“Do you miss HR?” he asks.
I point my fork at him. “Don’t ask ugly questions during a good meal.”
He laughs. “So no.”
“No.”
“Not even a little?”
“I miss company-paid insurance.”
“That’s real.”
“But not the job.” I shake my head.
He nods and keeps eating.
“I still get nervous,” I admit.
“About the business?”
I nod. “Classes are doing well, but that doesn’t mean they always will. Some months are going to be slower. Some ideas won’t work. I know that.”
“But you’ll figure it out..”
I look at him.
“You’ll work too much sometimes,” he says. “You’ll get annoyed when people try to help. You’ll forget lunch and act like coffee’s enough to sustain you. But you’ll catch it quicker now.”
“Because I’m so evolved?”
“Because you have people who will bother you about it.”
I smile.
“You’re not trying to prove the dream is yours by doing every hard part alone anymore.”
I look down at my food.
He reaches across the table and touches my hand. “I’m not saying it like a lecture.”
Our eyes meet. He smiles at me.
I turn my hand over so our fingers can link.
After we finish eating, he throws the containers away while I answer one last email. It’s from a woman asking if she can book a birthday party for her mother, who “cannot paint but loves wine and attention.”
I reply that she will fit right in.
Javonte comes up behind me and kisses me on my neck.
I send the email and close the laptop. “Done.”
“Done done?”
“Done enough.”
He holds out his hand. “Then come here.”
