eyebrows lifted. “Uh, okay. What’s that?”
Unable to control myself, I blurted out, “I’m going to camp to take pictures of the kids! Can you believe it?”
A smile shifted onto my brother’s face, but I could see he was still confused. “Oh, wow. That sounds interesting. But what exactly are you talking about, Liberty?”
I had said it all so fast, I wasn’t even sure of the words that came out of my mouth. “Well, Joshua and I were talking yesterday, and he said he’d help me find a photography job. It turns out that one of the photographers can’t go to camp for some reason. The timing is perfect. This will give me an opportunity to work on something I absolutely love, and I’ll be able to help out your best friend.” I needed to turn this around so that he realized it wasn’t just for me but for Joshua as well.
Landon understood now. He began to nod slowly. “Okay. Sure. Yeah, I think that sounds fair. The only worry I have is who we will get to do your work here.”
I swallowed hard, not sure how to answer that. After a few moments of thinking about it, I said, “We could hire a temp.”
“A temp? Do you think that a temp can do as good a job as you can?” he asked me. I could see him teetering on the edge, trying to decide whether or not we could make this work.