“As for a start date, I know you’re just finishing your degree. When’s the soonest you could start?”
Amber double-checked her schedule, but she was pretty sure her last exam was April tenth. Her thesis presentation was the eleventh. The Monday after that was…“April fourteenth?”
“Excellent! That’s earlier than I was expecting. Welcome back, Amber. We wanted you for this position all along but didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves until the funding came through. I’ll have the written offer couriered to you tomorrow.”
“Thank you so much, I’m really excited to be joining you again.”
She ended the call and jumped up and down again, clutching her cellphone. “Yes!”
The first person she wanted to tell was Duncan. Excitement jittered through her as she tapped the screen on her phone to call him. He was in Montreal, dammit, but she might catch him.
He did answer. “Hey, gorgeous. Whassup?”
She grinned. “I got a job! I got a job!”
She heard the smile in his voice as he asked, “Which one?”
“At CCP! They just called. They were waiting for some funding to come through to offer me a full-time job as program manager. It’s only a one-year term, but still…it’s just what I wanted!”
“Awesome. Congratulations, sweetheart.” His tone warmed even more. “Wish I was there to congratulate you properly.”
“When do you get back?”
“We’re flying back right after the game tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She bit her lip. “Okay. Good. How’s the trip? Where are you?”
“At the hotel. We’re leaving for the arena in a few minutes.”
They chatted more and he was still talking when they were on the bus to the arena, so she let him go.
She should call her mom and tell her the news. Somehow she wasn’t as eager to make that call. But she did. Mom didn’t show much interest in the job, but was happy that she was going to be making more money. Then she called Easton to give him the good news.
“Yay! We’ll celebrate tonight! What do you want to do?”
“Um…watch a hockey game?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“Okay, fine. But we’ll go to a sports bar and watch it while we eat wings and drink beer. I know—Hooters!”
She laughed. “Come on, Easton, I don’t think either of us is going to fully appreciate Hooters.”
“I hear they have good food. Okay, not Hooters.”
“Actually, I’m supposed to go out with Lovey and her friends tonight.”
“Oh. Fine. Go ahead and ditch your best friend who’s been with you through thick and thin.”
She bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m kidding. It’s good for you to have new girlfriends. Anyway, I’m happy for you, boo. Go have fun tonight.”
“Thank you.”
Well, damn. She would have invited Easton to join them, but since she didn’t know the other girls, it wasn’t really her place to invite someone extra, especially a man to a girls’ night out, even if he was a gay man.
But at least if she couldn’t celebrate with the one person she really wanted to, this would be fun. She and Lovey had gone to a couple more games together and had lunch that day, and she really liked Duncan’s sister.
She would take a taxi rather than drive. She still had that rental car that Duncan was paying for, and every time she drove somewhere in it she both cursed him and thanked him. She should soon have the check from her insurance company and then she’d go buy a new car. Maybe she could get something better, since she now had a job!
Amber did a little spin of happiness as she moved down the hall to her bedroom to start getting ready.
Chapter 20
Amber was meeting Lovey and her friends at Roma, one of their favorite places. Lovey had assured her the big-screen TV would be playing the Aces game. She dressed in her best jeans, tucked a snug black long-sleeved T-shirt into them, and added a pretty scarf in black, gray, and pink looped around her neck. With her black high-heeled boots, she thought she looked okay.
Since she’d been seeing Duncan, she’d become aware of her limited wardrobe—jeans for school, black for working at the Sin Bin, which meant most of her wardrobe was dark. She’d learned that cheap accessories like pretty scarves and costume jewelry could make a black T-shirt look completely different. Maybe now that she had a full-time job, she’d be able to go shopping and buy a few new things.
Maybe she should also be thinking about getting a place of her own. That thought made her bottom lip push out as she tucked her cellphone into her purse. Leaving Easton would be sad, but he and Jamie seemed to be getting serious and maybe Easton would rather have his apartment to himself. But ack, her own place would no doubt be expensive.
Changes. Her life was changing. Even though it was good, even though she felt like an adult moving on with her life and her career, decisions about money and how to spend it and thinking about cars and apartments made her insides squeeze up with anxiety.