The Cost Of Love And Sanity (25 page)

“If you'd waited, I would have brought some to you.”

She shrugged. “It's okay. I don't mind coming out to get it.”

“What? You don't like breakfast in bed?”

“It's fine but I don't mind getting it myself,” Alex said.

Nathan stared at her stiff body language. “Well, here. I'll throw the rest of it out for you.”

He reached for her plate but she picked it up before he could grab it. “I got it.” She walked into the kitchen and threw it away.

Nathan leaned back in his chair. “So, you don't want someone to ever do things for you or take care of you?”

“I don't mind someone doing things for me but why do I need to be taken care of?” Alex asked, while still scraping food out of the plate.

“Everybody does on occasion. Like when they're sick.” He stared at the table. “You should let me do things for you sometimes,” Nathan whispered.

“I'm good.”

Nathan ran his hand over his face. “Um. What are we gonna do when you're pregnant?” he asked, turning in his chair.

“What do you mean?”

“Are people going to assume we are together or what?” His once lighthearted tone had been replaced with a serious one.

Alex noticed and searched for a response. “Yeah, but we can pretend that we broke up after she gets here, if that's okay with you?” She glanced over at him.

The high that Alex woke up to had disappeared. Instead of riding the sky, her feet were back on solid ground. She and Nathan were back to the situation at hand. They made a deal to go through with something and that's what they were there for. No matter how she felt about the roses and their night together, she had to remember that they made an arrangement. Nathan hadn't forgotten.

He nodded and tapped his thumb on the table. “Okay. Sounds like a plan.”

A
lex battled the morning traffic with her mind preoccupied. Since she departed from Nathan's house, she hadn't talked to him. She wasn't sure what that meant on his end but she was hesitant to call him. Each time she reached for the phone, she found herself drawing her hand back. At the same time, she almost felt like she should call him. After all, he was doing her a favor. He agreed to help her have a baby. A thought struck her. What if their last time together didn't take? Were they going to go back and keep trying?
There goes another issue you haven't thought all the way through.
Funny. This seemed like such a good idea when she initially mentioned it to him. It was turning out to be harder than she expected.

But did that mean she should quit? Completely give up on her dream to have a child? Alex shook her head. She couldn't. She refused to spend the rest of her life alone with no family. No nothing. Phillip was right. It would get very lonely with her and no one else to care about her. She couldn't do that to herself. She deserved better than that.

Soon she would have to work up the nerve to call Nathan. She'd forgotten her necklace over his house. If she used the necklace as an opening, maybe that would make the conversation flow easier.
I'll call him later.

Alex pulled into her office parking lot and walked into the building intent on pushing her personal thoughts to the back of her
mind. “Morning, Betty,” Alex said, only glancing the secretary's way.

“Good morning, Alex,” Betty sang. “You're needed in conference room E at ten o'clock.”

Alex stopped midstride and turned to Betty. “Why?”

“Because you guys have an emergency meeting.”

“Oh, great. Do you know what it's about?”

“Not really.” Betty shook her head.

Alex started walking toward the elevator.

“Have fun,” Betty chirped in Alex's direction.

She entered her office and dropped her briefcase on the desk. While her computer booted up, Alex reviewed her calendar for the day. The previous day, she'd started making calls to the employers that participated in the job fair. She wanted to thank them for making it a success. She had only been able to call a couple of them yesterday. She thought she might finish up today.

The next on her list to call was Mr. Allen at PharmScope. He had been the hardest to sign on for the fair. When she counted the hires during the event, PharmScope seemed to have hired a large number of people. She wanted to make sure he was satisfied with the end result. Alex picked up the phone and dialed Mr. Allen's number—only half expecting him to answer, given his busy schedule.

“Hello?” Mr. Allen's voice sounded alert at the other end of the phone.

“Mr. Allen. This is Alex Carter. How are you?”

“I'm excellent. I was talking about you yesterday.”

“Really?”

“I was telling the staff about how wonderful the job fair went. Everyone agrees that you guys did a magnificent job.”

Alex smiled. “I'm glad that you all are pleased. Did you get the fifty candidates you were looking for?”

“Better. We were able to hire seventy-eight.”

“That's awesome. Keep me posted on their progress. Let me know if you have any other staffing needs.”

“We may be hiring again for a different department in another month or so. I'll definitely give you a call once we are ready to go.”

“I'll look forward to it.”

Alex hung up with Mr. Allen feeling vindicated. She did what she set out to do. She, with Dan's help, created a first rate job fair to improve the agency's numbers. Alex felt like she could do anything. She smiled and turned back to her computer to check her emails. Her email inbox was still fairly full when the clock struck nine forty-five but Alex needed to cut the reading short in favor of getting to the emergency meeting on time.
I wonder what it's about.
She shrugged and broke away from her computer.

Alex arrived at the conference room with eight minutes to spare. She took a seat while others stood around talking. Perhaps she should have been as social as everyone else but she found her mind wondering back to Nathan. She secretly started tossing around ideas about what to say to him when she called. Despite the chit-chatter, she remained unaware of her own surroundings.

“Hey, Alex,” Dan said, dropping into the seat next to her. Before now, Dan would have sat on the opposite side of the table but since they partnered for the job fair, they had garnered respect for each other. He now thought nothing of sitting beside her—his newfound ally.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Hello, Dan. How are you?”

“Good. What about you?”

“I'm well. I talked to Mr. Allen at PharmScope this morning. He was very pleased with the fair.”

“That's the general consensus. The sponsors were ecstatic with
the turnout. I gave them a free gift card as a token of our appreciation,” Dan said.

Alex nodded. “Nice touch.”

“Thank you.” Dan narrowed his eyes at Alex. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Why?”

“I don't know. You look like you have a lot on your mind.”

“I'm fine. Really.” She shifted her weight in her seat.

Dan leaned toward her. “C'mon, Alex. You can talk to me. It can't be the fair; we did too good a job on that.”

She sighed. “I don't wanna talk about it.”

“Is there trouble at home?”

She scowled at him and sat back in her chair.

“Wait a minute. Is it the guy in the parking lot?”

“What guy?” Courtney asked, plopping down next to Dan.

Alex thought fast. “One of the HR reps that attended our fair. Yeah, he complained the whole time. Right, Dan?” She squinted at Dan.

“Yes, we had a hard time keeping him quiet but he was a happy camper when we gave him pizza,” Dan said, retaining eye contact with Alex.

“Oh. So, the job fair paid off?” Courtney asked.

“Yes,” Alex and Dan said in unison.

Courtney nodded. “Cool. Congrats.”

Having momentarily satisfied her curiosity, Courtney stood up and darted off to dig into someone else's Kool-Aid.

Alex realized she'd been holding her breath and exhaled. “Let's drop this. Okay?”

“Okay but if you decide that you want to talk about something—anything, I'm here.” Dan gave Alex an earnest look.

She nodded, as the meeting began.

“Good morning, everyone,” Mr. Sims said. His voice filled the room with an unusual zealousness. “I've called this meeting because we have great news that I couldn't wait to share.”

The staff listened, waiting to hear the news. Despite Alex's somber mood, he had her on the edge of her seat. After building them up, he finally told them.

“I'm happy to report that our placement numbers are up twenty-five percent.”

Everyone clapped. Mr. Sims raised his hand for them to hold off.

“Much of the increase came from the job fair we held last week. The companies that participated in the fair hired a hundred and forty-six new employees. And the two people responsible for the new hires are Alexis Carter and Dan Reece!”

The staff hooted and hollered. Dan stood up and pulled Alex up with him to bask in the applause. Her pensive demeanor momentarily lifted. As she looked around to see her peers clapping for her, she felt a little more at ease. The concerns she had when she entered the office that morning seemed smaller and more manageable.
I'll work this out. I always do.
Things were headed in the right direction. For once, she believed it. She found herself chuckling as the staff cheered for her and Dan.

A
fter a pretty good day at work, Alex decided to treat herself to a hairdo. Luckily for her, one of the perks of having a friend as a hairstylist was being able to stroll into the shop without an appointment and get serviced quickly. Sure, it wasn't always the nicest thing to do, especially when people were waiting but Alex tried not to hold others up for too long.

She merely wanted to talk to her friend in addition to getting her ends trimmed. One thing was for certain, she wasn't ready to go home yet. As she pulled up to Perfect Hair by Melinda, she realized she wasn't ready to call Nathan either but she planned to do it.

Her nerves began to attack her all over again as she pulled out her phone and prepared to dial his number. She had to swim through a myriad of emotions to resist the urge to put the phone back down.

“Hello,” Nathan answered on the fourth ring.

“Hi, Nathan. It's Alex. How's it going?” She cringed at her own inane attempt at cordiality.

“Great,” he answered quickly with no apparent enthusiasm. He also lapsed into a strange silence.

Okay. This is awkward.
“Good. Um. I have a question. When I came over there, I had on a diamond necklace and I haven't been able to find it. Have you found it?”

“Yes, it's at home.”

Alex sighed. “Awesome! I was hoping it would be there. If I'm not there to pick it up today, I'll drop by tomorrow. Is that okay?”

“That's fine. Whenever you want to get it is fine.” Another silence followed.

Alex cringed again. The initial hope she had that the necklace would be a good conversational opener had fallen flat. She wouldn't describe Nathan's tone as cold but he wasn't as warm as usual, which made it hard for her to handle him. She didn't know what to say to someone who had always treated her with so much kindness, no matter what the situation. “Um. Okay. So, how's everything?”

“Fine. How's everything with you?”

“Good. My boss recognized Dan and me at a meeting today for the job fair.”

“Congratulations,” Nathan said.

On that note, Alex didn't know what else to say. She decided to end the conversation for now. “Well, I'll see you later.”

“All right. Bye.”

With that, he hung up. Alex stared at her phone.
What does this mean?
Why had their interactions become so awkward? It seemed like there was something that Nathan wanted to say but decided against it. Never had their interactions felt so forced. It seemed like the plan that she thought made a lot of sense had produced some other complications.

Alex finally put her phone away and stepped out of her car. When she walked into the shop and saw Izzy, she quietly thanked God for friendships. She headed toward the third chair, where Izzy was working on a weave ponytail. When Izzy saw her, she grinned.

“Hey. Haven't talked to you in a few. What's up?” Izzy asked.

“Oh, girl. Life,” Alex said. Her conversation with Nathan remained fresh in her mind and heavy on her heart. She plopped down in the stylist chair next to Izzy.

“We've all got that going on. Things should be easy now that the job fair is over, right?”

“Yeah, that's a relief.”

“Then, all is good. However, I did have a question. What happened the other night at Spears? I don't remember much but one minute we were sitting down having a good time and the next minute we were almost at my house.” Izzy spun her client around to face the mirror.

Alex sighed and shook her head. “It was crazy.”

The client stood up and reached into her pocket for Izzy's money. “I'll call you later this week to schedule my next appointment,” the client said as she started toward the door.

“Okay. Talk to you later,” Izzy called back to her.

While Izzy put her money away, Alex slid into her chair.

“So, what happened? I was too tipsy to remember,” Izzy said.

“When I broke from you guys to go to the restroom, I ran into A.J.”

“Oooh.” Izzy turned around to face Alex.

Alex spun the chair around to face Izzy. She pointed at her. “I told you we were going to run into him.”

“Hey! What were the odds? I figured he had no reason to be there. I didn't know he hung out in the club all the time,” Izzy said.

“Well. Apparently, he does.”