“And the children,” she adds. “There will be… energy.”
“Yes,” I say, smiling. “That part I’ve planned for.”
Geoff lets out a quiet huff of laughter from the kitchen island. I flick him a warning look and carry on.
Mrs Longthorn smiles, the tightness gone from her face. “Thank you, Christa. I actually feel… relaxed.”
“That’s the aim,” I say. “Email me if anything else crops up.”
The call ends. The screen goes dark.
I sit back and let the quiet land. That steady, settled feeling hums through me. No adrenaline. No second guessing. Just the pleasant knowledge that everything is where it should be.
Geoff’s still perched on the kitchen island, watching me like I’ve just pulled off a complicated magic trick using a spreadsheet and tone of voice.
“How much do you charge her?” he asks.
The question catches me off guard. “What?”
“For that,” he says, gesturing vaguely at the laptop. “All of that.”
I shrug. “Hourly. Nothing wild.”
“How much?”
I tell him.
He blinks. Once. Then again. “That’s it?”
I feel the reflex kick in instantly. The urge to justify. To explain. To soften it. “I only started doing this recently and it’s not like it’s—”
He cuts in, calm but firm. “Christa, you just took complete control of a situation involving an anxious grandmother, an eight-year-old, a magician, food allergies, and a dinosaur cake.”
“So?”
“So you should charge more.”
I laugh, sharp and defensive. “I can’t just put my rates up because you’re impressed.”
“I’m not impressed,” he says. “I’m informed.”
That makes me pause.
“I watched you,” he continues. “You weren’t scrambling. You weren’t guessing. You knew exactly what needed doing and you made it sound easy. People pay for easy.”
I open my mouth to argue and realise I don’t really have one lined up.
“I make things behave,” I say quietly, the words surprising me as they leave my mouth.
He smiles. “Exactly. And that’s not entry-level.”
Something shifts. Just a small internal click, like something settling where it should have been all along.
I look back at my laptop. At the neat list. The solved problems.
“Alright,” I say. “I’ll raise my rates.”
He grins. “Good.”
