When Do You Tell Your Friends You're Out? And They Might Not Be In?
Day 217 of The Andie Chronicles
“The tenth of December?” Cooper tried to contain his surprise but failed. He kept repeating the date over and over.
“Yes, the tenth of December this year. That is the date he set for the launch. I thought it was ridiculous when he put up that stupid billboard on Chapel Street. But this is just ridiculous. We don’t have any stock, and we’ve only just approved the designs. And poor Sophia, she has no logistics to back it up. And everyone is pulling their hair out.”
I quit my rant but could feel more building up inside me.
It was reassuring to know Cooper could have let me keep speaking; he sat on the couch beside me without wavering or trying to interrupt either.
“I mean, this is an unreasonable timeframe. Surely Douglas knows this.”
I wouldn't say I liked how my boyfriend knew my ex-boyfriend’s name. And we were spending our Sunday talking about my ex. I hated how I worked for him, too. I hated how I needed to combine my past life with my present life in such an aggressive way.
Yes, here I was with a man who didn’t seem phased, didn’t seem threatened by anybody else. But he didn’t mean he deserved to listen to stories of my ex.
“I mean, James seems like a brilliant dude. I’m surprised he’s putting up with this.”
Cooper hardly knew James and had all right to admonish my friend. Instead, he praised him.
“He’s putting up with it because Douglas is putting up the money. But I don’t think he’s quite put the pieces together to see what will happen when we launch and when we fail, and we are the ones to blame. Douglas could fire us. We could lose our business. By the eleventh of December, everything could be gone.”
“I’ve seen this happen before, by the way,” Cooper delivered solemnly, hardly showing any cncern.
“I’ve seen wrestling promotions go live without the proper structure, advertising, or rehearsals. They’ve been a complete bust from the start. And they think they know what they’re doing, and that’s been the most heartbreaking thing. When you can see a car crash happening, you can’t do anything about it. That’s rough.”
“That’s just the thing,” I interjected, “I’m going to do something about it. I can’t find the money yet. But I’m working on it. And talking with Chris was helpful, and I will find a way out.”
“What about your friends? Why don’t you bring them back on this, and you can work together to get out?”
“I don’t want to sound like a martyr. But I know what they will say if I tell them these plans. They’ve overthrown me once because they didn’t think I knew what I was doing.”
I attempted to keep my chin up as I spoke. Admitting my friends had zero faith in me wasn’t exactly a bragging point.
“If I come to them with this fear with this trepidation, they’re only going to run the other way. I’m better off coming to them with a solution, not a problem.”
I’ve never seen someone smile at me the way Cooper did at that moment.
“Listen to you, Andie, your head is screwed on so tight. You know precisely how to read the room and what you need to do. I don’t know why they doubt you. You’ve got this. ”
And for the first time in a long time, I believe someone truly believed in me.
I did, too.
You’re reading The Andie Chronicles, the 2023 romance-fiction series from the 1 Lovelock Drive (1LD) universe.
By the way, this all started when Andie turned thirty-five, and her then-boyfriend didn’t call her.
Or the day after that.
Or the day after that, too.
Everything started to unravel when her BFFs got into bed with her ex, too… ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
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