“Good news?” I asked, hopeful.
Brock chuckled. “If it were bad news, do you think I’d be in the office?”
Hope gave way to excitement. “You’re going to approve the plan?”
“I’m going to approve the plan,” Dad replied.
I jumped from my chair and danced in a small circle as I silently screamed into the handset. “Thank you,” I managed to say calmly. “You will not regret this choice.”
“You’re dancing, aren’t you?” Brock asked wryly.
Continuing to hobble around my chair, I said, “No. I am not.”
“On one condition,” Dad spoke up again. “Your friends need to sign a contract where they agree to not move their dance company for at least eight years. It’s a lot of money we’ll be investing in this. We don’t want to spend it and then have them bail on us.”
“Completely understandable.” I sat down, brimming full of excitement. “I’m sure they will be agreeable to this.”
“Get in touch with them today,” Dad said. “If they agree, I’ll get the contract written up next week and we’ll get this squared away before Christmas.”
“Will do.” I squeezed the phone until I was sure it creaked. “Seriously, Dad. Thank you for believing in this.”
“It’s not this road I believe in. It’s you,” he said. “And it’s Brock. I believe in both of you.”
A knot sealed off my throat as unexpected raw emotion swamped me. My office blurred. Hearing him say that? God, I’d been waiting . . . waited for so long. I managed to say something that sounded kind of professional, and then it was Brock talking into my ear.
“You’re off speaker,” he said, and a moment passed. “You feeling good right now? Doing okay?”
“I’m feeling great,” I admitted in a hushed, raspy voice, and then, because of everything we’d shared in the last couple of weeks and how wonderful I was feeling, I said, “I’d be feeling perfect if you were here.”
There was a stretch of silence. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I know.”
“Call your girls. Let them know.”
I did just that.
I was able to get a hold of Teresa, who patched in Avery, and there were many, many shrieks to be heard. I was actually afraid Teresa would end up going into labor.
“Thank you,” Avery said hoarsely, and I thought she might be crying. “You have no idea how much this means to us—means to me. You seriously don’t.”
My eyes were burning and blurry again. “I think I do. I’m just happy to help you guys do this.” I took a deep breath and tried to chill myself out. “Okay. So are you guys okay with the contract of eight years?”
“Of course,” she said in a rush.
“Yes,” Avery agreed.
“That’s what I thought. So, I’ll let them know and we’ll get the contract in hopefully next week,” I explained. “Then we’ll move on to getting some contractors out here to look at the space.”
Getting off the phone after that proved a little difficult, because if they thanked me one more time, I would be a blubbering mess. We made plans to get breakfast on Sunday—if Teresa didn’t have the baby by then—and they promised they’d be out of hugging.
There was no erasing my smile that day. No way. Not when I knew I was helping two special people make their dreams come true. Not when I knew my father believed in me.
* * *
Friday, just after lunch, I looked up to find Paul coming into my office, carrying several pieces of paper.
He didn’t knock.
He didn’t announce himself.
Just walked right in and said, “Can you get these to Brock ASAP?” And then dumped the papers on my desk.
My brows flew up as I glanced down to what he had so disrespectfully placed on my desk; I was about to point out that, even though I would see Brock before Monday, he wouldn’t be seeing these papers before then, when something on them snagged my attention.
I snatched them up, quickly scanning them. “What is this?” I asked. Paul was almost out the door. I had to call him back, and when he came in, he stared at me pointedly. “What are these sales plans and estimates for?”
The look on his face shifted. “What does it look like?”
Oh man, the not often used bitch switch that existed at the nape of my neck was so, so close to being flipped. “It looks like a proposal for the space on the second floor—for rooms C and D.”
“That’s what it is,” he replied lazily, crossing his arms.
I tilted my head to the side. “You do realize that I already had a proposal in place for those rooms.”
“For that dance thing? Yeah, but come on, that’s not going to happen.”
Then he laughed.
He laughed.
I counted to ten and made it to two. “It hasn’t been announced yet, but that dance thing was already approved for rooms C and D. So this?” I picked up the stapled papers. “You’re going to have to propose your smoothie idea for one of the other rooms.”
He blinked and stared at me like I had two heads. “What?”
“I have the approval. The contract is coming in on Monday.”
“I need those rooms.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, placing the papers on the edge of my desk. “Those rooms have been contracted. You can see about—”
“I need at least room D. It’s the only one that can be converted to include a kitchen based on the wiring and floor plan,” he shot back, cheeks flushing.