It’s not that her biological clock was ticking, but, from her mother’s point of view, Lana’s biological clockwasticking, and so there was always this pressure, this fear, thatHey, you need to get married and settle down and have a family, before it’s too late. And it was thebefore it’s too latepart that added so much more urgency—and, yes, fear—to that thought.
By the time Lana had worked through lunch and made it to the end of her day, she had to go to her dentist appointment. So she booked it out of the office without even talking to Ryatt. She sent him a quick text message, saying, she was gone for the day and hoped he had a good night. When she didn’t get an answer back, she didn’t think anything of it. After all she’d just run out herself, so, if he had other stuff to deal with, well, it was no surprise, given everything going on in his life.
But testing her fears earlier today was something that made her reconsider some of the aspects surrounding what she had taken for granted as being normal and natural fears. And something that she would have to spend a whole lot longer on in order to reprogram her mind. Thanks to Dani, Lana had a whole new perspective to explore. And it was a surprise because Dani wasn’t even somebody that Lana necessarily would have thought was into this kind of introspection. Dani made it look effortless.
But, when the opportunity to test her beliefs had presented itself to Lana, she found it hard to back away. Particularly when Ryatt was doing something similar. She was dying to tell him about these new points that Dani had brought up, hoping that maybe it would help him too. Yet, even as she got in the nextmorning, her workload was crazy, and the phone rang off the wall. At noon, she looked up with tired eyes to find Ryatt sitting in his wheelchair at her doorway, gazing at her quizzically. She smiled with relief.
“I’m really glad you’re not somebody else wanting something from me right now,” she admitted, throwing down her pen, “because honestly, I’m done.”
“Lunchtime?” he asked gently.
“Yes,” she cried out with enthusiasm. And even then her stomach growled.
He laughed. “Come on. Let’s go.”
And she dropped everything, got up, and smiled at him. “Perfect timing. I so need this break,” she murmured.
“Good,” he said. “I wasn’t sure when I got that message from you late yesterday if you’re even up for lunch.”
“If it’s a case of not being up for lunch, it means that I just don’t have time,” she explained. “Things have been really hectic recently.”
“I get that. Your marketing plans mean a lot of balls in the air. Juggling is emotionally draining.”
She nodded, without even thinking about it. “Yep, I sure have many aspects to handle, but that’s all right. I’ll get on top of all the work sooner or later.”
He smiled. “No longer worried about losing your job?” he asked in a teasing tone.
“Ha, funny you should mention that because Dani said something the other day that just blew me away.” As they made their way back down to the cafeteria, she explained it to him.
“Wow,” he murmured in a soft voice. “Not exactly the kind of conversation you’d expect, is it?”
“No, and yet that seems like a judgment in itself,” she added, with a smirk, “because Dani is definitelyvery… I don’t want tosayadvancedbut…” She shrugged. “Let me just say, she’s very in tune with who she is.”
“And that can be good,” Ryatt replied, with a nod. “However, I wonder if too much of that’s a bad thing though.”
“Maybe, nobody wants to be too into this stuff that you forget the world around you is for living, not just for learning.”
“If it were just about learning lessons,” he added, “I’d be wondering what kind of a jerk I was in a past life to deserve this.”
“And maybe what it was is life itself was just too easy for you,” she offered, with a smile. “Maybe you needed to come in with a bigger challenge so that you could step up to and show how good you are with it.”
He laughed at that. “Just think. Can you imagine if it was something like that?” He shook his head. “Wow.”
She just smiled and stepped into the buffet line, where Dennis stood on the other side of the counter, serving up lunch.
When he got to them, he grinned. “There you are. What will it be today?”
She quickly picked out several lunch items.
“Hungry are you?” Dennis asked.
“I am, indeed,” she murmured, “and I missed lunch yesterday.” The look on his face had her laughing out loud. “It’s not that bad,” she protested.
“Missing any meal’s bad,” he argued, as he patted his own stomach. “My stomach will not tolerate one meal missed,” he added, with a big smile.
“Yeah, but that’s your tummy. Most of us have missed many a meal and not really noticed it.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think, when you say,most people, I think you mean yourself.”