Chapter 50
“You really think it’s good enough?”
“I literally can’t see a single thing wrong with it,” Sidney replied. “The whole concept is beautiful.”
He had assured me of the same before I’d submitted my project to be considered for the promotion, but today was announcement day and I had barely been able to sleep the night before. I had no idea how the hell I was going to get through an entire workday, waiting for the results. My brain didn’t care that my friends and my mate all told me the work was incredible. I needed that external validation and the elevation that would come with it. I wanted to do more and be more at my job, and I wanted my mate to be proud of me for accomplishing it.
Luna did her best to distract me on the work chat function while we both fussed through our tasks, but that quiet scream in the back of my head was singing its swan song and refusing to be silenced.
A knock on my office door had me leaping out of my skin.
I nearly tripped myself in my haste to open it, but it was Sidney on the other side of the door and not my boss. “Hey! What are you doing here?”
He held up a chocolate milkshake. “I thought you could use a treat. Whether it’s celebratory or a consolation prize remains to be seen, but I’m leaning toward celebratory.”
“Spoiling me.” I accepted the milkshake and a kiss.
“I guess this means there’s no word yet?”
I shook my head, and a pinging sound from my computer had me whipping around and practically sprinting to my desk. There was a notification from my boss asking me to come to his office when I was done with lunch.
“Do you think it’ll be weird if I went now? I can’t live with the suspense!”
“Definitely go now if he’s available. I’ll let Luna know and we’ll both be here when you get back.”
It was a huge struggle not to run down the hall. I had to appear cool and refined, and ready to handle anything my boss was about to dish out. He looked surprised to see me when I showed up in his doorway.
“I wasn’t expecting you so quickly.”
“I figured it would be better to know sooner rather than later.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. I already spoke to Trevor and let him know that you were getting the promotion.”
I stared at him for a long moment, my brain freezing in place as it tried to process what he’d just said. My first instinct was to scream and jump in place, but that might cost me my promotion, so instead I stuffed all of my excitement into a tidy bubble. “Really?! You loved my project?”
“We all thought it was excellent and the client made the final decision for us. Allison, your work at this company has been exemplary. I’m glad we finally had the space to show our appreciation for all your dedication. If you want to keep any of your current projects, you are welcome to finish them up, or we can transfer them to one of the junior consultants. It’ll take us a week or so to get all of the paperwork put through, sort out your new projects, and put together your team, so you’ll have some time to figure out your preferences.”
“That sounds amazing. I’ll do what I can on my current projects in that time. A couple of them are almost fully complete anyway, and then we can go full steam ahead into whatever you need me for.”
His answering smile was warm and friendly. “Glad to hear it. I’ll send over all the information to you, but let me know if you have any questions in the meantime.”
“Will do. Thank you so much.”
This time the moment I was out of sight of his office I did sprint, seeing Sidney and Luna standing outside my office waiting for me. I let out the most embarrassing shriek of excitement as I leapt straight into the air. Sidney caught me and swung me around.
“I take it this means you got the promotion?”
“I did! I start next week.”
“Fuck yeah!” Luna high-fived me when my feet were back on the ground. “I knew you’d crush it.”
Sidney kissed the top of my head with a warm laugh. “That’s my girl. Should we have a party?”
“You really think I would say no to a party?”
“Just making sure.”
I floated through the rest of my day on my own personal cloud of euphoria. People came by to congratulate me after the announcement went out and I was so fucking jazzed to have this opportunity to grow at work.
Our street had a lot more cars in it than usual when I arrived. Maybe someone was having a birthday party. I skipped up to the door and stopped dead in the foyer as a bunch of voices shouted, “Surprise!”
The living room had a banner that read Congratulations and everyone wore paper crowns. Sidney set one atop my head and passed me a glass of champagne.
“What on earth is going on? When you said you were going to do a party, I didn’t think you meant today.”
“I took today off work in anticipation.”
I glanced around at the crowd, seeing Sidney’s parents, Nicky, Meg, Luna, my mom, and some of her friends who had known me since I was a baby. They all hugged me one by one, congratulating me on my promotion and asking me questions about what I would be doing now.
Once I had made my rounds, I settled against Sidney’s side, wrapping my arms around his waist. I was near tears over the fact that he’d been so sure I was going to get my promotion that he had planned this party for me. He had taken time off, baked me a cake entirely reminiscent of the first time we had been together, and invited the people that were most important to both of us.
“I can’t believe you believed in me so hard.”
“I’m always going to believe in you. Doubly so when it’s something you worked hard for.”
“I’m glad one of us has limitless faith in me.”
“That’s kind of the job of a partner. I mean, if I thought it was entirely unrealistic I would probably tell you that, but I know what your strengths are, and I’ll always support you going for what you want. Luca sends his congratulations too, but he wasn’t able to get off work with such short notice.”
“No worries. I’ll text him later.”
I hugged Sidney tighter, unable to get close enough. I wanted to climb inside his clothes and burrow right into the center of him. Honestly, humans should have developed some sort of evolution to just temporarily become one entity with partners so you could get in there as deep as you needed to. I did at least wedge myself under his arm, which made serving the cake a bit more difficult for him, but it was either that or drag him to the bedroom, and I didn’t think any of our guests would appreciate option number two.
“It’s so cool you got the promotion,” Nicky said as she accepted plates of cake from Sidney to distribute.
“I busted my ass at that company, did every extra training bit I could all through uni, did my internship there too. Basically anything to get myself noticed. I would’ve kept doing it even without the promotion, but I’m super excited for the extra income, a new office, and getting to run my own team. I don’t think the other guy up for promotion had any experience managing teams.”
“And you do?” Nicky asked.
“A fair bit actually. I was on student council in high school, ran clubs in university, was a team leader for the campus food bank, and ran a couple of the events at the office. Not a lot of people want to do all of that stuff.”
Nicky laughed. “I feel like we’re practically twins. I did a lot of that stuff too.” She smushed me in a hug between her and Sidney. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Thanks, Nicky.”
It was such a sweet party with our nearest and dearest. There was a steady stream of appetizers and treats and puppy love time now that our jelly bean babies were resembling actual dogs with personalities.
Once everyone had gone home for the night, we snuggled up on the couch, a puppy bed full of all the babies on Sidney’s chest, and me wedged between him and the couch while we watched some movie from the ’80s he insisted was a classic and I had never seen.
“Thank you for today.”
“You’re more than welcome. I have to talk to you about something you’re not gonna like.”
“Ominous.”
“Prince is going to be eight weeks old this weekend.”
“We should throw him a tiny birthday party with a little hat! What part of that would I not like?”
“Eight weeks is the adoption age.”
Clarity crashed over me. “No.”
“Unfortunately, yes. He doesn’t have anyone lined up yet, but he’ll have to go up for adoption through the rescue.”
I clutched Prince to my chest. “But he’s my baby.”
“So are Banjo, Boo, and Biscuit. You can see how quickly things would grind to a halt if foster parents kept every animal they fell in love with.”
Prince cleaned up the tears from my cheeks I hadn’t realized were already falling. “I hate it.”
“I know it’s not easy. And it never gets easy, but the more animals we get into forever homes, the more we can help. At first you can kind of find people you know to adopt so that you can still see the animals once in a while, but eventually you run out of people and they’re going to start going to strangers.”
“I haven’t run out of people yet,” I sniffled. “I can take him around the office to find a forever parent. I never told them when he was in that he was up for adoption.”
I looked into Prince’s sweet round eyes, so full of love and trust. I knew Sidney was right. If I kept all of the babies we would have to stop fostering, but I hated thinking about letting him go.
“You can absolutely see if you can find him a pet parent at work. Ask anyone you’d like, and as long as they pass inspection with the rescue, it should be fine.”
I clutched Prince’s face in my hands. “Don’t you worry, sweet baby. I’m gonna find you the best parent there is. They won’t be as good as me, but I’ll settle for being your favorite auntie.”
Sidney held me while I cried over Prince. I hadn’t even known him for a month and he had wiggled straight into my heart. “I know it’s hard. If it’s too much, we can stop fostering.”
“I think that would break my heart just as much. I don’t want to put us in a position where we would have to say no to helping babies who need us. I think about what might’ve happened if we hadn’t been able to take the B babies and I don’t think I could live with myself if I had to turn away other ones because I couldn’t let go.”
Prince was still in my arms and all I could imagine was him leaving me. And the other babies would be old enough for their own homes not long after. I clutched Prince to my chest and stroked the other babies.
Our smaller babies were passed out in a pile. They perked up at my attention, little tails wagging. If I was this bad just thinking about it, I could only imagine how much of a mess I was going to be when one of them actually left.
“Can they sleep in the bed with us tonight?”
“I’ll get a safety bed set up for them.”
I lay there with everyone on my lap while Sidney did just that, crying quietly when he returned and helped me transport our four babies into a couple of laundry baskets in the middle of the bed with blankets on the bottom. I snuggled it and stared at them through the slats, letting them chew on my fingers.
“Can I get you anything?” Sidney asked.
“No. I just need to love them for a bit.”