“I wanted him to get it right,” Porsche says. “I just didn’t want you to suffer while he figured it out.”
“I know.”
“And if he messes up again, I’m calling Drummond.”
“I know that too.”
“But for now,” she says, lifting her chin, “I approve.”
I put my hand over my heart. “Wow. That means so much.”
“It should.”
Charisse tilts her head at me. “Okay, so if everything went that well, why do you look tired?”
Porsche squints. “Yeah. Wait a minute. You had sex with a young-ass man, and you’re looking kinda haggardly.”
Charisse looks horrified. “Porsche!”
“What? Something is off. You should be somewhere giggling into a smoothie, not looking like somebody made you read policy updates for fun.”
I stare at her.
Her mouth falls open. “Oh no. They did make you read policy updates.”
“Not exactly.” I look down at my comforter and pick at a loose thread. “The promotion is real now. I started shadowing Jacquetta today.”
Charisse’s smile fades a little. “How was it?”
“Awful.” I let out a breath and sit up straighter. “And I know that sounds ungrateful because it’s more money, and it’s a better title, and everybody keeps acting like I should be excited. But it’s awful.”
“What does the job actually look like?” Charisse asks.
“More escalations. More formal complaints. More meetings with department heads who all think their crisis is the only crisis. More documentation. More coaching supervisors who don’t want to be coached. More employees crying in conference rooms. And Jacquetta wants me to start staying later twice a week so I can sit in on after-hours mediation prep because apparently that’s when leadership is available.”
Porsche’s face twists. “Absolutely not.”
“And that’s not even all of it,” I say, finally letting myself say the part that’s been sitting on my chest all day. “It’s going to cut into Lit with Lily. I already had to move two events next month because of these training blocks. If I’m managing escalations, I can’t just leave at five and go set up tables and teach people how to paint sunsets. I’ll have less time to create, less time to plan, and I already feel like I’m running out of room in my own life.”
Charisse leans closer to the camera. “And Lit with Lily makes you feel alive.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
Porsche points at the screen. “Then why are we doing this?”
I blink. “Because it’s a promotion.”
“So?”
“So people don’t just turn down promotions.”
“People turn down things they don’t want all the time.”
I frown. “In theory.”
“In practice too,” she says. “If somebody offered me a promotion to do more of something I hated, I would tell them to promote somebody else into misery.”
Charisse gives Porsche a look, then turns back to me. “Do you want to stay in HR?”
